Of Therapists and Old Ladies

I have a confession to make: I do not believe in therapy. Over the course of my life, I have seen countless therapists, especially during my tumultuous college years – and yet I can’t point to a single successful experience. And so in recent years, I have developed my own “talking cure” -- one that enables me to interact with the world in a way that seems more sensible and meaningful given my needs and values.

I say that therapy has never really helped me. But I am not even sure what would constitute successful therapy. How do we trace the course of our own development as human beings? How do we know when we have become better or more actualized (as the lingo would have it) individuals? Rarely does therapy (at least as I’ve known it) involve the setting of clearly-defined goals, and thus it’s very hard to judge when the patient is “better.” A therapist is not like a an eye doctor who gives you a vision test and a prescription for glasses; with therapy, the test questions are ongoing, the prescriptions are vague, and often the world looks even blurrier as time goes on.

I am also troubled by the power dynamic in the therapy situation. The therapist takes money (generally very high sums!) from the patient, and it is therefore in the therapist’s interest for the therapy to continue a long time – a clear conflict of interest, given that presumably the patient who is “healed” would not need the therapist anymore. I once tried to leave a therapist and was told that that I was sabotaging my own recovery and preventing myself from getting the help I needed. What could I possibly say in response to these words, which undermined the very foundations of my capacity for agency? And so I felt I had no choice but to return again and again to expose myself even further – if I’d fail to disclose any information, the therapist would tell me, once again, that I was sabotaging my own recovery. The therapist, in contrast, would say little (how maddening!) and reveal nothing about him/herself. A friend once told me that he paid $100 for a therapy session, only to hear himself speak for 50 minutes – the doctor grunted, but did not say a single word. “You listen to me for free,” my friend said to me. “Why should I pay for it?”

My friend’s comment resonated for me because I am fortunate to be blessed with more dear friends than I have fingers on my hands. When something is troubling me, I can log on to Gmail chat and catch my friends in NY before they leave for work, or pick up the phone and call a sister, or change around some of the details and relay the matter to my wise parents. I know that I am very lucky in this regard, and that my situation is by no means typical – but I have never felt at a loss for someone to turn to in times of distress. Some of my most special friendships were forged in furnaces of pain and grief, at a time when I was hurting too much to have anything to offer – in those darkest of moments, I met people who believed in me and nursed me back to normalcy, to a place where I could at least reach out and take their hands as I took my first tentative steps forward again. Now, when I am healthy and stable and glad to be alive, my best friend and I usually email at least once a day (I when I get to work, and she when she awakens five hours later in EST) – it is part of our routine, a way for each of us to hear and be heard. She is a professor of medieval history, but I trust her responses to my innermost fears and longings far more than those of any professional psychotherapist.

My friends who believe in psychoanalysis tell me that their weekly therapy visits offer a chance to reflect on their lives, and a break from the fast pace of the day to day. It is true that my life is extremely fast paced --whether I am bounding up the hill to get to a chevruta, chasing after buses, or racing against the clock to send one more email before I have to leave work-- but I also have built-in meditation and reflection time. I swim for exactly 60 minutes almost every morning, time in which I have absolutely nothing on my mind (though I do count laps!). Swimming is a chance for any submerged fears and concerns to rise to the surface -- while I swim, my mind is a blank slate free to turn to anything that is troubling me. Was I rude? Did I say the wrong thing? Should I have offered to be more helpful? The rhythmic back-and-forth motion in the water allows me take my doubts in stride, and to work out ways of dealing with sticky situations. Often I get into the pool thinking about an email I am not sure how to respond to; by the time I come out, I've drafted the appropriate response and am ready to move on. Mysteriously the pool works its strange magic, offering a watery catharsis that obviates any need for therapy - at least for me.

I should add, too, that I am painfully self-aware. I keep a journal and write in it regularly – addressing my entries sometimes to myself, sometimes to the man I am mooning over, sometimes to God, and sometimes to no one at all. Nobody will ever read my journals (I intend to burn them!), but anyone who did would immediately realize that I have a long history with myself – I am all too familiar with my tendencies to shoot myself in the foot (or at least put my worst foot forwards), to sabotage my own chances for happiness, to plead that others are more competent or more beautiful than I am, to fall for the same kinds of men again and again and again. This is old hat for me, and any therapist would have a lot of catching up to do before he or she could offer any fresh insights. And, quite frankly, I can’t be bothered to update a total stranger on all that has transpired in my mind and in my heart over the last three decades….

As I write these words, I can already hear the objections of the therapists and psychologically-minded folks out there, all shaking their heads vigorously: No one can see themselves objectively! You may know yourself well, but that very knowledge constrains you! And your friends and parents have vested interests – they can’t give you dispassionate advice! I hear these objections and, in response, I want to add that I have developed my own replacement for therapy, a way of sharing the depths of my interior world with someone who is wise and objective and relatively disinterested: my old lady.

About seven years ago, I began volunteering for an organization in New York that cares for elderly, homebound individuals. I was assigned to Anna Kainen z”l, a blind woman who lived in a rent-controlled apartment just off of Central Park. I used to visit her at 10am every Sunday morning. For about half of our visits I would read her poems she had written (Anna had hundreds of handwritten manuscript pages that she dreamed that I, the budding editorial assistant, would one day publish for her under the Knopf imprint); for the other half of our time, we would talk about our lives. Anna, who had several unhappy marriages, would tell me about all the men she had gallivanted with; and I, in turn, would tell her about all the men I had not succeeded in doing any gallivanting with just yet. Anna became my confidante – I could tell her anything because she was homebound, and thus I could be sure that nothing I said would ever leave the confines of her apartment. When she died in February of 2004 on her 91st birthday, I suppose I felt the way one feels when a therapist moves away – a sense of loss combined with a sense of need, as if there were a hole in a ground that needed to be filled in before anyone got hurt.

Since Anna, I have had several old ladies in my life, on both sides of the Atlantic. The current one is perhaps the most beloved – though I may have said that each time. I call her Sara Ivreinu to distinguish her from the many Sara’s I know (this is not a name I say to her face, but as with many people in my life, she has a nickname in my head and in my pelephone!). Sara, as you might guess from her sobriquet, is also blind, though she maintains quite an active lifestyle in spite of her handicap: she volunteers as a receptionist in town and does all her shopping with a friend in the shuk.

Every Wednesday afternoon I meet Sara outside her apartment and we take a walk together through the streets of her neighborhood, ending up at the same shady green bench (although she is blind, she insists that we sit only on green benches!) where we rest our legs before I take her back home again. Sara comes from a different world, or perhaps a different planet – she is deeply religious (there are days when I look at what I am not wearing and thank my lucky stars that she can’t see me!), and extremely superstitious (cries of “Lo Aleinu” and “Kappara!”), and very very poor (מי שאין לה אלא חלוק אחד), and utterly terrified of anyone who is not Jewish (when I told her last spring that I was going to London for a conference, she turned to me horrified and said, “Are you going to have to talk to any Goyim?”). I once brought her Victoria’s Secret scented body lotion as a present from America, and when I helped her rub it on her hands she looked at me as if she had died and gone to heaven. Another time I took her out for coffee at her local pizza parlor because it was too rainy to walk outside, and she played with the plastic spoon that came with her coffee and asked me if I thought anyone would mind if she kept it to give to her grandson. I, who have measured out my life in coffee spoons (not to mention scented hand cream!), was beside myself.

Sara is, for all intents and purposes, my therapist. For an hour each week she listens to my woes and advises me on how to deal with my problems. She knows all about the politics of the small office where I work, the dynamics in my family, the papers I am writing for school, the men whom I am (unsuccessfully!) pursuing, and those who are (equally unsuccessfully!) pursuing me. There is nothing I cannot tell her – or almost nothing. I once tried to explain (proceeding cautiously so as to test the waters) that I had set foot in a shul without a Mechitzah. Judging from her horrified reaction, it was clear that I could never tell her the truth, which is that I read Torah in a fully egalitarian minyan every Shabbat morning. By the same token, I sometimes have to take her advice with a grain of salt (“Wash his clothes, clean his floor, and cook him dinner every night – and don’t let him touch you until he marries you!”). But overall, I feel comfortable being honest with her, and I trust fully in the wisdom of her years.

My relationship with Sara is a symbiotic one – we both benefit. She is lonely and eager for someone to talk to; I am in need of the sage advice of an older person who is not part of my insular Anglo community. It means a lot to her that I remember to call her every Wednesday morning to check in about that day’s visit; and it means a lot to me that she always remembers what is going on in my life, as if she had just reviewed her notes from the previous week’s session.

I have no doubt that the world is filled with elderly, lonely people who live by themselves and long for companionship. As they are advanced in years, these people often have the deep wisdom that comes of having experienced most of life, not to mention fascinating stories about what is past and passing. Likewise, I have no doubt, too, that the world is also filled with callow young adults who could benefit from the wisdom and guidance of someone who is sufficiently removed from their immediate social milieu. If only these two groups could find one another! It might put the therapists out of business, but I tend to think that the world would be a happier and healthier place for young and old alike….

People of the Book (Bava Metzia 29b)

The physical objects that populate rabbinic literature include oxen, cows, spindles, coins, pigeons, dates, figs, flax, wool, jugs, lentils, fish, and even official documents and bills – but rarely ever books. And so I was surprised by this Mishnah, encountered on a recent daf:

If one found books, he should read from them once in thirty days. If he does not know how to read, he should roll them from beginning to end. However, he should not study in them for the first time, nor should another person read together with him.

At first I was puzzled. Why should a book be read once in thirty days? And what does it mean to roll a book? Rashi explains that all books in Talmudic times were written on parchment scrolls (no e-books or mass market paperbacks back then!), and these scrolls would get moldy if they weren't aired out regularly. Thus the person who came upon a lost scroll and held on to it until its rightful owner was found would be responsible for its proper care. The finder should either read the scroll once a month, or else roll it out. However, he should not study from it, because this would result in undue wear and tear of a particular section. Nor should he read from it with someone else, lest them two of them yank at different parts of the scroll and cause damage.

I am fascinated by this Mishnah because it is born out of the deeply literary culture of the rabbis, and yet it relates to texts exclusively as physical objects. A scroll needs to be aired out once a month, just like a pet dog needs to be walked every morning. This sugya is concerned with preserving the quality of the scroll, and not with any sense of reverence for what is written on it. Perhaps the text written in that particular scroll is best learned by two people in chevruta. But no matter! For the sake of protecting the scroll, it should not be subjected to over-use.

The Gemara goes on to consider the responsibilities of the person who borrows a very particular kind of scroll, one on which the words of the Torah are written:

If one borrows a Torah scroll from his fellow, he may not lend it to another person. He may open and read from it, provided he does not study in it something for the first time. Nor should another person read together with him.

With all due respect to this sugya, my own attitude towards my books could not be more different. A friend recently visited my apartment, looked at my full set of Steinsaltz gemarot, and remarked, "Oh, I see you bought some of them used." I laughed. "No," I corrected her. "It is I who used them!" I carry around the masechet I am currently learning in my backpack all day every day, and thus by the time I am finished with that volume, it is usually quite beaten up – my Yevamot is missing half its spine, my Bava Kama has a damaged front cover, and my Sukkah is water-logged. Still, I could not imagine it otherwise. I buy my books for the sake of using them – the physical object is secondary to its literary content. The more the Masechet looks like it is ready for the Genizah, the more emphatically I recite the Hadran.

That said, however, I am a generous book-lender, and I ask that my friends take care of my books and return them within a reasonable period of time. Certainly I would not want them to lend my books to a third party without my permission! The Talmud agrees with me on this one:

Why do we have the rule that one may not lend what he has borrowed in the case of a Torah scroll specifically? This is true of all other borrowed scrolls! It was necessary to teach this ruling specifically with respect to a Torah scroll for you might have said that a person is agreeable to having a mitzvah performed with his possessions [and the owner would therefore not object to having his Torah scroll lent out for study by a third party]. The Talmud therefore teaches us that this is not the case.

Even in the case of a Torah scroll, which is used for the mitzvah of Torah study, we must assume that a person would not want his copy lent out widely without his explicit permission.

This sugya about borrowed texts reminds me of my own attempt, back when I was in the fourth grade, to convert my bedroom into a lending library. I organized my books alphabetically by author, inserted an index card (with the words DATE DUE painstakingly printed in my best block letters) into the back of every book, and created a card catalogue (i.e. a single box of index cards) listing all the titles in my possession, with an asterisk next to Cheaper by the Dozen, Little Women, The Phantom Tollbooth, and the other books I particularly recommended. I encouraged my family members to visit their "local local" public library and check out books, provided, of course, that they returned them on time. Proceeds from late fines went into our family tzedakah box, and anyone who returned a damaged book would have their borrowing privileges summarily revoked.

Years later, I found myself a real library job. Two days a week after high school I worked as a "page" (as we were aptly termed) in the Main Street Public Library, where I was responsible for returning books to their rightful places on the shelves. If all the shelving was completed before the end of my shift, I would be assigned the tedious task of "shelf-reading," i.e. running my eye along an assigned set of shelves to make sure that all the books were arranged alphabetically and positioned neatly with spines facing outward, flush against the edge of the shelf. My supervisor was a proper library lady whose grey hair was secured tightly atop her head with so many bobby pins that I got a headache just from looking at her. She wore slipper-like satin shoes and used to sneak softly down the carpeted aisles to make sure she never caught any of us reading on the job. "When you are a patron, you may read; when you are a page, you are paid to shelve," she would insist, shaping her lips around every word and peering sternly over horn-rimmed glasses. I struggled to obey.

About a year later I graduated from page to periodicals clerk, which meant I sat at a great wooden desk supervising the use of the microfilm and microfiche machines (reminiscent of the Talmud's rolling scrolls), and reading stacks of old book review sections when business was slow. To my consternation, I was never deemed personable enough to be awarded the prized role of circulation desk clerk; this did not happen until college, when I found myself checking out books for my professors and fellow students (apparently by then, my social skills had improved sufficiently). Most of my time in college was spent "working at Widener"; when I wasn't sitting at the circulation desk, I was doing my own reading down in the stacks (level B-2, underground) in a history of science grad student's neglected carrel. (Lamont is for little guys, my friends and I would quip, deriding the lack of seriousness of those who patronized the undergraduate library at the other end of the quad. The underground Widener stacks remain one of my favorite places on earth, and I'm determined to get back there before I die.)

I suppose it was during those years spent working at libraries that I developed my appreciation for books as physical objects, an appreciation that I share with the rabbis of the Talmud. If you are being paid not to read, you inevitably come to value books for something other than their content. This attention to the material culture of the book was honed during my years as an editorial assistant at Knopf, where we had weekly meetings to decide upon each title's trim size (the length and width of the book), running heads (what would be written at the top of each page), format (hardcover or paperback), colophon (which of several graphic borzoi dogs would decorate the spine), and every other imaginable aspect of the book's physical appearance. Rough trim or smooth trim? French flaps? Wraparound jacket? The goal was to make our books look better than anyone else's, in the hope that they would fly off the Barnes and Noble shelves into the hands of as many customers as possible.

In my current job as a literary agent, I am also responsible for the circulation of books, albeit in a different context altogether. I spend my time reading book catalogues sent to our Jerusalem-based agency from publishers all over the world, ordering books for which I think we can sell Hebrew translation rights, and pitching these titles to Israeli editors. Often we have more requests for a book than physical copies, which means that publishers have to wait in line as the book is read and returned by a series of other editors, or else make do with a PDF. We keep track of which editors have which books in our sophisticated custom-made database, and relentlessly chase down overdue sample copies.

There are a few editors who are particularly delinquent when it comes to returning books, and I often imagine storming their offices to raid our missing copies. If so, I'd find myself no longer in Bava Metzia, but in Bava Kama (114b), where I encountered one of the only other book-related sugyot I can recall:

If a man identifies his articles or books in the possession of another person, and a rumor of theft in his place had already been spread in town, the purchaser would have to swear how much he paid for them, and would be paid accordingly [for returning the books].

This Mishnah refers to the case of a person who comes to his friend's house and finds his own books (which had been recently stolen from him) sitting there innocently on his friend's shelves. Assuming the theft was a known fact in the community, the owner is permitted to re-appropriate his books in exchange for the sum that the purchaser (who first must swear that he is not himself the thief!) had paid for them. While I am not accusing anyone at Yediot Achronot for stealing our books, I do have half a mind to pay them a visit one of these days....

As active, industrious literary agents, we like to keep our books in constant circulation. That said, inevitably there comes a point where we have to accept the sad reality that a particular title is just not going to sell. "She has gone out with every editor in Israel," I often joke to my colleague, waving a copy of Secrets of the Zodiac or (l'havdil!) the latest Marilynne Robinson (alas, alas). "What can we do? Nobody wants her." With heaviness of heart, we place the undesirable volume on the discard pile in the hallway, hoping that some kind stranger will pick her up, take her home, and leaf through her pages every month or so – even if he never reads a single word.

For the Birds

I left the house at 7am today and returned home at 9pm, as I do most weekdays; except that this morning I apparently forgot to close my bedroom window. And so when I walked in the door tonight, exhausted and eager to collapse on my couch with Steinsaltz (the book), you can imagine my dismay when I discovered that two pigeons had made a home for themselves in my humble abode. One was perched atop my Shabbat hot water heater, its beak tucked underneath its neck contentedly; the other sat on my book case between my bentchers and my Jastrow Dictionary, as if it were prepared not just to teach itself Zmirot, but also to learn what they mean.

I do not react well to unexpected guests, and so for the first few minutes I simply shrieked at the top of my lungs, hoping that I would frighten away the intruders. But no such luck. These birds were the pictures of perfect equanimity, and even when I began flailing my hands wildly in their direction, they merely cocked their heads at me curiously as if wondering whether the entertainment I was providing was free of charge, or whether I'd be collecting contributions later on in the evening. I was still shrieking, apparently loud enough to attract the attention of my neighbor, who rapped on my door to find out what was going on. "TZIPORIM!!!" I screamed, pointing towards my doorway and grabbing on to his arm for dear life.

My neighbor tried to calm me down, but when he realized his attempts would prove futile, he told me that he was running out to find some equipment. "Sit down," he encouraged me, and somehow I managed to take his advice. I gazed up at the birds, neither of whom had moved even an inch. Seeing as they didn't seem to be going anywhere, I picked up a volume of forgotten lore and decided to make my best attempt at resuming my regularly scheduled evening activity.

One might have thought, "Shale'ach Teshalach" teaches that one must go to mountains to seek to fulfill the Mitzvah - "Ki Yikarei" teaches, this is not so, only if it presents itself. (Chulin 139b)

Well well well, wasn't I lucky! The mitzvah of sending away the birds had presented itself to me; I didn't even have to seek it out. The Torah teaches that if a person comes upon a nest with a mother bird and its eggs, the person is obligated to send away the mother bird before taking the eggs. I had been planning on preparing an omelet for dinner, so clearly I was justified in my attempts to banish my feathered friends. Unfortunately, though, it looked like dinner was going to have to wait….

I realized that I ought to learn more about my never-flitting fowl. I have always thought that the only aspect of owning a pet that I would actually enjoy would be naming the creature. Well, here was my opportunity! Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore… I had just returned that evening from a seminar about Moshe and competing prophecies, and in the Torah reading cycle we are about to enter the wilderness of Sefer Bemidbar, so I decided to name my birds Eldad and Meidad. This way I could cry out in outrage, with the appropriate Biblical cadences, "Eldad and Meidad are roosting in my apartment!"

Eldad and Meidad, I decided, had been inside for a while. They were perfectly comfortable in their present perches (certainly more comfortable than I was in my own home at present, and I was the one paying the rent!), and they weren't making much noise—no rapping, tapping at my chamber door. Moreover, though I am no expert in such matters, it seemed that they had left several hours' worth of icky green goop all over my windowsill, my kitchen table, and my shtender. My Sifrei Kodesh, rest assured, remained blessedly untouched, which led me to wonder – was this a sign from Shamayim? Let me see what threat is, and this mystery explore-- Was Someone trying to tell me something?

I heard a voice wailing like a dove and saying, "Woe unto my sons because of whose sins I destroyed my home." (Brachot 3b)

In the Talmud, the dove is often a symbol for the Shechina, since doves are loyally monogamous their whole lives. Perhaps my pet prophets were there to rebuke me for blogging at length about the delight I take in my solitary state? Were the birds attempting to destroy my home lest I become too comfortable in my present accommodations? Leave my loneliness unbroken!... "Prophet!" said I. "thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil." I thought for a moment. Maybe I should not be so quick to paint my visitors raven-black. Maybe they were intended as some sort of atonement, echad l'chatat v'echad l'olah. Still, was that really fair? It may not be good for man to be alone, I wanted to cry out in my own defense, but it's certainly worse for man to live with pigeons!

One may trap domesticated Herodian pigeons [on festivals]….. One may not trap pigeons that live in dove-coats and pigeons that live in attics. (Beitzah 24a)

I wondered if Eldad and Meidad were Herodian pigeons, that is, formerly wild birds who have learned how to live with human beings. These birds (and here I translate from Steinsaltz' zoographic marginalia) make their home in human habitations and are protected by their masters. They are named for Herod, the first to bring birds into his home. But I am no Herod, and my home is no Herodian mansion. If Eldad and Meidad were planning to stay in my one-bedroom apartment, then I would have to find a new place to spend the night…. Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!

Just as I was plotting where I might find moorings on Night's Plutonian shore, my neighbor burst in with a broomstick , a wig, a towel, a laundry basin, and a can of anti-roach spray. A curious approach to the problem, aimed both at making me laugh and at banishing the offending creatures. He sent me out into the hallway (with Steinsaltz, of course), and when he summoned me back a few minutes later, it was to reassure me that alas, I would not need to sleep over in his apartment that evening after all…..

Now it is a full three hours later, but last I checked, Eldad and Meidad were still perched patiently on my windowsill, as if hoping to appeal to my Herodian sympathies. And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting. I am not a cruel person, but it was with some degree of triumph that I drew the casement tight and collapsed into bed with Steinsaltz, a pencil, and a cry of Nevermore.

It Takes Two to Tan Du

For the past few weeks I have been composing in my head an extended poem on the pleasures of sleeping alone. Chief among them is the delight I take in reading in bed – at the beginning of the night, when I can fall asleep with my bedside lamp still on, my book eventually collapsing to form a tent over my face; at 3am, when the house is quiet and the world is calm, and I wake up delighted to have those stolen mid-night moments to my conscious self; and in the early morning hours, when I arise before my alarm clock and read by the light streaming through my open window. I have books that I will read only in bed; they live under the blankets and wait patiently while I read far more respectable volumes during daylight hours. Writing in bed, too, is another newly-rediscovered pleasure. There are entries in my journal that I am able to write only when alone under the covers, as if I cannot expose these negatives to the harsh light of day. A friend recently told me that she loves being single because her nightlife is so much more wild, and I could relate; it was only when I began sleeping alone that my wild literary nightlife took off.

I suspect that the women of the Talmud would not have been able to relate to the pleasure I take in sleeping solo. I don't know much about how the rabbis' wives spent their nights, but I'm quite certain that they weren't reading in bed. We hear in Masechet Sotah (6b, 31a) and again in Gittin (89a) about women who would spin flax and gossip by the moonlight, which seems to have been a popular evening activity. The Talmud states that the topic of conversation among these women served as an indicator of what had become public knowledge in a community. More specifically, each of these sugyot teaches that a woman's adulterous affair would be regarded as a known matter only when it became the subject of gossip among these tale-spinning women. Presumably those women who were gossiping about adultery rather than committing it then returned home to their husbands' beds, and it was only the most forlorn among them who were left to sleep alone.

The Talmud clearly looks pitifully upon any woman who does not have a man with whom to share her bed. We know this from a popular folk saying attributed to Reish Lakish that appears five times throughout the Babylonian Talmud (and never in the Yerushalmi):
טב למיתב טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו
The phrase literally means, "It is better for a woman to sit as two [tan du] than to sit alone by herself," though it takes on far more color in its various Talmudic contexts. In Bava Kama 110b, where I most recently encountered it, the phrase appears in a discussion of the case of a woman whose husband dies, and whose brother-in-law suffers from an unpleasant skin ailment. Is the woman obligated to formally release herself from levirate marriage to her brother-in-law? Perhaps she need not bother, because surely she would not have married her husband if she had known that there was any chance she'd end up with his ailing brother. But the Talmud rejects this supposition on the grounds of טב למיתב . A woman would marry a man even if his brother is repulsive because she would so much rather get married than remain alone.

In Masechet Kidushin, this expression is invoked on two occasions to explain the lengths to which a woman would go so as not to be alone. In the first instance (7a), the Talmud deals with the question of whether a woman can become betrothed to a man not by receiving money from him, but rather by giving him a present. That is, can she be betrothed by means of the benefit that she derives from the knowledge that he is receiving her gift? The sugya comes to the conclusion that ניחא לה בכל דהו, "it is better for her in any case" to be married than unmarried, and thus she is willing to betroth herself by giving rather than receiving a gift. Although Kidushin is generally defined as a transaction in which the man gives the woman something and she in return becomes betrothed unto him, the Talmud suggests in this sugya that a woman so desperately wants to be married that she'll actually give the man a gift rather than receive one, just so that she can become his wife.

The phrase טב למיתב occurs again on Kidushin 41a amidst a discussion of whether Kidushin can be performed by means of a messenger. Can a man send a third party to betroth his wife for him? The Talmud responds that a man must first see his wife before bethrothing her, "lest he see something unattractive in her after they get married and she become repulsive to him." A husband should not send a messenger to choose a wife for him; it is important that he see the woman so that he can know whether she finds favor in his eyes. The Talmud then asks whether the same logic applies to a woman. Should a woman, too, avoid accepting a proposal by means of a third party messenger? No! A woman, unlike a man, may rely on a messenger, because of טב למיתב . A woman has such a vested interest in getting married that even if she has not yet seen her suitor, we can assume she will accept him. Here the Talmud suggests that women are far less picky than men when it comes to choosing a spouse because a woman above all wants a husband, regardless of who that husband might be.

After reviewing each of these three sugyot, I cannot help but wonder: Why all the fuss about getting married? Was the Talmudic woman's life really so much better if she had a husband? The remaining two טב למיתב sugyot suggest an answer to this question that is not quite as simple as it first appears. These two sugyot, Ketubot 75a and Yevamot 118b, closely parallel one another, and thus I cite only the former here. The rabbis are discussing a man who betroths a wife on the condition that she does not have a particular blemish, and then discovers that she has that blemish; does the betrothal still take? The answer is no, even if she goes to a doctor and has the offensive mark removed. However, in the opposite case, a woman who makes such a conditional statement is indeed still betrothed on the grounds of טב למיתב . A woman desires to be married to such an extent that we can assume she will overlook those very blemishes that she had initially stipulated that she would not tolerate. This assertion triggers (both in Ketubot and Yevamot) a flurry of colorful comments attributed to various Talmudic sages about just how strongly a woman desires a husband:

Abayey: Even if her husband is the size of a sesame seed (!), she is proud to place her chair among the free women.
Rav Papa: Even if her husband spins wool [a lowly profession] she will call out to him to come sit with her at the entrance to the home (where they will be publicly visible).
Rav Ashi: Even if her husband is repulsive, at least she will not lack for lentils in her pot.

Each of these sages asserts that a woman wishes to have a husband, even a repulsive one, because of the status that is conferred upon her by being married. Were the sugya to end there, the Talmud's stance would be unequivocal: Better for a woman to be married than to be alone. Were Abayey, Rav Papa, and Rav Ashi to have the last word, then I might offer different advice the next time a friend comes to me and asks whether she should marry the man she is currently dating. I might even consider pulling those novels out from under my covers and replacing them with a husband of my own. Fortunately, however, the Talmud has more to say on this matter. The final line of this sugya is introduced by the word Tanna, suggesting that this last source predates (and is therefore assumed to carry more authority than) those Amoraic statements that precede it. This source asserts, "And all these women commit adultery and attribute their offspring to their husbands." That is, all these women who so desperately want to be married are really just interested in having a convenient excuse when they find themselves pregnant as a result of their adulterous affairs. Why do they need husbands? So that they can point to a legitimate father for their bastard children!

This final line, astonishing in its flippancy and subversiveness, casts the preceding Amoraic statements in a new light: A woman needs a husband so that she can "place her chair among the free women," that is, so that she can count herself among those women who are free to have adulterous affairs! And even if her husband is repulsive, she doesn't care, because she's just using him as a cover so that she can gallivant off and engage in extramarital sex! For this reason it is better for a woman to be married than to be alone. This reason, though, gives me pause. Personally, I must confess that I prefer the pleasure of reading alone in bed to the prospect of extramarital affairs. And while it might be fun to set off in search of a husband, the literature I read tends to be far more exciting than the life I might otherwise lead…..

I was reminded of these sugyot this past Purim, when a good friend brought me Mishloach Manot in the form of a beautiful glass vase stuffed with hamentaschen and other goodies. "When you finish all the sweets," she told me, "you can save the vase for the next time a man brings you flowers." I smiled, knowing that I would do no such thing. Instead, I washed out the giant vase, filled it with two kilos of lentils, and placed it in my cupboard alongside my beans, split peas, and other dried goods. I put a sign on the vase that contains four words from the Ketubot/Yevamot sugya: לא בעי טלפחי לקדרא – "she does not lack for lentils in her pot." From time to time I cook lentil soup, which I have served to numerous male friends over the course of this past winter. I am married to none of them, nor would I want to be.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Bava Kama פרק ג': המניח את הכד

(27a)
Reuven leaves his jug out in the street
Shimon bumps into it with his feet
Barrel-owner must pay.
--Barrel? What did you say?
I thought jug! Jug is barrel. Repeat!

(27a)
Reuven's barrel is out in the street.
Shimon bumps into it with his feet.
The jug owner must pay
Jug? What did you just say?
I thought barrel. That's jug, I repeat.

(27b)
"You bumped into my barrel! Now pay!"
No, said Ulah, For it's not the way
Of most people to look
When they walk in the shuk
Keep your barrels inside and away!

(28a)
If a public path goes through your farm
Can you block it off? Widespread alarm
Would ensue. You cannot
That is, first you have got
To provide a new route free of harm.

(29b)
If you turn over mounds of dog shit
(It's good fertilizer, you'll admit.)
And some guy walks right in
Oh, what deep shit he's in
So are you! Because you pay for it.

(30a)
Rabbi Yehuda says: Take out your trash
Leave it there thirty days in a stash
For the sake of this plan
Joshua conquered the land
Should one step in it, you don't owe cash.

(31b)
Reuven strolls with his bucket along
Shimon comes with a beam, straight and long.
Just then BOOM! Hear the smash
Beam and barrel go crash
But we hold neither man in the wrong.

(32a)
Well a beam is quite phallic you know
And a bucket's a place it might go
If a man starts to vex
His poor wife during sex
Does he need to be careful? Or no?

(32a)
Is a man during sex like a beam-
Holder? Is that the case, does it seem?
Maybe he's like a wood
Chopper who (though he should
Have looked out), killed a man, not by scheme?

(32a)
Can you run fast in a public place
Should you slow down, for life's not a race?
If you cause a big spill
You're to blame, so we will
Blame. But pre-shabbat, you've got a case.

(32b)
Chanina would say when the light
Would begin to fade each Friday night:
"Let us go greet the queen
Who has come on the scene
Like a bride. Such a beautiful sight."

(35a)
Can an ox show behavior that's smart?
Can it do more than pull a big cart?
Papa's ox, when with ache,
in its tooth, it would take
Beer and drink 'til the pain would depart.

Trapdoor Day

Trapdoor day
Awoke before dawn
Wanted to fall through the floor.
Forget the wrong side of the bed--
If only I could get up at all!
Would that it were night, not blasted morning--
Would that I could die here in the desert--
Would that I could fall into sleep, and out of this feeling I'm feeling!

Tears, all day tears, but from the depths of what divine despair?
Rivulets streak my face as I work.
The phone does not ring; I am grateful.
Nobody knocks; I am grateful.
Passing a hallway mirror, I grimace at red eyes, red nose, wet cheeks.
I prepare a face to meet any faces that I meet:
"Fine, fine, fine, and how are YOU?"
I'm full of it today.

At night I eat garlic and nobody kisses me, no one complains.
The chickpeas dance in the pot on the stove, trying to loosen me up.
Chicks, please!
Somehow the radio turns itself on; why am I suddenly singing?
Who's making faces at me in the mirror?
Who's making faces back?
Look who's come out from the trapdoor, hey--
Look who's come out from the trapdoor day!

Love in the Time of Omer (part II)

The night before I left for camp one junior high school summer, my mother and I stayed up past midnight watching the eight-hour movie version of Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds – a story that was to dominate my views of romantic love for over a decade. I had read the novel earlier that year (I remember hiding the bright orange mass market paperback inside a textbook so I could sneak a few pages during social studies class), and it immediately overwrote everything I knew about Roman Catholic priests, Australia, and of course romance. I have not watched the movie since, but I can still conjure in my mind the grand panoramic views of the endless Australian outback, the soft silk Ashes of Roses gown against Meggie's fiery red hair, and the sublime melancholy of the music that would run through my head all summer long. That was the summer of my first boyfriend, and though I did not take the book with me to camp, I had already memorized its first and last paragraphs:

"There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the price of great pain... or so says the legend...

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it."

These two paragraphs were to become my credo of romantic love, a statement of everything I believed about the human heart. I was determined that I would love just once, but that it would be a grand and majestic love that would demand every ounce of my being. I was sure that this love would be painful—deeply, agonizingly, heart-wrenchingly painful—but that the depths of the pain would be matched by heights of passion and ecstasy. I would put the thorn in my breast and perhaps I would die in so doing, but still I would do it. Still I would do it.

When I graduated from junior high to high school, The Thorn Birds was supplemented by other articles of faith that shaped and hardened my romantic constitution, including Catherine Earnshaw's declaration to Nelly Dean that her "love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath—a source of little visible delight, but necessary"; a statement by Sartre encountered in a Rebecca Goldstein novel ("Thus suddenly an object has appeared which has stolen the world from me…"); and Keats' valorization of a love "forever warm and still to be enjoyed / Forever panting, and forever young." I quote each of these passages from memory as I write this post because I learned them "by heart" – by which I mean that the ink with which these words were written coursed through my veins, beat against my staggering brain, and carved out the channels of each chamber of my heart.

With time, as I have loved and lost and loved and lost again, I suppose I have developed a more sober view of romantic love. Bronte and Keats have been supplanted by the determined calmness attained through great effort of will which I found in Edna St. Vincent Millay ("What lips my lips have kissed and where and why / I have forgotten" – a poem that goes on to invoke Wuthering Heights, I think); at some moments I was even able to adjure myself that "I find this frenzy insufficient reason / for conversation when we meet again" (though I highly doubt that I or Edna ever really believed that was true; what do we have if not for the frenzy?). I have resigned myself (not without kicking and screaming) to Yeats' take-no-prisoners enjoinder that "to be born a woman is to know / although they do not talk of it at school / that we must labor to be beautiful." When I chant Shir Hashirim on Pesach it is not with a heart open to the possibilities of the future, but with a heart weighed down by memories (What men have recited Shir Hashirim to me and where and why / I have forgotten….) And just this morning (while waiting each half hour for my next appointment to arrive at the London Book Fair), I memorized a poem by Jack Gilbert called "Waiting and Finding" (discovered in a recent New Yorker magazine), which I think I shall henceforth regard as my new credo of romantic love -- a poem that, like everything I have quoted until this point, I can now recite "by heart":

While he was in kindergarten, everybody wanted to play
the tomtoms when it came time for that. You had to
run in order to get there first, and he would not.
So he always had a triangle. He does not remember
how they played the tomtoms, but he sees clearly
their Chinese look. Red with dragons front and back
and gold studs around that held the drumhead tight.
If you had a triangle, you didn’t really make music.
You mostly waited while the tambourines and tomtoms
went on a long time. Until there was a signal for all
triangle people to hit them the right way. Usually once.
Then it was tomtoms and waiting some more. But what
he remembers is the sound of the triangle. A perfect,
shimmering sound that has lasted all his long life.
Fading out and coming again after a while. Getting lost
and the waiting for it to come again. Waiting meaning
without things. Meaning love sometimes dying out,
sometimes being taken away. Meaning that often he lives
silent in the middle of the world’s music. Waiting
for the best to come again. Beginning to hear the silence
as he waits. Beginning to like the silence maybe too much.

Like The Thorn Birds, encountered when I was less than half as old as I am now, "Waiting and Finding" relies on a musical metaphor for love. There is Colleen McCullough's "one superlative song," and then there is Gilbert's "perfect, shimmering sound." These two metaphors bookend my thoughts on romantic love until this point in my life, with the latter taking the place of the former. Love is no longer a once-in-a-lifetime song that the whole world stills to listen, but a series of cacophonous rehearsals in which everybody tries to learn how to play their part, and most of us never get it exactly right. The romance of romantic love lies not in the uniqueness of its limited-time-offer-only, but in the guaranteed "fading out and coming again" (enacted by the constant back-and-forth flashes from tomtoms to triangle throughout the first thirteen lines of the poem). For Gilbert, romantic love is romantic not because it requires us to surrender our lives, but because it requires us to live the surrender again and again. Love has poetry in the same way that a sunset has poetry; the color streaks across the sky as the light fades, but then the sun always rises. "The best," a phrase that appears in both texts, is something that costs us our lives for McCullough; but for Gilbert it is inevitably reborn again and again, like the morning light.

Unlike McCullough, for whom life ends when the song dies, Gilbert allows for the silences, and even acknowledges that the silences have their own appeal. As I sit alone in a tiny top-floor London hotel room overlooking a quiet park, scribbling these words in a notebook with my feet curled under me in the corner of a narrow single bed, I have no use for birds and thorns and savage breasts. I am beginning to like the silence – maybe too much.

See also "Love in the Time of Omer" (part I): http://tinyurl.com/c36qvl

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Bava Kama: פרקים א-ב

Perek Aleph: ארבעה אבות נזיקין

(2a)
Four groupings of damage may be
Inflicted on you or on me:
The ox and the pit
Are the fire. That's it?
Oh, the Maveh. The Maveh? You'll see.

(2b)
An ox can do harm in three ways
Horn – he willfully rams. Master pays.
Teeth – he'll eat what he'll find
(If he's yours, you'll be fined)
Foot – He tramples where others must graze.

(4a)
"Be your own bodyguard" that's the law.
Don't extend to your friend a big claw.
One who sleeps, he can be
Flailing dangerously--
He can hurt with his arms, legs and jaw.

(9a)
For a mitzvah, spend up to one third.
Third of all that you've got? Oh my word!
What if then there are three
Mitzvot? How can that be --
You'd be bankrupt. That's clearly absurd.

(10b)
Five men sat on a bench. It stayed strong.
Then a sixth man came ambling along.
He sat down. It went splat
It was Papa, who's fat!
Well, then Papa's the one in the wrong.

(11a)
This one's sad. If a baby's born dead
The placenta takes time, and instead
It comes out one day late
Mom must count days and wait
Til she's pure. Count from when? From the head.

(11b)
If a newborn is torn limb from limb
By a wild beast, say, on a whim.
There's no need to redeem
It would be quite unseem-
Ly. Poor baby! (Poor what's-left-of-him.)

(12b)
Olah, Chatat, Asham – we can't eat
Of their sacrificed burnt altar meat.
But the Shlamim, like most,
You can eat. Make a toast!
To dead animals! Ooh, what a treat.

(14b)
"Dude, your cow trampled on my Tallit!"
"Your Tallit brought my cow to its feet!"
So two men scream and shout.
Does it all even out?
Don't assume it's all so nice and neat.

(15b)
Do not keep a dog in your house
(It could bite off the head of your spouse)
Or a rickety ladder
(It might slip and shatter
And injure much more than a mouse.)

(16a)
When it's time for the Modim prayer, make
Sure you bow – there's a lot here at stake!
If you don't, then your spine
After seven years time
In the grave – it will turn to a snake!

(17a)
Rabbi Yochanan's students would cry:
"Teach us this halacha! How and why!"
He would answer. But he,
When he needed to pee
Would then wait 'til he washed to reply.

Perek Bet: כיצד הרגל מועדת

(17a)
The perilous feet of a beast
Can cause damage – some damage at least.
When it walks it will break
Any jug in its wake
Scatter pebbles and leave your rug creased.

(17a)
Your chickens were dancing in dough
(These were quite jolly chickens, you know.)
They pecked at the batter
Their footprints made splatter
It's full-damage payment you owe.

(17b)
Reuven threw a great jug from on high
While the jug was midair through the sky
Shimon came with a staff
Broke the jug into half
It would break anyway! Jugs don't fly!

(18a)
A dog took a still-flaming cake
Off the coals and proceeded to take
To the haystack his food
Quite a fire ensued
Restitution his master must make.

(18b)
A chicken was dancing in dough
Soon the chicken, it seems, had to go.
Not a nice sight, is it?
Home-made baked chicken shit?
Would you eat it? Ahem, that's a no.

(18b)
A chicken extended its beak
In a vessel of glass. Then it shrieked.
Oh the glass – how it shattered
The pieces were scattered
What havoc a chicken can wreak!

(19b)
A chicken with string 'round its foot
Runs. (A chicken, we know, can't stay put.)
It flutters and breaks
Everything in its wake
Strewing dirt, pebbles, feathers and soot.

(20a)
The cat ate my gymsuit –it's true!
Paula Fox, here's a sugya for you!
Is the way of a cat
To eat something like that?
No? Then cat-owner owes me a few.

(20a)
What if I set up camp in your yard?
I live rent-free when living gets hard.
You're not even aware
That I'm living right there.
I get benefit; you don't get scarred.

(20b)
Rav Chisda asked, "How do we know
If the tenant pays not-in-the-know
Master? Rami bar Chama
Said "Bring my pajama
I'll answer if you serve me. Go."

(21a)
There were orphans who owned a trash heap
There they stored what it is orphans keep.
Some guy built there a castle
Said Nachman, "A hassle
You've caused. And I hold it not cheap!'

(22a)
A camel is carrying flax
Which ignites in some hot burning wax
That is hung at the door
Of a man's roadside store--
"Was it Chanukah then," you must ask.

(23b)
A cow enters a fine fancy home
Not a place where a cow tends to roam!
Rubs its back on the wall
And erases the scrawl
Of the mural. Who repaints the home?

(25a)
The Torah is from where we know
A principle known as Dayo
If Miriam were spat
At by father, well that
Would mean one week. And God rules just so.

(26b)
A man has a rock on his chest
He gets up and it falls from his breast.
Is the damage his fault?
He meant not to assault!
He pays Nezek, but not all the rest.

(26b)
A baby is thrown off a roof
It resembles a comic book spoof:
Below, someone comes toward
It with quite a large sword.
Slashing baby midair. Babe goes poof!

(27a)
Someone falls off a roof and he lands
In a woman (Er… not in her hands)
What was done has been done
(And perhaps it was fun)
Are they married? This was not the plan!

לברכה ולא לקללה (Taanit 7a)

It says, "May my words come down like rain" and it also says, "may my speech be like the dew" (Deuteronomy 32:2). If one is a proper Torah scholar, God's words fall like dew; and if not, they smite him like rain. (Taanit 7a)

It is Saturday night of Chol Hamoed Pesach, just a few days after we recited the prayer for dew, and I am sitting at my kitchen table drinking hot tea and reading an article about Talmudic stories. The article mentions the prayers for rain and dew in Masechet Taanit, so I find myself opening up my Gemara and reviewing that sugya. The Talmud is trying to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the two halves of Deuteronomy 32:2. Do God's words come down like rain (which falls with violent force) or like dew (which descends gently)? This depends on whether the Torah scholar is proper or not. The Talmud goes on to explain that a proper Torah scholar is one who studies "for the sake of God's name," and not for any ulterior motives. If the scholar studies for the sake of God's name, Torah becomes "an elixir of life"; if not, it becomes an "elixir of death." I hope that I am a proper Torah scholar, but (rather ominously) the ensuing events suggest otherwise….

Why is Torah analogized to water? It is written, "All who are thirsty shall go to the water" (Isaiah 55:1) to tell you: Just as water falls from a high place to a low place, so too does Torah not endure except in someone who is exceedingly humble. (Taanit 7a)

I have drunk my tea to the lees and I am thirsty again, so I walk over to my special Pesach hot water heater. But there is only a small amount of water left; it is time to refill the heater. First, though, I will lift up the lid and pour the remaining hot water into my cup. I am still thinking about the article I am reading and I fail to pay attention to what I am doing; the next thing I know, burning hot water is pouring down on the hand holding my glass tea cup, and I leap and yelp in agony and watch as my scorched hand turns a deep red.

Why is Torah analogized to fire? It is written, "Behold my word is like fire, declares the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:29). To teach you: Just as a flame does not ignite on its own, so too does Torah not endure in one who is alone. (Taanit 7a)

I feel as if my hand has just been singed by fire, and I am not sure what to do. Whom can I ask? Rashi explains that "one who is alone" refers to someone who has no study partner to challenge and sharpen his or her learning. It is true that if I had a study partner, that person might be able to offer assistance in just such a situation! I am hurting too much to think straight, but somehow I manage to pull the brown packaging tape off my freezer (which is prohibitively marked "CHAMETZ"), grab a frozen bag of string beans, and place it on my burning hand. The coldness feels soothing, but when I lift the bag for a moment, I am distressed to see that my hand is covered by several protruding welts, reminiscent, perhaps, of the plague of boils…..

If a scorched disciple [צורבא מרבנן] is boiling, it is Torah that is boiling in him, as it is written, "Behold my word is like fire, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 23:29). (Taanit 4a)

A term often used in the Talmud for a young Torah scholar is צורבא מרבנן, which literally means "a scorched one of the rabbis." As I rummage through my bathroom cabinet for aloe vera gel, I wonder if I now qualify for this distinction. Perhaps I do not remember standing at Sinai, but I certainly received the water of Torah in an experience of fiery flames. And I certainly learned a good lesson tonight (albeit a lesson I seem to need to keep learning again and again). My hand hurts too much to concentrate on studying, so I put aside my book and decide to go to bed. I hope that the rain is truly over and gone, and that when I wake up in the morning, the world will be bathed in gentle dew.

Drawing Out: From Exodus to Exegesis

"By the merit of the righteous women who lived in that generation, the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt." So teaches the midrash in Tanchuma Pikudei 9, which goes on to tell the story of how Egyptian oppression was so great that the Israelite men lost all desire to sleep with their wives. The women, in an attempt to rectify the situation, went out to the fields to seduce their husbands. How did they do it? They would go out and draw water, and God would arrange that small fish should enter their jugs. The women cooked the fish and carried them out to their husbands in the field. When they had eaten and drunk, they took their mirrors and looked into them with their husbands. She would say, "I am more beautiful than you," and then he would say, "I am more beautiful than you," and as a result, they would awaken in each other desire, and they were fruitful and they multiplied.

This midrash tells the story of how the women succeeded in re-kindling desire in their husbands, thereby drawing them out from the misery of slavery. By the merit of these women who managed to draw out their husbands, God in turn drew the children of Israel out of Egypt.

This emphasis on "drawing out" finds its echo in the midrash on the four sons which we recite as part of the Haggadah. To draw out is the engage and to arouse someone's interest. Of the four sons, two naturally engage, and two are unable to do so. That is, the wise and wicked sons are eager to engage through their questions. They seem to genuinely want to know (whether out of intellectual curiosity or hard-nosed cynicism) what the rituals of Pesach are about. In contrast, the simple son and the one who does not know how to ask are able to engage only on the most minimal level, if at all. Mah zot? asks the Tam; and his brother cannot say even that.

The responses given to the sons reflect an awareness of their level of engagement. The wise and wicked sons, who have no problem saying whatever is on their mind, are given responses that signal restraint. The wise son is instructed in "the laws of Pesach, that we do not have an afikoman after the Pesach." Of all the laws of Pesach, why should this one be singled out? It seems important to teach the wise son is told that there are limits; no matter how much he may want to engage, even Kol Hamarbeh L'saper has its bounds. The wicked son is restrained even more forcefully -- his teeth are blunted, and he is told that even if he had been around at the exodus, he would have been excluded from redemption. God would have left him back in Egypt. He would not have been drawn out.

The simple son and the interrogatively-challenged one, in contrast, are drawn out -- they are given a version of the Pesach story that is far longer than anything they were able to articulate. The simple son is quoted a verse that serves as a one-sentence summary of the whole story: "It was with a mighty hand that the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage." The response to the son who does not know how to ask, too, focuses on the process of coming out of Egypt: "This is on account of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt." With these answers, the father is to draw out those sons who are unable to engage deeply on their own.

The essence of the exodus--that is, what physically happened in Egypt--was a process of being "drawn out" from bondage. The metaphor most commonly invoked is that of giving birth -- Egypt was the birth canal of our people, we were "delivered" only after painful "labor," and the story itself would not have happened if not for the crucial intervention of righteous midwives. But perhaps another, equally-apt metaphor is that of exegesis. Exegesis, too, is a form of "drawing out" -- we draw out meaning from the Biblical text by means of our interpretations of that text .This is what we do at the Seder when we study the midrashim on parshat Bikkurim that form the core of the Maggid. We read meanings that others have drawn out of these verses, and we draw out our own meanings. The word "exegesis" comes from the Greek words ex (out) and hegeisthai (to lead) – exegesis is a form of leading out. Thus exegesis is, etymologically, an exodus. By engaging in exegesis, the seder enables us to experience the exodus on a whole new level -- we ourselves perform the act of "drawing out" that defined this key moment in the history of our people.

The Hebrew word for exegesis, midrash, comes from the root darash. It is interesting to note that the first time the verb darash appears in the Torah is in Parshat Toldot, where we are told that Rivka, who was experiencing difficult labor pains, went to "seek out" or "draw out" God. Rivka was thus the first person to engage in midrash. Maybe it really is by the merit of righteous women that we were redeemed, as the midrash puts it. Maybe the connection between the two metaphors --birth and exegesis-- is closer than we might have thought. And finally, maybe by engaging in midrash at the seder we are, through our acts of "drawing out," becoming God's partner not just in creation but also redemption.

The Way It Still Is: An Excerpt

The below is taken directly from The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven (Translated by Dalya Bilu; Melville House, 2009)

Interviewer: So how did it happen that you went to study law?
Feminist writer: It was a coincidence. With women, you know, things happen by chance. There was a man I wanted to impress.
Interviewer: Did you want him to fall in love with you?
Feminist writer: I knew I didn't have a hope.
Interviewer: But surely he must have been impressed….
Feminist writer: He didn't even know I was studying. You see, he wasn't in the country at all, there was no contact between us. I just imagined that he was looking at me all the time.
Interviewer: And afterwards?
Feminist writer: What afterwards? There is no afterwards. There is no earlier and later in love. When he felt like summoning me, I went to be his mistress. That's the way it still is.

מנחת יהודה וירושלים (Malachi 3:4)

It is Thursday night before Shabbat HaGadol, and the air in Jerusalem is charged. I decide that it is not enough to listen to the rabbis discussing the halachot of Pesach all day on Reshet Moreshet, my favorite frum radio station. I want to be a part of it all! Besides, the weather took a sudden turn today -- when I got to the office (after a morning seminar on the history of the Haggadah), I removed several layers of clothing and turned on my fan. For several hours I have been trying to concentrate on work, but I keep hearing Wordsworth echoing in my ears: "All things that love the sun are out of doors." I simply cannot bear to miss the final hour of daylight. And so I push aside the pile of contracts on my desk, empty the heavier books out of my backpack, and set off in the direction of the center of town, light on my feet and humming my favorite Chad Gadya melody.

My thoughts and wishes bend towards the shuk, where I intend to buy fruits and vegetables for Shabbat; but on the way I stop in a clothing store or two, hoping that I might find something colorful to wear for Pesach. I generally buy clothes only before the major holidays; this way, I feel like I am buying not just for myself, but lichvod ha-chag. I come to refer to my various items of clothing as "last year's Pesach skirt" or "the lace shirt from Sukkot two years ago." The Talmud teaches that a man is obligated to bring joy to the members of his household before Pesach. What brings joy to men? Wine. And what brings joy to women? Colorful clothing (at least in Bavel). I walk into a store where countless young mothers with elaborately-wrapped head coverings are balancing babies on their hips and hangars between their teeth. I pull a purple skirt off the rack, hold it against my waist, and bring it to the register. Clothes in Israel are very poorly made and very cheap, which is why I like to shop here. After a year or two of wear, I have a fresh set of curtains for my windows and a convenient excuse to buy something new.

By now it is after 8pm, but I am sure the shuk will be open late, as it always is on Thursday nights. This week the regular pre-Shabbat crowds are even more frenzied: the countdown to Pesach has begun. "Pesach magiya, Pesach magiya," one vendor shouts as he hawks pots and pans and dishes and sink racks. One stand over, the vendor at my favorite bakery yells out, "Thirty pitas for ten shekel, thirty pitas for ten shekel, rabotai, don't miss out!" I smile at the antiphonal fugue created by their overlapping cries: "Pesach is coming" and "Thirty pitas for ten shekel." The words for "don't miss out" are "אל תחמיצו," which literally means, "Don't become chametz!" I wonder if he realizes what he is saying.

Everyone in the shuk is buying paper goods and aluminum cake pans, and some shoppers have already begun stocking up on the ubiquitous "matzah ashira" coconut cookies, which make my stomach turn. (On Pesach my diet usually consists of fruits, raw vegetables, yogurt, ice cream, and chocolate bars; I won't eat anything with matzah or anything that is made especially for Pesach. Matzah pancakes? Matzah pizza? I'll wait a week for the real thing.) I buy one knife, one spoon, one fork, and one sponge, as is possible only in the shuk. I cannot help but notice the tremendous poverty around me: the stooping old woman in a kerchief who asks the string bean vendor to give her, for free, the shriveled cut-up beans that he is planning to discard anyway; the old man rattling his cup and asking passers-by for just one shekel; the tired mother who tries to bargain down the price of the eight peppers she is buying to cook for Shabbat. "I will surely open the floodgates of the sky for you and pour down blessings upon you" (Malachi 3:10), God promises in this week's Haftarah – we are waiting with open arms.

For Shabbat I want to make a fruit salad, so I take note of all the new spring fruits: Thick-skinned oranges have replaced the clementines I carried around in my backpack all winter, and the apples are big and shiny again. There are passionfruit instead of pomegrantes, and the grapes are small and shriveled but the pomellos beam like giant yellow suns. One stand has a sign that reads "הגיעה הפיינק ליידי," the pink lady has come! Who is the pink lady, I wonder? הנא אנוכי שולח לכם – who, exactly? Then I see the arrow pointing to a carton of bright pink apples and I figure it out.

Perhaps the best sign that Chag Ha-Aviv is upon us are the strawberries piled up in mounds so high that they block my view of the vendors standing behind them. I buy my strawberries from a man with stained red fingers who sells them for 5 shekel a kilo, which means about 40 strawberries for a dollar. "Do you eat strawberries yourself?" I ask him, and he looks down at the mountain of red fruit in front of him and grimaces. He uses a dustpan to shovel the strawberries into flimsy plastic containers – I buy two kilos, and never have trouble finishing them over the course of the week. I try to remember to come to the shuk with a big tupperware so I can transfer my strawberries immediately; they are the most fragile of fruits, and inevitably they get beaten-up on the bus when not suitably protected.

I know that I am finished shopping in the shuk when I feel like I've been doing Avodah b'pharech: my back is breaking, my shoulders are aching, and there is no room in my bag for even just one of those bright yellow lemons beckoning to me from across the alley. Dayenu. Exhausted, I trek down to the bus stop, adjust the canvas bags on both my shoulders, and breathe a sigh of relief as my bus pulls up and I get on. The driver winks at my bare shoulders but I insist on paying anyway, unwilling to accept his pass-over. I make my way down the aisle and observe that all the Haredi men are learning Arvei Psachim, anxiously guarding the empty seats next to them lest a woman like me sit down. No matter. The bus driver has the radio on loudly – a rabbi is expounding on the lengths to which a person should go when cleaning for Pesach. I take a seat, put down my bags, and look out the window at a city poised once again, as in each generation, to re-experience redemption.

I Wish I Could Seduce You in the Nude (Bava Kama 86b)

Yesterday's Daf (Bava Kama 86) considers the question of whether a naked person can be embarrassed. The Talmud begins by quoting a Braita which states, "If one embarrasses someone while he is naked, he [the embarrasser] is liable, and embarrassing someone naked is not the same as embarrassing someone when he is clothed…. Our master said: If one embarrasses someone when he is naked, he is liable. But is a naked person capable of being embarrassed? (?ערום בר בושת הוא) Rather, this refers to a case where the wind has bunched up his clothes and a person comes and lifts his clothing further, thereby embarrassing him."

The Talmud, although at first asserting that it is indeed possible to embarrass someone while that person is naked, goes on to question this assumption. As Rashi explains, "Since he does not care about walking around naked in front of others, what does he have to be embarrassed about?" Presumably a person who does not mind if others see him naked is immune to other people's opinions of him, and is therefore not susceptible to embarrassment. The Talmud is then left with the question as to why the Braita taught that a person is indeed liable for embarrassing someone who is naked, and concludes that this was a person who was at first only partially naked. The embarrasser comes along and exposes him even further, and thus he is considered to be liable.

The discussion of the relationship between nakedness and embarrassment immediately conjures, in my mind, the seduction scene in the garden of Eden, where we are told that "The two of them were naked (ערומים), the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame (יתבוששו). Now the serpent was the shrewdest (ערום) of all the wild beasts that the Lord had made." Adam and Eve, when they are naked, are not capable of experiencing embarrassment. They do not view their sexuality as something to hide, and thus they walk about freely in the garden, unclothed. Once they eat of the fruit, however, they become capable of embarrassment, and their first act is to cover themselves. In this new state of self-consciousness, they realize that they have something to hide, and they hide it. Milton gives eloquent voice to the moment of Adam's awareness of the need to clothe himself:

But let us now, as in bad plight, devise
What best may, for the present, serve to hide
The parts of each other that seem most
To shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen--
Some tree, whose broad smooth leaves, together sewed,
And girded on our loins, may cover round
Thos middle parts, that this new comer, Shame,
There sit not, and reproach us as unclean. (Book IX lines 1091-1098)

Shame is the key word in this passage, suggesting that the major difference between before and after Adam and Eve eat the fruit is whether or not they are capable of embarrassment. Before the serpent came on the scene, Adam and Eve were completely comfortable with one another. Their sexuality was nothing to be ashamed of; it was part and parcel of who they were. Jewish tradition does not hold that humanity discovered sexuality only after they ate the fruit; rather, as Rashi states, the snake was impelled to tempt Eve in the first place because "he saw them [Adam and Eve] in naked intercourse, and he desired her." As Rashi's statement teaches us, Adam and Eve had sexual relations before they ate the fruit, before they were capable of being embarrassed.

I wonder about this totally innocent, un-self-conscious sexuality. What was it like? For one, there was probably not much seduction involved. Adam and Eve were like a little boy and a girl playing together naked in a sandbox, unaware that there is anything of which to be ashamed. (Interestingly, right after discussing whether a naked person can be embarrassed, the Daf proceeds with the question of whether a minor (קטן) is capable of embarrassment.) I imagine that at this point Adam and Eve had a relationship of total intimacy, in which there were no barriers separating them from one another. After all, Eve had just been created from Adam's rib, and so in their relationship with each other, they retained the memory of this formerly conjoined state. They were not really two separate beings quite yet, because they shared everything. And they could not be embarrassed yet because embarrassment involves the act of exposing, whereas they were already fully exposed at all times, both in their sameness and in their differentness. (It is interesting to note that their different parts, in the Torah, are referred to as "their embarrassings," as in Deut. 25:11-12, a verse that is frequently quoted in Bava Kama: "If two men get into a fight with each other and the wife of one comes up to save her husband and puts out her hand and seizes him by his embarrassings [במבושיו], you shall cut off her hand." "Embarrassings" is understood to mean genitals, though the word itself comes from Boshet.)

The genitals are not a site of Boshet until after the serpent, when Adam and Eve know a more mature, self-conscious sexuality. Now their differences are something to conceal; and now, presumably, they can flirt and seduce and play games with one another. They are no longer Arum in the sense of naked; they are Arum in the sense of shrewd. This was not God's original intention for humanity, of course. This was not how God envisioned the relationship was to be between man and his help-meet. And most importantly, this was not what God expected when He told them, in the final verse before the serpent comes on to the scene, "Thus shall a man leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, so that they become one flesh."

I find God's injunction very perplexing in the wake of what follows. After all, it is all very well and good to command man and woman to become one flesh when they have no self-consciousness and no shame and they prance around the garden without a stitch. But I cannot help but wonder: Is this ideal really attainable after Adam and Eve become capable of experiencing shame? Can they really become one being once their differences are a source of self-conscious embarrassment and seductive allure? Or, to phrase the question somewhat more provocatively, are intimacy and eroticism really compatible with one another?

Most (though thankfully not all!) of what I know about seduction comes from literature, and if there is anything I have learned, it is the following: Seduction requires clothing. All the great seduction scenes involve some sort of strip tease. In Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes," my favorite literary seduction, Porphyro hides in Madeleine's chamber and gazes at Madeleine, witnessing the following:

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed.

The poem's attention is not on the flesh but on the clothing. We do not know what body parts become exposed (nor would we want to know!); we are told only of the unclasped jewels, the loosened bodice, and the rich attire that falls to the floor. This marshalling of elaborate sartorial detail as a form of restraint is of course the source of the poem's seductive power. We, like Porphyro, are in Madeleine's thrall.

This preoccupation with sartorial detail is true of nearly every seduction scene I can recall. Consider Billy Collins' "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes," where the poet, engaged in this very project, tells us that

The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Dickinson's nakedness is the speaker's ultimate destination, but the entire poem is preoccupied with the journey there. Likewise, Robert Herrick acknowledges in "Upon Julia's Clothes" that what catches his eye about Julia is how she moves in her clothing:

Whenas in silks my Julia goes
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.

And if we consider the most vividly-imagined seduction in the Bible (second only to Eden, perhaps), we are told that "Potiphar's wife would each day try [to attract] Joseph: The clothes she wore in the morning she would not wear in the evening, and the clothes she wore in the evening she would not wear in the morning" (B. Yoma 35b). In case the Talmud's point is lost on us, Rashi clarifies two terms here: "To try" means "to seduce" (thank you, Rashi) and "the clothes" were "for him" (what would we do without you?). The Biblical account relates that Joseph, when he flees, leaves one of his garments with her (ויעזוב בגדו אצלה), perhaps a sign that he refuses to take part in these games of seduction which are all about clothing.

It is often noted that the Hebrew word for clothing, בגד, comes from the same root as the word for "treachery." Clothes are a way of deceiving and tricking; thus Tamar "took off her widow's garb, covered her face with a veil, and wrapped herself up" (Genesis 38:14) in order to seduce Judah. It is not surprising that clothes play such a role in seduction because seduction, too, necessarily involves duplicity. To seduce is to play a game of revelation and concealment; it is to alternately expose and then hide, as in the classic case of the strip tease. But therein lies the rub, because if there is something that you are hiding, then you cannot be completely transparent. So long as you are alternately revealing and concealing, then you are not sharing everything with the other person. Thus seductiveness precludes intimacy.

The converse, I fear, is also true: intimacy precludes seductiveness. If you expose everything and keep nothing from the other person, you lose your allure. As a dear friend once told me, there is nothing seductive about a person who walks around naked all the time. There is nothing exciting about a person who tells you everything about himself, or makes herself completely available from the start. Is a knowing half-smile not infinitely more alluring than an ear-to-ear grin?

I do not have an answer to this quandary. As a person who values honesty and transparency in all my relationships, and yet who also strives for the deepest form of connection with another person, I find this matter deeply troubling. As the Talmud ultimately tells us, one cannot be naked and also be embarrassed. How can we help but long for the intimacy and utter lack of self-consciousness that Adam and Eve knew in the garden? And how can we resist the temptation to reach for the fruit and gaze, mesmerized, as that fragrant bodice rustles to the floor?

Why I Leyn: A Manifesto

Last Thursday night I was waiting at a bus stop in Givat Shaul, practicing the leyning that I had xeroxed onto a few folded sheets of paper. Moses was late in coming down the mountain, and the bus was late in coming to our part of Jerusalem, so I went ahead with the golden calf. Although I was chanting very quietly, almost inaudibly, I nevertheless managed to arouse the attention of the two Haredi young men who were waiting with me on the street corner. "Listen to her," one of them said to the other in Hebrew. "I have heard there are girls who do that! Weird, weird. Can you believe it?" I lowered my voice even more, conscious that once again I had become a Curiosity (not to mention a girl!).

I am aware, though, that it is not just among Haredi men that I am regarded as "weird" for my dedication to reading Torah. Anyone who has ever lived with me (including my Catholic college roommate, who knew how to leyn herself after four years of sharing a suite) has inevitably asked me, at some point or another, "Why do you do that? Why spend so much time going over the same thing again and again? What's the point?" And yet for me, I cannot imagine a life without reading Torah. If not for leyning, as I see it, what would be the point?

Reading Torah, for one thing, is a way of structuring my life so that I am always attuned to the rhythm of the Torah reading cycle, in the same way that davening keeps us attuned to the cycle of light and darkness. V'higita bo yomam valayla, Joshua charges the people (Joshua 1:8) – you should recite Torah day and night. When I practice a little bit of Torah reading each day, I ensure that the words of Torah are always running through my mind. As a result, I find myself quoting verses that suddenly become relevant in other contexts, making jokes that invoke the parsha, and even occasionally choosing what I will eat on Shabbat based on which foods are mentioned in the coming week's reading. This, for me, is the true way of following Rav Ami's interpretation of Proverbs 22:18, which states that words of Torah should be "in your belly, that they be set together on your lips." Explains Rav Ami, "When do you preserve words of Torah in your belly? Whey they are set together constantly on your lips (Eruvin 54a).

I do believe that it is by leyning that Torah is best remembered. Only when you learn Torah along with the cantillations do you ensure that you never accidentally omit a word or change around vowels or stresses when reading. No one who has leyned the first aliyah of Trumah would ever say "v'aSU li mikdash" (or at least I should hope not). By setting Torah to music, Torah develops a rhythm and a life-force of its own, infused with human breath. The words come to life off the page, as if the letters of the scroll have suddenly arisen from their fixed places and begun to dance, gaily waving their crowns. This is how I feel sometimes when I am leyning an aliyah that I have truly mastered. (Note: This happens very rarely; I am no grandmaster, though I am related to a few of them!) I feel like I am not leyning the Torah, but that the Torah is leyning me, carrying me aloft on its eagle wings. I think of this as a "leyner's high," similar to a "runner's high." After a few verses of leyning an aliyah well, I begin to feel like I am flying, carried forwards by the words that are singing out from me in full-throated ease. (Aye, Keats. It was the nightingale, and not the eagle!)

Leyning Torah is also a hobby that fits quite well into my life. I learn not from a Tikun but from xeroxes. These xeroxes are mostly courtesy of Random House, where my like-mindedly frum colleague and I used to share a Tikun Simanim, stored on the shelf between our cubicles. Each week we’d go together to the xerox machine and photocopy our respective aliyot. There was no Genizah, so I saved all of those pages. I went on to bring them with me to Israel, where a very organized friend encouraged me to sort them into color-coded vinyl sleeves by parsha, arranged in two great looseleaf binders. Each week I pick out the pages for that particular parsha and carry them with me wherever I go. Since I tend to live like a turtle, carrying much of my life in the heavy L.L. Bean backpack that I have owned since high school, I’m grateful not to have to shoulder the extra weight. In addition, I’ve discovered that xeroxed leyning is the perfect reading material to bring to a party, where entering with a book may be taboo. But who would notice a couple of folded sheets of paper in my back pocket? And who would notice if I slip off to the corner for a few minutes to practice, reveling in whatever it is I am leyning?

Of course, there are aliyot that I enjoy more than others. I have my favorites, and generally they are other people's favorites as well, which results in a fair amount of alpha-male style competition. The most desirable aliyot are generally the narratives with the most intense dramas: the temptation in the garden, the binding of Isaac, the rape of Dina, the seduction of Judah, the revelation of Joseph, the night of the Exodus, the splitting of the sea, the golden calf. Would that I could leyn them all!

Around this time of year, when we are deep into the wilderness of Mishkan building instructions, the competition dies down. And yet I have to confess that I, for one, love leyning the vast tracts of Mishkan material, and try to take on as much as possible! Leyning an aliyah from Vayakhel-Pekudei, as I see it, is a bit like reciting the Avoda service on Yom Kippur – the recitation becomes a reenactment. In her mind-boggling article "The Yom Kippur Avoda within the Female Enclosure," Bonna Devora Haberman argues that this part of the high holiday liturgy, the prayer leader becomes symbolically identified with the high priest in the Holy of Holies:

"The prayer leader does not lay her hands on a bull, a ram, or goats; she does not sprinkle blood; she does not enter the Holy of Holies. Indeed, she does not displace her two parallel touching stocking feet even when fully prostrating herself on the ground as part of the Avoda. She is absorbed in a standing prayer as the representative of the community. Recounting the acts with the intentionality of prayer substitutes for performing them. The Avoda is a symbolic representation of the service performed first in the desert Tabernacle, then in the holy Temple in Jerusalem through a gesticulated, cantillated community prayer experience."

Just as the prayer leader on Yom Kippur symbolically reenacts the rituals performed by the high priest in the Temple, so too does the Torah reader of the Mishkan parshiyot symbolically reenact the building of the this structure. This is why the leyning of the Mishkan, more so than any other section in the Torah, must be absolutely flawless. After all, the Mishkan is described in the most specific of dimensional detail, dictated from God on high: "And on the front side, to the east, fifty cubits: fifteen cubits of hangings on the one flank, with their three posts and their three sockets, and fifteen cubits of hangings on the other flank--on each side of the gate of the enclosure--with their three posts and their three sockets" (Exodus 38: 13-15). To recite these verses is to construct in words the Mishkan that the Isrealites built in the desert, much as Coleridge's speaker sought to recreate in measured language the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan:

With music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Beware – because words construct verbal edifices. Torah is the blueprint God used in creating the world, as we learn in Breishit Rabbah, and so the way we read Torah determines the way we construct the world. If we mispronounce even one syllable of Vayakhel-Pekudei, if we read, say, forty cubits instead of fifty, then the entire edifice could come tumbling down. (Or at least so I tell myself, as I practice this week's leyning.) And furthermore: If Rabbi Akiva could find meaning to every "Et" in the Torah, must we not be sure to pronounce each one properly? Think of how many drashot hang on every word (if not every letter; if not every tip of the yud) in the Torah. We who leyn are playing with fire, much like Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua in the house of Elisha's father -- for were not the words of Torah given in fire on Sinai? (Tosafot to B. Chagigah 15a).

Reading Torah, I am arguing, is a weighty responsibility; but it is also a great source of pleasure. Each time I leyn, I discover new puzzles in the text: I muse on why a particular syllable is stressed, or why a concept seems to repeat itself. These questions inform my writing and thinking all week, and carry me into Shabbat. Most weeks, the very last thing I do before Shabbat is swim. Generally I am down to the wire, and I only have about twenty minutes in the pool. But just before I dive in, I go over my leyning once more, so that I will be immersed in words of Torah as I cut through the water. One Friday afternoon a few months ago, I found myself dreaming of a pool that would enable me to practice my leyning while swimming. In such a pool, I envisioned, there would be seven lanes (leyns?), one corresponding to each aliyah. A series of overhead projectors would flash the words of each aliyah onto the bottom pool surface of each lane, so that the swimmer could follow along as she made her way face-down through the water. Now there's an invention to rival the pleasure domes of Kubla Khan, and the hanging curtains of the Mishkan!

Here Lives a Happy Family

With colorful strokes of Crayola
Depicting six stick figures holding hands
Across a white sheet of paper,
The family below her has hung
On their door this sign:
"Here Lives a Happy Family"

Each evening Clara climbs the stairs
On her return from teaching school
(teaching students the age of one of
Those stick figures, she figures)
Up up up the stairs, tired from the day
Panting with the weight of
Books and papers and the groceries
She's picked up on her way
(one onion, two apples, a bag of pasta,
a quart of milk). Up up up
Passing, each evening, their sign:
"Here Lives a Happy Family."

Clara's door is just a door. No signs.
Her mother has told her "Women who live alone
Should not announce it to the world!
You have to be careful." Clara does not need
A sign, anyway – no one comes to visit,
And she herself knows well which door is hers:
The apartment one flight up from
"Here Lives a Happy Family."

Clara hears the rhythms of their life
Through the floorboards. The mother
Wakes first, heats the whistling teapot.
She rouses her children one by one, each time
A little louder: "henry Henry HENRY
You must get up Get Up GET UP"
(Clara wakes each day with Henry.)
Then the father leaves. He shuts the door
Behind him: "Bye kids!" –BANG.
It is not hard for him to go; he knows
He will return twelve hours later, he
Will find them just the same,
Clamoring over the table behind
The happy-holding crayoned hands:
"Here Lives a Happy Family."

Clara laces up her boots,
Swings a bag over her shoulder
Bites into an apple (breakfast), locks her door,
And sets off down the stairs at half past six.
She tries to dart past, tries to look away, but still--
She always glances, always turns around
As if she has forgotten something, dropped
Something behind her – or ahead:
Here Lives a Happy Family.

The Sexy Widow (Ketubot 65a), my costume this Purim

My translation from Ruth Calderon's Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

Long-limbed Choma crossed the entrance hall of the courthouse with purposeful strides. Her thick mass of black hair stubbornly peeked out of her kerchief to see what was going on in the world. Even now, when dressed in black mourning clothes, she was enveloped in the same loveliness -- as simple as fresh baked bread and just as appealing. It was impossible to mistake her gait for anyone else's. The walls swayed like young lambs to the rhythm of her heels.

That morning the courtroom was empty. It was the height of summer, and even market day did not bring anyone to plead their case in court. Peddlers did not even bother to tip their scales before the handful of buyers who made their way through the humid heat. Lead weights carved in the shape of ducks, each one a bit larger than the next, sat still like a family of birds who had fallen asleep, their beaks tucked into their gray metal backs.

The gaming stands, which were usually noisy and crowded, were deserted. The game boards and the mosaic tiles lay at rest. The pigeon racers scattered seeds to their pigeons, who pecked aimlessly at the emptiness. No one showed up to gamble.

On a day like this, the courtroom effectively became a study house. Rava reviewed his learning on his own. If only he could learn with Abayey, his study partner, they would be able to knock off a difficult section of the Gemara from Tiberias. Rava felt Abayey's absence like a phantom limb that continued to ache. Without Abayey, he grew more distant from the world. He missed his friend's learnedness, the way he always looked at everything through a different lens. Rava reviewed the passage on "presumed despair," part of the laws about returning lost objects to their rightful owners. He tried to recall Abayey's voice, his manner of speaking, his gait.

The beadle who was nodding off by the doorway almost did not notice Choma when she entered. The beadle roused suddenly and announced: "Next case: The provision of alimony to Choma, the widow of Abayey."

It was difficult for Rava to hear the name of his beloved friend spoken aloud. He smiled as he remembered how Abayey used to juggle eight eggs, throwing one into the air and catching another, without any of the fragile shells touching one another. How when they used to walk through the market, Abayey would shake hands with even those elders who were not Jewish. Rava sat in the judge's seat at the front of the courtroom and recited his oath of justice. The responsibility of presiding in court weighed heavily on him. He had chosen this life in spite of the wishes of his wife, who had wanted him to go into business. She wanted wealth and he came home with empty pockets, hoping only to return in the evening as he had left in the morning: free from sin or error. He wondered to himself whether it was in fact an exaggeration to compare the fear instilled in the heart of the judge to the fear of death. Was it really as intense?

While he was still mulling it over, Choma was sitting silently, her hands folded in her lap. Rava did not know how to address her after the beadle had retired to the side room to eat, when they were left alone in the courtroom. "Rule on the alimony due to me," the woman said. Rava knew that it was his duty to rule on the amount of money that the widow would receive from her husband's heirs, an amount that would ensure that she could maintain the same standard of living as she had when her husband was alive. He ruled accordingly. "Rule on an additional sum due to me for wine." For wine? He and Rava never drank wine when they were together. He grew suspicious, and looked at Choma intently. He used his friend's nickname in an attempt to show the grounds for his claim: "I know Nachmani. He wasn't a wine drinker…. You're telling me that he would serve it to you?" Choma stood up. The dark fabric of her dress glided down the curves of her body and stopped at her ankles, swaying slightly. When she stood upright before him, she was taller than he remembered her. The thread of justice hung taut between them.

The woman paraded over to the judge's bench, keeping her eyes fixed squarely upon him. He looked at her dark lips and heard her voice, low and slightly hoarse: "I swear, my lord, he used to serve me wine in a goblet this big." As she spoke, she flung her hand above her in a deliberate motion, and the sleeve of her black dress bunched at her shoulder and revealed her arm all the way up to her elbow. For a split second, the smooth whiteness of her arm was bared. Splendor enveloped the courtroom. Rava looked at Choma. The whole world faded into a blurry background, and the arm glowed. The woman and her light attracted him with a force that was beyond his control. Somehow he managed to turn from his seat and escape from the courtroom as if chased by a demon. As he fled he muttered something unintelligible about how he was unfit to serve as a judge and about the wine that she would either receive or not. From the entrance he turned back to look at her – a dark and erect figure, her kerchief pulled back and her hair exposed, enveloped in a great light.

When he came to his home he found his wife, the daughter of Rav Chisda, seated beside the stove. Rava stood behind her, and although it was not his usual way, he grabbed her and carried her off to bed. He seemed like a total stranger when, without saying a word, he took off his clothes, peeled back her garments, and ravished his wife. When he later lifted himself up and dragged himself to his room, she was arranging her dress, blushing like a young girl. There was one moment of serenity in the house. Then suddenly a shadow passed over his wife's brow and she asked: "Who was in the courtroom just now?" He could not bring himself to lie to her. "Choma, the wife of Abayey."

His wife's face lost its softness. Rejecting the hand he offered, she ripped the lock off the bureau and left the house in a frenzy. The door to the courtyard slammed behind her.

Rava did not move from where he stood. He did not see how his wife chased Choma to the outskirts of Machoza, and he did not hear how she screamed, "You killed three husbands and now you've come to kill mine too!"

This story is based on a sugya from Ketubot 65a, translated here:

Choma, the wife of Abayey, came before Rava.
She said to him: "Rule on the food due to me in alimony." So he did.
[She said:] "Rule on the wine due to me."
He said to her: "I know Nachmani" (a nickname for Abayey), "He wouldn't serve you wine."
She said to him: "I swear, my lord, he used to serve me wine in a goblet this big."
When she demonstrated what she meant by lifting her arm, her arm became exposed.
And a great light fell upon the courtroom.
Rava stood up and went home
He demanded sex from his wife, the daughter of Rav Chisda.
The daughter of Rav Chisda said to him: "Who was in the courtroom today?"
He said to her: "Choma, the wife of Abayey."
She [Rava's wife] went after her [Choma] and beat her with the lock of a chest until she was driven out of Machoza.
She [Rava's wife] said to her [Choma]: "You killed three men, and now you've come to kill another?"

So Remembering Him: The Paradox and Paradigm of Amalek

This week is Shabbat Zachor, one of the special shabbatot preceding Pesach. In the Maftir aliyah, we read Moshe’s account of Amalek’s cowardly attack on Israel: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt – how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary….Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25: 17-19)

This commandment seems to contain two contradictory injunctions. On the one hand, we are told “remember” and “do not forget.” On the other hand, we are instructed to “blot out the memory of Amalek,” which suggests that we should forget Amalek entirely, leaving not even a mental trace. Were we to successfully fulfill the second injunction, the first injunction would make no sense: How can we remember what has already been blotted out?

The message of Shabbat Zachor seems to be a dual one, Zachor v’Tishkach b’dibur echad. We have to simultaneously remember and forget Amalek, suggesting that remembering and forgetting are equally important acts. Yet this is surprising. We often hear about the Jewish imperative to remember: Remember the Sabbath day, remember the exodus, remember that you were a stranger in a strange land…. But since when is forgetting a positive value?

I was thinking about this question recently when studying Kohelet Rabbah, a midrashic collection that examines many of the themes in the book of Ecclesiastes, including vanity, the futility of human pursuits, and the absence of lasting value in a world of transience. The speaker in this book, Kohelet king of Jerusalem, describes his attempt “to study and probe with wisdom all that happens under the sun.” The rabbis in the midrash identify Kohelet with King Solomon and assume that this verse refers to Solomon’s quest to study all the Torah there is to learn. And yet Solomon finds that learning Torah does not just consist of remembering what he has learned, but of forgetting it as well. In commenting on Kohelet 2:12, “My thoughts also turned to appraising wisdom,” the rabbis state, “Do not read this as "turned (paniti)," but rather "emptied (piniti). I emptied myself like a vessel that is alternately filled and then emptied. So too did Shlomo alternatively learn Torah and then forget it” (KR 2:12).

This seems to be another instance of the futility that is so rampant in this book, but in fact, as the midrash shows, quite the opposite is true: “The rabbis of Babylonia would say in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak: It is for man's own good that he learns Torah and forgets it, because if a person were to learn Torah and never forget it, he would study Torah for two or three years and then go back to hi s work, and he would never invest his whole life in Torah. However, since a person learns Torah and forgets it, he never desists or retreats from the study of Torah” (KR 1:13). The midrash suggests that there is an inherent value in forgetting what we have learned, because this enables us to spend our lives learning. If so, then the ideal student is not the plastered well that never loses a drop, but rather the ever-flowing fountain from which water evaporates and then returns to its source.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Kohelet Rabbah depicts learning and forgetting as bound up with one another, because indeed this is very much how our brains work. We do not remember everything our minds assimilate, nor would we want to. So much of what we notice in the world or absorb about our surrounding is irrelevant to us in the long term--the weather forecast for a particular morning, the price of eggs in the market in a town we once lived, the name of every student in a class we once taught--and we are lucky that we are able to shed it with such abandon. Were we never to forget a thing, our brains would become so cluttered with useless information that it would be difficult to retrieve information that is still of value. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges captures this notion in his short story “Funes the Memorious,” which tells of a man who falls off a horse and experiences a form of reverse amnesia, such that he cannot forget anything at all:

“When he fell, he'd been knocked unconscious; when he came to again, the present was so rich, so clear, that it was almost unbearable, as were his oldest and even his most trivial memories….Now his perception and his memory were perfect…. He knew the forms of the clouds in the southern sky on the morning of April 30, 1882, and he could compare them in his memory with the veins in the marbled binding of a book he had seen only once, or with the features of spray lifted by an oar on the Rio Negro on the eve of the Battle of Quebracho…. Funes remembered not only every leaf of every tree in every patch of forest, but every time he had perceived or imagined that leaf….He was the solitary, lucid spectator of a multiform, momentous, and almost unbearably precise world….He had effortlessly learned English, French, Portuguese, Latin. I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very good at thinking. To think is to ignore (or forget) differences, to generalize, to abstract. In the teeming world of Ireneo Funes there was nothing but particulars.”

Funes is the sponge who absorbs everything but is unable to filter. His memory is so overwhelmingly vast that it cripples him. If only he could forget some of what he knew, he might be able to lead a normal life. Nietzsche captures the problematic nature of a person who lacks the capacity to forget: “It is possible to live almost without memory, indeed to live happily, as the animals show us, but without forgetting it is utterly impossible to live at all.” This statement is true not just on the intellectual level, but on the emotional level as well. All of us go through moments in life that cause us pain and distress. Were we always to re-experience those moments with the same immediacy, they would prevent us from ever being able to move on. Instead, with time, our memories begin to fade, and new experiences are superimposed such that the traumatic events of the past become woven, we hope, into the larger fabric of our lives. “Time cures all ills,” we are commonly told, though the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millet calls this cliché into question in one of her sonnets:

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide.

Millet’s outburst becomes, in the second half of the poem, a musing about the paradoxical relationship between memory and forgetting:

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, – so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

In an effort to forget her lover, the poet seeks out a place that bears no trace of his memory – a place where he is utterly blotted out from under the heavens. When she finally finds such a place, her instinctive reaction is to point out that indeed, in that place, “There is no memory of him here!” And thus the very absence of any trace brings back a torrent of memories.

Perhaps this is the same paradox of memory and forgetting that we find in Parshat Zachor. We must blot out any memory of Amalek, but in so doing, we must be acutely conscious of what it is that we are blotting out. In the holiday of Purim, which we will celebrate this coming week, we are commanded to drown out the name of Haman, who is considered a descendant of Amalek, by sounding noisy groggers whenever Haman’s name is read in the Megillah. Paradoxically, however, we are not allowed to drown out Haman’s name completely. If the sound of the groggers renders Haman’s name inaudible, the reader of the Megillah is halachically obligated to repeat the name of Haman so that everyone can hear it. Judaism is not a religion of “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Mentioneds.” We speak out Voldemort’s name loud and clear, and only then do we say Yimach Shmo. Before we erase, we must record; before we drown out, we must make sure we hear.

I hope that as we move on from Parshat Zachor to Purim, we will become better equipped to strike the appropriate balance between memory and forgetting. May our lives always be rich with learning, with the ability to create meaning from our experiences, and with the healing that enables us to move on.

Changing Room

Amidst the disarray of lingerie,
Head slumped against a corner
I peer into my eyes red red
From weeping for what can change, and what can’t.
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Is anyone really privy
To Victoria’s secret?

Morning Glory: A Manifesto

Several of my closest friends are devoted readers of self-help books, and so I find myself from time in time in possession of a borrowed copy of Getting the Love You Want or Be Your Own Best Friend or some other promisingly-titled volume filled with the success stories of one renowned psychotherapist or another. "You must read this," a friend will tell me, pressing a tattered paperback into my reluctant hands. I try to force myself to sit down with Dr. Daniel Danielson MS MSW, say, and follow the stories of "Lisa" who "came into my office with tears streaming down her cheeks" or "Bob" who "vowed he was swearing off women once and for all." (Note: Names have been changed to protect the confidentiality of these woefully one-dimensional patients.) But sitting through more than a chapter of Coaching Your Way to Joy is even more difficult than motivating myself to turn on the television I do not own. How can I knowingly subject myself to brain-death? Is this insufferably cheerful-looking bright yellow mass market paperback really going to teach me how to be happy? Beneath a furrowed brow I am frowning skeptically -- even before turning the first page and reading the dedication to Daniel Danielson's beloved seventh wife, so help him Psychotherapy.

Every so often I read a novel that reassures me that I am not mistaken in reacting so dismissively to self-help books -- Not because I have mastered the lessons they attempt to instill (nor will I ever, I suppose), but because I have my own genre of self-help literature: Literature. I believe with full faith that the best literature helps me to be a better self, whether by cultivating empathy, extending the limits of my universe, inspiring me to stand up to my greatest fears, or simply rekindling my desire to live. In this sense, all great literature is self-help, and novels exist for no other reason than to teach us how to survive our own lives.

By way of example: I do not think I would have been able to get out of bed these past few weeks if not for Glory Boughton, a character who is more inspirational to me than all the Lisas and Bobs whose stories populate the Oprah website (also recently recommended to me by a concerned friend). In Home by Marilynne Robinson, Glory returns to her quiet hometown of Gilead, Iowa at the age of 38 to care for her aging father. "Did she choose to be there, in that house, in Gilead? No, she certainly did not. Her father needed looking after, and she had to be somewhere, like every other human being on earth. What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be." Glory had high hopes for her life – she was supposed to be married to man who supposedly loved her, and who sent her 542 love letters (all of which, by now, she has burned). But she has resigned herself to the fact that "the gradual catastrophe of her own venture into the world had come to an end." She is ashamed of her failure, and dreads showing her face in Gilead, even though at some point she acknowledges that "it was time she stopped avoiding ordinary contact with people." It was when I came to that line that I lifted my head out from the covers, set aside the book, and faced the day that was streaming with insistent brightness through my open window.

I should explain that I do not personally identify with Glory Boughton, nor would I want to. I do not read literature to reflect my own experiences; life is real enough as is, thank you very much. But Glory’s pain and longing enable me to acknowledge and excavate my own. Her story sets off seismic tremors that shift the tectonic plates of my soul ever so slightly, overturning the heavy rocks I had previously left undisturbed. As I read on in the novel, a few suspiciously-looking furry creatures scurry out from the crannies of those rocks, making their way along the fault lines, and I watch them try to hide from the unaccustomed daylight. These demons are old familiars, though I am generally quite good at keeping them well-buried. Yet again and again I am drawn to novels that move me and unsettle my interior terrain, aware on some level that it is good to peer down into the vast caverns of my loneliness and up to the frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed mountains of my mind.

In reading Home, I found myself again and again nodding in affirmation at resonant moments. "I am hungry in general. It is the particulars that discourage me," Glory's brother Jack tells her. I sat with head bent over my breakfast and my book, marking in pencil those many passages that articulated or confirmed some deeply-held truth that I had surely (so I told myself) been harboring inside. "As for herself, she did still pray on her knees. Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it. Her father had always said, God does not need our worship. We worship to enlarge our sense of the holy, so that we can feel and know the presence of the Lord, who is with us always." Sentence after sentence of Robinson's novel alighted on my windowsill like a spring robin come to sing my soul out of her slumber. "I think hope is the worst thing in the world," Jack tells Glory. "I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all."

And there you have it -- for nothing could be more hopeful to me than hearing someone else give voice to that sinking feeling that creeps into my heart at night and causes my legs to writhe like snakes in my bed and my arms to flail in protest against – against – I do not know what. Hope makes a fool of you while it lasts, yes. But as this novel (like so many blessed others) reminds me, I am all too glad to be made a fool of once again.

Not Impossible

Swimming while crying is hard--
But not impossible.
You have to be careful to sob
With head out of water
Gulping in air with sudden, forceful gasps.
Take advantage of those moments
When you come to the end of the lane
To weep above-water at poolside. Let tears pelt the surface like rain,
Then count to five, declare Enough, and shoot like an arrow back in.

Swimming while crying is a technique that must be mastered--
But you can be sure I am not the first.
The pool where I swim in Jerusalem
Boasts champion swim-cry bi-athletes. I know of a few:
The woman at forty who longs for a child
The mother whose son was sent off to the war
The old man whose wife used to swim by his side every morning.
You, too, can count yourself among them. Try. It's hard--
But not impossible.

The Trouble with Poetry

(in homage to Billy Collins)

Most of the truly beautiful poems I know
Go something like this:
I was about to give up on life
When suddenly I saw (fill in the blank:
You, the beauty of nature,
The glory of God), and decided
That maybe it was worth it, after all.

I’d tired of that.
What happened to poetry’s golden rule:
That which others do unto their poetry,
Do not do unto yours?
Where is the valorization of despair,
The darkness devoid of divinity,
The clink of the coin at the bottom of the empty wishing well?

Late at night I scribble away
And morning does not always come.
The last line is a railroad terminus:
Graffitied walls,
Low ceilings,
Nobody going,
And nowhere to go.

Frogs, Friendship, and other Fairy Tales

"Acquire for yourself a friend," say the sages, and I have been going about this business dutifully. Needless to say, I would prefer to have one friend who renders all other friends a frivolous distraction, like Rabbi Akiva's The Frog. For Rabbi Akiva, who takes literally Exodus 8:2, the second plague in Egypt consisted of one giant frog that covered the face of the land. The other rabbis were not too keen on this idea, and responded dismissively: "Akiva, what are you doing making up stories? Desist from this nonsense and go back to studying the laws of skin blemishes and enclosed tents" (Sanhedrin 67b). I, like Akiva, cannot stop making up stories. I fall asleep conjuring The Frog who will once and for all overlook my blemishes and come to my tent in the guise of a handsome prince.

In daylight hours, I desist from this nonsense and go about making new friends. Heavy of heart, I find it easier to start from scratch, not becoming closer with casual acquaintances (who, not having just been through the loss of you, seem as foreign to me as aliens on Uranus) but with those who work in all the places I frequent. There is Anwar at Aroma, who prepares my coffee every Sunday and Wednesday afternoons and has made a pact with me to speak only in Hebrew, though it is neither of our first languages. There is Carlos from Colombia, security guard by day and yeshiva student by night, who struck up a conversation on the bus when he noticed me learning daf yomi, and whom I stop to greet in my rudimentary Spanish whenever I pass by the store he guards. There is Rona behind the counter of the wine shop, who gave me fancy ribbons with which to wrap the colorful spices that I buy in bulk at the shuk and then package as gifts for friends. And there is Igor, the Russian dry cleaner, who showed me how to fashionably cuff my pants over my boots. These new friends know nothing about my past. They take me as I am, on my own terms, happy to see me whenever I show up at their respective posts.

Of course, my new friends do not afford me the pleasures of deep conversation; nor can they offer me a shoulder on which to cry. But for now, that is not what I need. In these rawest of moments I relish the hours alone. I think of a quote attributed to Balzac that was pasted in my locker way back in high school: "Solitude is fine. But you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine." These friends serve to legitimate my solitude (which is not even a total solitude, thanks to my beloved family and friends in m'dinat hayam). We are all, in some moments, alone; and in that sense we are all in this together, like millions and millions of frogs dotting the surface of the earth in anticipation of the promised redemption.

Reviewing the Reviews

When I was growing up, The New York Times Book Review arrived on our doorstep every Saturday morning with the rest of the paper, and I was always the first to read it. I had little interest in the front-page news; each week, I cast aside headlines about wars and elections and dove straight into the book review. I was excited to see what new books had come out, which of the authors I had already read had published a new book, and how readers had responded to the previous week's reviews. Later, when I began working in publishing, I had other reasons for my addiction to the Book Review section: I wanted to see whether any of the books I had worked on had made it to the bestseller list (um, never), and how the books published by rival companies had fared. I wouldn't leave the breakfast table until I had read the whole section cover to cover, which meant that on most Shabbat mornings, I arrived quite late to shul….

In Israel, where I live now, the book review section arrives as part of the Wednesday paper, and so I am finished with it long before Shabbat. Haaretz Sfarim has replaced (or, more accurately, supplemented) The New York Times Book Review in my reading diet, but I devour it just as voraciously. Haaretz, too, has a bestseller list modeled after the New York Times list (with all the same data, categories, and even the same layout); and Haaretz, like the Times, reviews about a dozen books in each issue. But that is where the similarities end, and the peculiarities of Israeli publishing and the Israeli literary community set in.

First of all, over half the books reviewed in each Haaretz Sfarim section are translated titles. Likewise, a significant number of the bestselling titles are Hebrew renderings of English, French, German, Spanish or Italian titles (in roughly that order of frequency). Often I find myself reading reviews of titles that were reviewed in the New York Times Book Review two years ago. It is a bit of a strange experience to read a Hebrew article about a biography of John Adams; though I suppose it feels no more incongruous than my Israeli friends' experience of reading books about Torah in English. And speaking of books about Jewish subjects, there is often at least one of those per issue; my favorite recently-reviewed Jewishly-related title was a book of recipes corresponding to the various weekly Torah portions, with lentil soup for Toldot and quail egg salad for B'haalotcha. Imagine seeing that one in the New York Times!

Other features of the Haaretz Sfarim section include a cartoon on the third page of every issue, which always involves at least one person who is reading a book. (A recent cartoon during the Gaza war was of a couple sitting in their living room absorbed in their books, oblivious to the air raid sirens blasting on the radio.) There is also the section on libraries, in which the owner of a vast home library somewhere in the country is profiled and asked several stock questions: How many books do you own? In which languages? What is your policy on lending books? Like the equally-fascinating "family" section in the weekly Haaretz magazine, which profiles a different Israeli family each week, this library profile is a reminder that in a country of seven million inhabitants, it is easier to depict the variegated whole by means of once-a-week samplings. Finally, each issue includes a literary riddle, in which the bookish detective A. Tzofia cracks a case by means of her familiarity with a particular work of literature. The identity of that work is left to the reader to figure out, and the answer is printed in the next week's issue. You can be sure that come the following Wednesday morning, I am one of the first people to check.

Written for The Jewish Agency for Israel's Makom: www.makom.haaretz.com.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Kidushin, Perek Aleph (האשה נקנית), Dapim 1-20

(2a)
How is a woman acquired?
When one of three things has transpired—
Give money, a writ,
Or just go and do "it"
("It" is sex. Should that be your desire.)

(2a)
You can go buy a woman with cash
(Buy a few if you've got a big stash.)
We know this from the field
Bought by Avram (whose shield
Was God). This purchase should not be rash!

(2b)
Is "Derech" a masculine noun?
Or feminine? Cases abound.
On matters semantic
The Talmud's pedantic.
"No way!" "Way!" This word gets around.

(2b)
The way of a man is to court
A woman. He does this for sport.
If you lose something dear
You go hunt far and near
It does not hunt for you. Men, cavort!

(3b)
The money that's paid for a wife
Does not go to the girl. She'd cause strife
If she kept all the bucks
It's for Dad. (Yes, it sucks—
He gets all, though she gives her whole life.)

(5b)
Can a woman say, "I hereby make
You my husband." That is, can she take
Him instead of vice versa
Say, give him her purse. A
Fair trade. But the deal would not take.

(7a)
A woman would rather be wed
Than lie all alone in her bed.
Better two bods than one—
Is it really more fun?
(She could buy a warm blanket instead?)

(7a)
"Half of you is now wed unto me"
Says the groom. Bu can such a thing be?
No, a woman's not fit
To be midway down split
If she weds, she weds full-bodily!

(7b)
"I will give you a penny right now
For your daughter. And also your cow."
Is the coin for the chick
Or for both? It's a trick--
Half a penny is never allowed.

(8b)
"With this coin I thee wed unto me"
She then tosses it into the sea.
The coin's gone forever
Is their bond now severed?
"I did it to test him!" (her plea).

(8b)
"Be my wife with this loaf of fresh bread."
A dog's chasing her! Soon she'll be dead!
She throws bread to the beast
It slows down for the feast
She escapes. Is she single, or wed?

(9a)
A man's picking dates from a tree.
She says, "Throw down two dates please for me"
He said, "If I so do
Will you then be my true
Wife?" "Throw fruit, please" she cries, eagerly.

(9b)
"Say, how much would you give for your son?"
"I have two dollars. I'd give you one."
"And how much for your gal?"
"That's about right, my pal."
They are wed! Raise a glass, everyone!

(9b)
An engaged woman waits to be wed
Ten men come and they rape her instead
When they get in her sack
They go in from the back.
Never mind! Stone them 'til they are dead.

(10a)
A girl's spouse-to-be starts penetrating
She accepts Kiddushin from one waiting
Patiently by her side.
Now we need to decide:
During sex, do we say they're still dating?

(10b)
Said Ben Bag Bag, "I don't understand—
All the sages say you're a smart man
That you know Torah's rooms--
Yet it's you who assumes
Eating truma – engaged women can."

(11a)
You discover a blemish. You say:
"I will not keep you, wife. Go away!"
If the servant's thus marred
You'd still keep her. Not hard
To see why. Wives are for work and play.

(11a)
If a woman takes as Kiddushin
Coins at night, when not much can be seen.
If she thinks it's a pruta
Then morning comes: "Shoot! A
Half pruta? That guy is obscene!"

(12a)
"You're my wife with this fine myrtle mat."
Cries the woman, "You think I'm worth that?"
He says, "Look deep inside
There are four coins that hide
There. Take those." Does the whole deal fall flat?

(13a)
There once was a woman who sold
Lovely ribbons. There came a man bold
He stole quite a few
She cried, "Give them back, you!"
He said, "Marry me." How do we hold?

(14a)
Chalitzah is done with a shoe
Take it off him, then throw it. You do
It with sneaker and sandal
But don't cause a scandal
With footwear he can't fit into.

(15a)
A slave may not wish for a wife
But his master may say, "Make new life!"
Then he must procreate
With a Canaanite date
Lest the master accuse him of strife.

(16a)
A Canaanite slave lost his arm
While plowing his master's great farm
The slave then goes free
Yes, indubitably--
It's the price he gets paid for his harm.

(16b)
When a Canaanite slave girl goes free
After six years laboriously
Spent, she gets some nice cash
At her big send-off bash
Hey girl, pocket the dough and then flee!

(18b)
A master may say to his slave-
Girl, "Fantastic are you! How I rave!
I shall make you all mine
In my bed, you'll fit fine."
Is she wed or engaged to the knave?

(19a)
Can a master say, "Servant girl, you
Are not quite right for me, it is true.
But I'll give you my son,
He's a minor, but hon'
He'll be yours someday." Can he thus do?

(20a)
All your slaves must be treated with care
With good mattress, good wine, and good fare.
Say, if you eat fine bread
Don't give stale cakes instead
To him. Ye who buy slaves should beware!

Waiting at Lights

I have joined the community of people who wait at traffic lights.
Curbside I stand, shuffle my feet—
Glance at the red—still red—and obey.
Strange for these moments, no rush and no bustle
No hazarding vainly:
Because I could not stop for lights
They'd kindly stop for me.
Off in the distance, the screech of a stop short, the rustle of trees in the wind.
Is this what it's like
To wait at a light?
Who knew?
Still. Red. I will not be cross,
Will not cross.
I smile and lift up my arm
To wave at the man on the other side
Waiting like me – does he think me a stranger?
Oh welcome me sir
To the community of people who wait at lights,
Greet me, entreat me
To enter this stillness, this silent suspension
This wondrously new world of waiting at lights.

The Women of Seder Nashim: לקראת סיום

We just finished Sefer Breishit and said Chazak chazak v'nitchazek -- these words have special resonance for me today as I mark my completion of Seder Nashim.

Nashim of course means women, but the connection between Seder Nashim and women is not necessarily obvious. The Seder consists of seven tractates – Yevamot (which deals with levirate marriage, that is, the plight of a woman whose husband dies leaving no heir), Ketubot (which deals with marriage contracts and the rules and regulations governing married life), Nedarim (about vows), Nazir (about the Nazir, the individual consecrates himself to God for a period of time), Sotah (about a woman suspected of adultery), Gittin (about bills of divorce) and Kiddushin (about the laws of betrothal). Five of these tractates deal with marriage and its dissolution, that is, the laws governing male-female relationships. But this does not explain Nedarim and Nazir. One possible explanation for the name Nashim is to be found in the Cambridge manuscript of Seder Nashim, which calls the first tractate of this Seder by the name Nashim (rather than Yevamot), since it begins with the phrase חמש עשרה נשים. If so, then the name Nashim may be as relevant to the actual content of the material it encompasses as the name Chayey Sarah is relevant to the content of that parsha -- that is, not very relevant at all.

To better understand the connection between the content of Seder Nashim and women, I thought I might look at how women are portrayed in this Seder. Here, though, I found two very different pictures, depending on whether I focused on the realm of halacha or aggadah. When it comes to the halachot of this tractate --which treats such questions as Which women are exempt from levirate marriage? How is a woman acquired by a man? May a woman deliver her own Get? When can a husband nullify his wife's vow?, among many others-- we find ourselves presented with a view of how men want social relations to work. In fact, I have heard that Nedarim is generally considered to be part of Seder Nashim because so much of it deals with the way women attempt to control men through their vows, and the way in which men respond by annulling them. In the normative world of the halachot of this Seder, we are confronted with a legal and social system created by men to control and domesticate women. But if halacha is the world as the rabbis thought it should be, then its counterpart, aggadah, gives us a glimpse of the rabbis' world as it actually was – filtered, of course, through the ever-delightful, ever-surprising rabbinic imagination. Here, the picture that emerges is startlingly different.

In the world of the Aggadah, we meet the women who carried their baskets of fish through the marketplaces where the rabbis shopped, tended the fires where they warmed their feet in the evening, and showed up in the rabbinic courts with claims against their neighbors. In the richly-imagined aggadot of Seder Nashim, we meet a young girl who, while sitting on her father's lap, announces to him who she wants to marry; and a woman who defiles herself during her period of Nezirut when she learns that her daughter has died; and a woman who comes before the greatest sage of her day to complain about the way in which her husband has intercourse with her. And then there are the women who are mentioned by name. With the help of Tal Ilan's book Mine and Yours are Hers, I counted twenty women in total who are mentioned by name in the aggadot of this Seder. In the hope of becoming better acquainted with the women of Seder Nashim, I have divided these women into four categories. Today I'd like to quickly run through each of the four categories --Dutiful wife, Aristocrat, Seductress, and Fabricated, Fantasy Woman-- and present one woman from each category through a story in which she is featured.

First, the Dutiful Wife. The most obvious example of this category is Rabbi Akiva's wife Rachel, discussed in both Ketubot (62b) and Nedarim (50a). She is the daughter of a wealthy man who marries the poor Akiva and allows him to leave her for 24 years to study Torah, a quality that the rabbis regard as praiseworthy. But in neither of these sugyot is Rachel mentioned by name, so I will focus instead on another figure, Imma Shalom, the wife of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.

In Nedarim 20a-b, amidst an extended discussion of the techniques of married sex between a man and his wife, a group of students ask Imma Shalom, "How is it that your sons are so exceedingly handsome?" She responds, "He does not make love to me at the beginning of the night or at the end of the night, and when he does, he uncovers one portion and covers another portion and appears as though possessed by demons." The word used for "make love" here is מספר, which conjures the image of Rabbi Eliezer whispering in his wife's ear during their cohabitation. Imma Shalom does not seem to have any problem with the fact that her husband sleeps with her while she is covered by a sheet -- she is quite obliging about the whole matter. When she asks Rabbi Eliezer why he acts in this manner, he tells her, "So that I do not lay my eyes on another woman." Imma Shalom serves, in this sugya, as a source for information on rabbinic sexual practices; though as the continuation of this sugya shows, these practices were probably not normative. Still, it is interesting that a woman was not afraid to speak openly about such intimate matters, and seems to do so with a degree of pride and self-assuredness.

The next category I would like to consider is the aristocratic woman, namely the case of Marta bat Baytos, who is introduced in Masechet Yevamot as the wife of the High Priest Joshua ben Gamla. The most extended treatment of Marta bat Baytos appears in Gittin 56a, which she is portrayed as a heartless millionairess of the period prior to the destruction of the Temple. During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, when provisions were scarce, she insists that her messenger bring her the choicest flour. But nothing he brings her satisfies her highly refined tastes, and so Marta decide to set out on her own in search of food. When she walks out, a piece of dung sticks to her heel and she dies instantly.

Marta bat Baytos is what we might call a priss; she cannot handle the sight of anything unrefined or undignified or beneath her station. I personally invoke her name any time I don't want to walk in the mud because I am wearing good shoes, or any time I step in dog poop (which happens quite often on the sidewalks of Jerusalem to those of us who read while walking). At these moments, I find myself reciting the verse that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai recited about Marta bat Baytos: "The most tender and delicately bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her food upon the ground" (Deut. 28:56).

Next, the woman as seductress. Here I briefly consider two examples, Cheruta and Choma. Cheruta is the infamous whore of Babylon, known to be sexually irresistible. In Kidushin 81b she is invoked by the wife of Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi, who is frustrated that her husband has not slept with her for several years. This is presumably his attempt to become more pious, yet each day he prostrates himself and cries, "May the Merciful One save me from the evil impulse." Chiya bar Ashi's wife has had it with her husband's tortured piety, so one day she dresses up like Cheruta and seduces her husband in the garden. Her husband succumbs, and then, wracked by guilt, walks in the door of the house and climbs into the burning hot oven, where he will not be consoled. Although Cheruta herself does not figure in this story, it is clear that she exerted a powerful hold over the imagination of both men and women in the Talmud's world; it is not surprising that her name, from Cherut, suggests total sexual freedom and licentiousness.

The other seductress whom I find too irresistible to omit from this discussion is Choma, the widow of Abayey, who insists that the court grant the allotment of wine that she feels is due to her upon her husband's death. Instead of elaborating on this story here, I will simply read a sonnet that I wrote about the sugya in which she figures, Ketubot 65a.

Sonnet: Ketubot 65a

Abayey's wife, named Choma, came to court
She barked, "Dole out my food!" So Rava did.
She then said, "Next my wine – now be a sport."
Fair Rava said, "I can't do as you bid."

"But hubby dear served wine in glasses tall!
How tall, you ask? I'll show you." Choma raised
Her hands above her head; her sleeves did fall
Revealing shoulders bright. So Rava gazed.

Quick, quick ran Rava home, his loins aflame
And laid his wife to bed. She gasped: "Explain!
Who was in court?" "Er…Choma was her name."
His wife's eyes flashed in envy, rage, disdain.

So Rava's wife beat Choma to the ground:
"You've killed three men," she screamed. "Now leave this town!"

Choma is an example of an Isha Katlanit, a deadly woman – that is, a woman who has been married to a series of men all of whom have died in her lifetime. This is what Rava's wife alludes to when she cries out, "You've killed three men!" This sugya suggests that for all that Abayey and Rava may have been Bar Plugta, any debate in the domesticated world of the Beit Midrash would have surely paled in comparison to this vicious confrontation between their wives….

Finally, the fabricated, fantasy woman. Here I am referring to midrashim about women's names, in which the name of the woman is the very essence of the story in which she is mentioned. The classic example in Seder Nashim (in Nedarim 66b) is that of Lichluchit, a woman who husband says to her, "I vow that I will not enjoy sexual relations with you unless you can show me one fair aspect of your physical appearance." The case is brought before the sage Rabbi Yishmael bar Rabbi Yose, who tries to find a way of forfeiting the man's vow. He asks, "Perhaps her head is fair?" But he tells her it is round. "Perhaps her hair is fair?" It resembles stalks of flax. "Perhaps her stomach is fair?" It sags. And on and on. In the end, the rabbi says to the husband, "Perhaps her name is fair?" and the husband responds that her name is Lichluchit, which means "filthy" or "soiled" (and is the modern Hebrew name for Cinderella). The sage rules, "It is fair that she is called Lichluchit since she is filthy in every aspect." And thus the vow is forfeited, and the woman is permitted to her husband. This sugya reminds me of Shakespeare's sonnet 130, "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun," which ends with the speaker declaring that although his mistress is flawed in all her features, she is redeemed by the fact that at least she is described accurately: "And yet by heaven," reads the sonnet, in the language not of a Neder but a Shvua, "I think my love more rare / as any she belied with false compare."

In dividing these women into four categories, I aim to create some sort of typology of the women of the Talmud, though of course this classification system is by no means exhaustive. So often, when the Talmud teaches one thing, it then goes on to teach its opposite; and thus no statement and no classification system can exist independent of the larger matrix of the corpus it represents. I think this point is well illustrated by referencing the Tosefta at the end of Kidushin, the last Masechet I learned and the one with which I will conclude my siyum in a few moments. The rabbis state on the final daf of Seder Nashim, "It is impossible to have a world without both males and females, but blessed is the one whose sons are male and woe to the one whose sons are female." The Tosefta discusses Avraham, who, as we know from Sefer Breishit which we also concluded this morning, had two sons: "And thus we see with Avraham our Father, whom God blessed in his old age more than in his youth, as it is written, 'And Avraham was old, coming on in years, and God blessed Avraham with everything [Bakol].'" The rabbis go on to discuss what is meant by "with everything" -- what was the nature of Avraham's blessing? Rabbi Meir says, "That he did not have a daughter." Several other opinions are offered. The final opinion, cited anonymously, is: "Avraham had a daughter and her name was Bakol." This is Talmudic subversiveness at its best -- הפוך בה והפוך בה, and Avraham's blessing becomes not his lack of sons but his daughter whose name was Bakol.

From here we move to the final sugya of the masechet, which is about the value of learning Torah, an activity which is declared as being preferable to all professions and trades. Here too, we hear echoes of Sefer Breishit – specifically of God's curse to Adam that he shall have to make his living by the sweat of his brow. I will read this final sugya through, as is traditional in a siyum, and then recite a sonnet on it:

Sonnet: Kidushin 82b

Shimon ben Elazar said: "No such thing
Is there as deer that take out figs to dry
No heavy burden bears the lion king
No cunning fox sells goods for men to buy.

Nay, only man doth plow and till and hoe
And work from dawn to dusk just to afford
His food. Though beasts serve man, they do not know
Of toil. Why must man, who serves the Lord?

For labor is man's punishment for sin."
Nehorai thought, "Well, that's a rotten lot.
I'd give up every job, I'd trade it in
And train my son in Torah. Heck, why not?

A job may suit a young man when he's spry;
But Torah gives old men the wings to fly."

I feel fortunate to have a profession that enables me to study Torah, and a community that supports me in this pursuit. May Torah be a source of strength for all of us – Chazak, chazak, v'nitchazek.

Hadran….

Code Orange: Towards a Theory of Romantic Love

My friend Dave showed up for our weekly midrash chevruta with stars in his eyes. His face was glowing and he seemed to be reeling as he stood there before me inside the doors of the coffee shop where we always meet. "Ilana, I'm in love," he told me, holding on to a table as if to prevent himself from falling over.

We did not learn very much Breishit Rabbah that day. Dave wanted to tell me all about his beloved – where he met her, what makes her so extraordinarily special, and why he is sure that she is "the one." I listened patiently, smiled at the appropriate moments, and registered my (genuine) happiness at seeing my friend in such good spirits. "Ilana," he told me, still gushing. "I always thought that relationships had to be difficult. Now I realize that they are only difficult when you are with the wrong person. In the two weeks we've been together, I've totally revised my theory of relationships. I'm just so happy!" I resisted the impulse to raise my eyebrows, and continued to smile.

The next morning at work, our assistant Mara knocked on my office door. "Hi, I'm here," she told me, and I noticed a new lilt in her voice. "You look good today," I told her, as indeed she did. "Yes, I'm good, I'm very good. I met a man yesterday!" she told me, and once again. I submitted to the blow-by-blow account.

In listening first to Dave and then to Mara, it was clear to me that they are in the Orange stage of their relationships, as I like to refer to it. This term is a reference to a poem by Wendy Cope, which by this point I have emailed to Dave and to Mara and to countless other friends who have come to me with glowing eyes and with romantic reports. I paste it here in full:

The Orange
By Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

Cope describes those glowing first moments of romantic love, in which we feel a newfound "peace and contentment" and even the smallest pleasures, like a huge orange, can bring a smile to our faces. This is a feeling familiar to many, I would hazard. Psycho-pharmacologists tell us that when we first fall in love, the brain releases dopamine and norepinephrine, two neurotransmitters that contribute to increased energy, rapid pulse, a sense of heightened perception, and a more positive outlook on life. Romantic love is thus not just an intense emotional experience, but a somatic one as well. Our body chemistry shifts when we fall in love, to such an extent that suddenly the very simple fact that we manage to complete all our chores can make us want to affirm how happy we are to be alive.

As well we should. We all reach for the proverbial orange when it presents itself on the Tree of our Lives. We all offer slices to those around us, regaling them with our rosy romantic reports. We relish the newfound peace and contentment, and we delight in saying those words for the first time yet again: "I love you."

Sadly, though, you can't have your orange and eat it too. The sweetness lingers on our lips for a while, but at some point the fruit is no more and we are left with pieces of peel, and thin white strings, and perhaps (if we have high standards) the transparent membrane that we've carefully removed from each individual slice. How many of us, at this stage, can still recite wholeheartedly the final line of Wendy Cope's poem?

I am an ardent believer in the miracle of romantic love, but I believe that it is, by necessity, short-lived -- even if the relationship itself turns out to be a lifelong one. It's impossible to see the world through orange-tinted glasses forever. And so as a counterpart to Wendy Cope, I offer the following poem, which I have read over many lonely lunches with no oranges to eat and no one to share them with:

Chorale
By Kevin Young

Quite difficult, belief.
Quite terrible, faith

that the night, again,
will nominate

you a running mate–
that we are of the elect

& have not yetfound out.
That the tide

still might toss us up
another–what eyes

& stars, what teeth!
such arms, alive–

someone we will, all
night, keep. Not

just these spiders
that skitter & cobweb,

share my shivering bed.

The Whore of Babylon (Kidushin 81b)

My translation from Ruth Calderon's Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi lies on the stone floor, spreadeagled. He is praying.

There is no one else at home. It is market day, and his wife is out. He enjoys being alone in an empty house. Only this way does he find peace. It is strange, since the whole world lies open to him: the study house, the courtroom, the inn where he sometimes sleeps on fair days. She, his wife, is quiet and earnest, always in her corner between the stove and the stove, in a kerchief and gown. Twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, she goes out to the market.

"May the Merciful One save me from the evil impulse!" This is a prayer he utters frequently. His body lies close to the foundation stone of the house, his limbs still sprawled out around him. His face is to the ground. He seeks to ward off untoward thoughts. He prays with great fervor and concentration, until his heart pulses to the rhythm of his prayers.

One day she came home by chance. In the morning she had prepared bread as was her custom each day, and as it was Monday, she set out for the market. When she left home he was standing in prayer, wrapped in his Tefillin. Shortly thereafter, she realized she had forgotten the basket of fish, and came back to retrieve it. The basket was not particularly important; she could have easily put the fish somewhere else. But it would contain the smell of the fish, which would otherwise stink up the fresh fruit. In any case, she returned at that very moment when he did not intend for anyone to see him. He thought he had the house all to himself when he cried: "May the Merciful One save me from the evil impulse! May the Merrrcifful One saaaave meeee from the eeeevil impulsse!"

She was shocked to see her husband looking like a different man entirely. His body lay naked on the floor. He was without his usual pride and glory, without his characteristically even tone off voice. "And to think," she mused, "For several years he has not slept with me. What evil impulse could he possibly be so afraid of?" A sense of insult flared up inside her. Was there another woman?

She crept out of the room quietly and retreated to a side room. She stood in front of the mirror, passing her hand over the lines of her face. Her reflection was like the face of an elderly woman. Her kerchief was drawn tightly over her forehead, concealing her hair. Her eyes were sunken. Deep wrinkles lined both sides of her nose. She tried to smile, but her cheeks were like stones. Each Friday evening she would hope for him to approach her bed, which was carved into the wall, but each Friday evening she was once again disappointed.

"Bless you for reaching this point, for not clucking at one another like chickens," said the rabbi when she came to him somewhat embarrassed. She wanted to know whether they were still obligated in the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," and whether her husband was still obligated to satisfy her sexually. The rabbi set her mind at ease or at least got rid of the pain, like dirt swept hastily into the corner of the room. But now the dirt was visible again.

She fled outside, without the accursed basket. She walked distraught nearly all the way to the market. The color fled from her pale cheeks and her heart beat rapidly. She thought only of her pain and shame.

When she returned back home her face was restored to its natural color. She set a pot to boil on the stove, rinsed fruits and vegetables, preserved the leftover quinces, sliced cucumbers for pickling. All the while, she concocted a plan.

On Thursday she left the house for market as usual, early in the morning. But instead of turning towards the western part of the market, where her fellow housewives made their way among the stalls, she continued on, as if in a daze. She headed in the direction of the caravans, towards the foreign vendors whose stalls lay beyond the purview of a proper woman. These vendors came from far off and sold clothes, spices, and jewelry to simple, ordinary women. Bangles jingled on their ankles. She approached, and with clenched hands she counted out her coins. She handed over half the money reserved for fruit and all the money set aside for fish, as well as the small sum she saved from week to week to buy a new cloth for the Sabbath table. As if in a dream, she selected a dress, jewels, sandals, and a belt, as well as a bundle of myrrh. She unfolded her sack and placed everything inside, and then left without saying a word.

At an earlier hour than usual she set her steps towards home. Nothing felt normal. The world was awry. "The honor of the king's daughter is within" (Psalms 45:14), she hummed to herself until she came to the alley that led to their house. In a secluded corner she put on the revealing dress, fastened the belt, freed her long hair from her kerchief, tied a dangling jewel around her wrist and a bangle around her ankle. The bangle set a new rhythm to her stride and her temples pulsed. "How lovely are your feet in shoes" (Song of Songs 7:2). She tied the bundle of myrrh around her neck so that it swayed between her breasts. After she finished getting dressed, she applied eye shadow to her eyelids with an unpracticed hand. When she approached the water cistern in the yard, she saw the face of a different woman entirely reflected in the water: the face of Libertina, she who instilled fear in all married women. "I am Libertina, the great whore of Babylon" she whispered. "May the Merciful One save you."

At that very moment, Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi was learning in the garden. A light breeze passed among the branches of the pomegranate and olive trees. The mishnah he was learning was difficult and his mind was unfocused. Suddenly he saw before him the image of a woman -- and what a woman she was! "What, who are you?" he asked, as if spellbound. "I am Libertina. I just returned," she replied indulgently, enjoying the game. She was surprised to find that she knew the rituals of courtship. She made her way towards him to the garden, at once close and distant, familiar and foreign. Her movements aroused him, quickening the pace of his heart.

He demanded that she sleep with him there on the dust among the weeds and thorns, where small rocks would cut into his flesh. He undressed like a man possessed, his body exposed to the world as if he were a dog. He scratched, he licked, he lusted; he craved the taste of her breath but she eluded his grasp again and again, until he pressed her desperately against the trunk of the tree, his hand on her nipple, and penetrated her like a sharpshooter. Then he moaned. It was different from anything he had ever known with his wife, with any woman ever. It brought him closer to the Merciful One than all of his prayers.

When he caught his breath again she asked, her expression firm, that he bring her a pomegranate from the top branch. He did not dare refuse her. His legs were covered in scratches from the tree branches, and when he climbed down the branch beneath him broke and he tumbled down after it. She took the fruit from his hand, casting a scornful glance at his open robe, his unkempt beard, the sweat on his brow.

When he limped into the house his wife was already lighting the stove. He felt as if his torn clothing and his scratches betrayed what he had done. He worried that the scent of Libertina clung to him and to his hair, which was still disheveled even after he combed through it with his fingers. His heart and soul felt undone too. There was no way to take back what he had done. He was consumed by guilt.

As if he were setting out on a long journey, he looked over at the bench beside the stove which seemed suddenly so inviting. He cast a parting glance at the carved beds, the washing corner, the good woman who had borne him his children, who had once made his spirit dance when he peered at her through the lattice from the men's section of the synagogue. The fire in the stove burned high and red, until the coals calmed to a steady blue. He entered the stove and sat inside.

With her two strong arms she pulled out his faint body, and it was as if he was being birthed from inside the stove. When he awoke, his legs were wrapped in rags soaked in oil. She asked quietly, "Why?"

For a moment he remained silent, and then he told her the whole story. The words flowed from his mouth as if he were feverish, as if he could not hide anything from her now. He had decided earlier that there was no point in confessing to her, that it would only cause her pain, that it was better to stay silent, that she would not be able to understand. She listened calmly, and when he finished she said, "It was I."

He knew that this was his opportunity for love, even redemption, but he averted his glance. "But in any case, my intention was to sin," he told her.

She raised her arm as if to object, and her wrist jingled. She unfastened the jeweled bracelet and placed it on the kitchen table.

This story is based on a sugya from Kidushin 81b, translated here:

Rabbi Chiya ben Ashi,
Whenever he would prostrate himself in prayer,
Would say: "May the Merciful One save me from the evil impulse!"
One day his wife heard him.
She said: "Given that for several years he has not engaged in sexual relations with me,
Why is he saying that?"
One day he was learning in his garden.
She adorned herself, passed by, and came before him.
He said to her: "Who are you?"
She said: "I am Libertina (Cheruta). I've just returned from a day of work."
He demanded that she sleep with him.
She said to him: "Bring me that pomegranate from the top of the tree."
He jumped up and brought it to her. When he came home, his wife was lighting the stove.
He went and sat inside it.
She said, "What is this about?" He said, "Such and such happened."
She said to him: "It was I."
He said to her: "But in any case, my intention was to sin."

Striking passages from Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches (read on Shabbat Chanukah)

"When I lit the fire this morning, a pompadour styling of flame came forward from underneath and swooped back around a half-detached piece of bark. Right now there is one flame near the front that has a purple under painting but a strong opacity of yellows and oranges and whites: it is flapping like one of those pennants that used to be strung around the used-car lots. You don't see those so much anymore: multicolored vinyl triangular flags on cords that hopeful sales managers hung from pole to pole to offer a sense of carnival."

"I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, Be careful, stay away from this train or it will run you over and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night?"

"Our bedroom was still quite dark when I got up. I felt for my glasses on the bedside table in the tender way one uses for glasses, as if one's fingers are antennae, so as not to get smears on them."

"What you do first thing can influence your whole day. If the first thing you do is stump to the computer in your pajamas to check your email, blinking and plucking your proverbs, you're going to be in a hungry electronic funk all morning. So don't do it."

"'You've got to get cold to get warm,' Phoebe said. Now that is the truth. That is so true about so many things. You learn it first with sheets and blankets: that the initial touch of the smooth sheets will send you shivering, but their warming works fast, and you must experience the discomfort to find the later contentment. It's true with money and love, too. You've got to save to have something to spend. Think of how hard it is to ask out a person you like. In my case, Claire asked me to go on a date to the cash machine, so I didn’t actually have to ask her. Still, her lips were cold, but her tongue was warm."

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Gittin: Perek Gimel כל הגט

(24a)
A man wrote a Get, changed his mind
Then that same Get another did find
The men had the same names
And so too did their dames
But the Get can't be reused, re-signed.

(24b)
A man cannot say to his scribe
"Write a Get for some wife in my tribe."
No, he must clearly state
Which wife. Must designate
By her name -- or at least must describe.

(25a)
Write a Get for the wife who comes first
Through the door. Is that poor woman cursed?
Which is former, which latter
This is not a matter
In his hands. It could be reversed.

(25a)
Said a father: We'll now have a race
And the child that comes in first place
For him I will slaughter
(What if it's a daughter?)
The Paschal lamb in God's home base.

(26a)
Shmuel says: Every Get must have space
For this line to be written some place:
"Behold you're permit-
Ted to all men befit-
Ting." Or else she's still his to embrace.

(26b)
Don't put names on a Get in advance
To avoid some such bad circumstance
Of a dame who walks by,
Hears her name on the fly
Spoken by a Get-scribe, just by chance.

(26b)
A Get's like a gun. Do not keep
One around in the house where you sleep.
For you might have a fight
With your wife late one night,
Hand it over, and oh! How she'd weep.

(27a)
If you drop your wife's Get in the street
And then find it beneath others' feet.
May the Get still be given
Though it has been ridden
Over by most people you meet?

(27a)
If a lost Get turns up in a box;
In the wallet of one with gray locks
In a fact'ry for flax
In the market stall sacks
Is the marriage now still on the rocks?

(27b)
How long may a Get go astray
Such that it if it is found, it's OK?
For as long as no man
Passed; or no caravan
For the time 'til you read it, you say?

(28a)
When the Get-giving man is quite old
At the age of strength (eighty, we're told)
If he hands you the Get
He may die while you've yet
To deliver. Think he's not yet cold?

(29a)
If the court proclaims: "Husband is dead."
Do you let the wife go and re-wed?
He might not yet be
Dead indubitably
Even courts have at times, yes, misled!

(30a)
Said the man to his wife, "Have no fear
Have this Get if I do not appear
Back within thirty days."
There were dreadful delays
O'er the river, he called out, "I'm here!!"

(30b)
Death is more common than wealth
People sadly can lose their good health
But they don't find a stash
Often of lots of cash
Got rich quick? We suspect you of stealth.

(31a)
Check your Truma wine three times a year:
When the gust of the east wind you hear,
When the grape clusters show
When with water they grow
Make sure it's not now vinegar, dear!

(31b)
God sent a big wind that beat hard
Down on Jonah's head. Thereby it marred
His day. Jonah grew faint
And quite full of complaint
That's the east wind – against it do guard!

(31b)
You may think of the wind as quite mild
But the "Shadya" wind grows very wild!
It can make a pearl rot,
Make one's seed go to pot
Cause a woman to lose her next child!

Parashat Vayetze: An Edible Midrash

Marshmallow angels with split pea eyes

climb up and down a candy ladder

above a pile of chocolate avnei hamakom

flanked by gummy dudaim

and white (Lavan) Elite chocolate cows

Poem for Parashat Vayetze

ותאמר לאה ליעקוב

נפגעתי, נרדמתי על מקומך הקשה
גופי נפרש כסולם
שתי ידיך, כמלאכים, עלו וירדו בי
ודשו את קרבי לאינספור גרגרי חול
לא ניתן להבחין ביניהם—
לא ניתן להבחין ביני לבינה
(אכן הייתי במקומה – ואתה לא ידעת)
מכל שתתן לי, בתי היא לך.

You're Invited to View My Photos!!!

I'm invited to view your photos!!!
But maybe, just maybe, I couldn't care less?
Your swaddled new infant, in pink cap or blue cap
In mom's arms, then dad's arms, then still, fast asleep.
I've seen it before, far too many times over
First smile! First bottle! First eyes open wide—
Well I can't be wide-eyed! Your blah blah baby bores me.
I can't ooh and ahh when you cry "He adores me."
So thanks for the photos, and sorry to Snap-
Fish around for another to view the whole slide show.
Though I'm sad to miss out on what Baby just did now,
Delete! To the trash! He's a garbage pail kid now.
The phone rings. It's you: "Did you look at my beauty?"
I grimace. I pause. I squeal: "Oh what a cutie!"

Nessya

My friend Nessya lives in the Katamonim neighborhood, on one of the long residential streets that winds its way slowly down south to Malcha. It is a poor section of Jerusalem, but a warm and friendly place to live – most people know each other by sight and greet one another by name, and on Shabbat afternoon they sit on their porches and talk in large groups until after the sun goes down.

Nessya is a Persian woman in her mid-sixties who came to Israel as a young girl. When she walks down her street, everyone knows who she is, and everyone stops to say hi -- not because of anything she has accomplished, but because of who she is. Nessya regards this as a tremendous kindness because she is blind, and as she tells me, "People can walk right by me without my noticing. But they still stop to say hi. Such good people!" One day we meet her neighbor Batshie (short for Batsheva), who stops to give Nessya a big hug. "So, what is new with Efrat," Nessya asks – she knows the name of Batshie's daughter who has been trying to have a baby for several months, and is eager to hear a good report. "Soon, soon," Batshie tells her, and Nessya responds with a blessing: "May it be God's will, please God, please God."

Nessya is one of the most devout people I know, and not just because she invokes God's name in nearly every sentence. She also knows how to see God's hand at work in the world. "It is a miracle," she told me on the day the bus stop was returned. That stop had been outside her home for years and years, which was the main reason that she was able to get to work each morning. She had taught herself to walk the twenty-five steps from her apartment to the bus stop: down seven stairs to the ground floor, straight ahead four steps on the stone porch leading up to the building, down three steps to the curb, right three steps to the crosswalk, and eight steps across the street right into the embracing glass walls of the bus stop. When the bus stop was moved three blocks down, she could no longer go to work: how would she ever find her way alone? Her neighbors marshaled behind her, petitioning the municipality and carrying posters with her picture. The stop was returned, and thus Nessya could go back to her normal schedule. "I have yet another reason to thank God," she told me.

But this was not the end of her transportation troubles. A few months ago, construction of the light rail began on Jaffa Street, which is the main road that Nessya takes to work. Because of the construction, bus routes were changed, and what was once one bus between Nessya's home and her office is now three buses. "Three buses!" she told me in a panic. "That means that three times I have to wait at the bus stop and hope that there is someone else there who can tell me which bus is approaching. Three times I need to make my way onto the bus and find a place to sit, and then find someone who will tell me when we get to my stop and help me off. Do you know how many angels I need to meet in a single morning in order to get to work?"

Fortunately, Nessya met one angel who eliminated the need for any others. Her neighbor Yigal noticed her at the bus stop one morning and offered to give her a ride. Yigal is a tax driver who needs to clock in at the taxi stand in Geula, where Nessya works, each morning at 7am. He insisted that Nessya get in his car, and has been travelling with her for three consecutive days now, happy to be able to help. "I prayed to God to help me solve the problem of how to get to work, and look what happened! God sent Yigal to redeem me."

With the start of Kislev, the month that culminates in Chanukah, I find myself thinking about miracles and light and what it means to be saved. I think of Nessya, whose name means "miracle of God." Though she is poor, she thinks only of her good fortune; though she is blind, she manages, somehow, to always find the light.

Black Dogs

Today I was surrounded by eight ferocious dogs and saved by the power of Torah.

I was jogging, as I often do, near Ramat Rachel, a kibbutz hotel near the southern part of Jerusalem that overlooks Bethlehem and the Judeaen hills. Usually when I run that route, I go no further than the giant statue of the matriarch Rachel who stands tall and proud with two little children clinging to the hem of her skirt. The base of the statue bears an inscription from the book of Jeremiah: "And the children shall return to their borders" (31:16), part of the prophecy about a future time when Joseph's sons will be restored to their land. At this point, I pause for a moment to read these words about returning, and then turn around and head back north.

This is generally a route I run on Friday mornings, when I can listen to Reshet Moreshet, the frum radio station that broadcasts songs about that week's parsha from 8-9am. I time my runs accordingly, ending at about 9am at the shuk, where I buy fresh challot for Shabbat and take the bus home. I run with several items in my back pocket: shopping list, bus pass, house key, some money, MP3 player, and a folded-up Xerox of my leyning for that Shabbat, which I review when I ride the bus back.

This week I am training for a race, so I decided to run on Monday as well. As usual, I headed to Ramat Rachel. Instead of Reshet Moreshet (which broadcasts in the mornings only on Fridays) I listened to a daf yomi shiur about how land and moveable property are acquired. Inspired perhaps by all the talk of vast expanses of land for sale, I decided to run a bit further and head into the fields behind the hotel, which contain 200 olive trees planted in concentric rows. Part of me knew I was being a little daring in running in a deserted field near an Arab neighborhood, but I was engrossed in my shiur and light on my feet, and I threw caution to the wind.

I ran to the edge of the olive grove and looked out over Har Choma until I could run no further, and then I turned around. Off in the distance I saw a dog looking at me suspiciously, but I continued onwards down the dirt path. When next I was aware of what was going on, there were several dogs in the distance all barking to one another and looking angrily in my direction. The dogs came closer. They barked louder. They came closer still, and barked louder still. Soon I was surrounded by eight dogs at waist level, all barking angrily and running alongside me.

Terrified, I remember thinking that it was most important that I not show the dogs that I was scared. I thought about a scene in the most recent Maisie Dobbs novel I read, in which the beloved British postwar sleuth thinks she is alone in an abandoned barn when all of a sudden a threatening dog rears its head. Maisie, through intense powers of concentration, manages to calm her whole body so that the dog, convinced that she is not afraid, backs off. If only I can stay calm like Maisie, I thought, I'll be OK. Then my thoughts drifted to more frightful literary canines, the terrifying black dogs of Ian McEwan's eponymous novel. I thought of June Tremaine's encounter with those savage bloodthirsty beasts in the French countryside in the months after World War II, and I shivered as I always do when I think of that nightmarish scene. Unlike Maisie, I had no way of calming myself down; unlike June, I did not have a knife in my pocket. My literary imagination could distract me for only so long; how was I going to ward off the very real dogs that were surrounding me there and then in that very moment?

The Kiddushin shiur was still playing in my ears; just as I had not thought to stop running, I also did not think to turn off my MP3 or take off my headphones. If someone hands over ten animals all tied with one halter and says "acquire this," are all of the animals acquired? (Kiddushin 27b). Dear me. Given the subject of today's daf, I was not likely to forget myself any time soon.

The next thing I knew, a verse was running through my mind: "A beloved doe, a graceful mountain goat" (Proverbs 5:19). Surrounded as I was by dogs, I was not sure why I was suddenly beset by words about does and goats. And then I realized: This was the verse that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi used to quote when people would ask him how he could draw so close to lepers. "Do you not worry that you will get sick?" they would ask. "A loving doe, a graceful mountain goat," Ben Levi would respond. "If Torah graces those who learn it, will it not also protect me?" (Ketubot 77b). I recited Ben Levi's words to myself again and again: "If Torah graces those who learn it, will it not also protect me?"

Somehow inside me I sensed that with the shiur playing in my ears, I would come out of this situation OK. I thought about King David who learned that he was destined to die on the Sabbath and therefore spent every Sabbath studying Torah; so long as he was learning, the Angel of Death was unable to overcome him (Shabbat 30b). I thought about the Gemara in Sotah which interprets the verse: "When you walk it will guide you" (Proverbs 6:23) to mean that Torah protects us wherever we walk in this world (21a). Is Torah not a tree of life to those who cling fast to it? The olive trees around me swayed in the breeze, as if nodding in agreement.

Just as I was running out of sugyot about the protective power of Torah, I came to the main road at the edge of the field and saw a truck in the distance. I did not want to cry out lest I provoke the dogs, but I began waving my hands wildly in the air, and the truck turned in my direction. The dogs, seeing the approaching truck, immediately dispersed, their barks growing fainter and their heads hanging low in defeat. I thanked the driver for rescuing me, but I knew the true source of my salvation.

My heart slowed to its normal exercise pace as I made my way back down towards Derech Chevron. Next time I jog, I hope to find a running partner (or should I say a chevruta?). And graceful mountain goat notwithstanding, next time I'm sticking to the main road.

Poem for Parashat Noach

Each day the forecast says rain.
I sit on the edge of my bed with one leg outstretched—
Zip up high boots and go out in the dry,
Un-puddle-wonderful world.

Each night my galleon pillow tosses between trembling hands
In the stormy seas of our watershed weeping:

The end of all flesh has now come!
Let the world we have made be undone!

Remorseful, resigned until morning comes
Lift up the latch; let in the light
Welcome the dove with this olive branch offered:
Those who were saved came in two
By two
by two
by two
by me, too.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Gittin: Perek Bet המביא גט

(15a)
"I saw this Get written, not signed"
Said the witness. We hold that's not fine.
We need witnesses two
Who avow: "It is true:
Saw them write it and sign on the line."

(16a)
If two people dip in a sea
That has just enough water to be
Kosher – Can we then say
Both of them are okay?
If they dip simultaneously.

(16b)
Three rabbis discussed in the night
Laws of Gets brought from far -- what's all right?
'Til a Persian priest came,
Put an end to their game,
For he took from them their only light.

(17a)
If your niece one day becomes your wife
And she cheats, but you do not feel strife
You can pre-date a Get
Say, "I'd already let
Her go free. Do not ruin her life!"

(18a)
An "old Get" is one that you write
Prior to a grand rendezvous night
With the wife you had written
That finest of gittin
For. That Get has no force or might.

(18b)
If a man says to ten folks: "Hey guys
Write a Get for the wife I despise."
Must then all ten men sign
On the "witnesses" line
Many problems could therefore arise!

(19a)
Write a Get in invisible ink
Or in fruit juice (how that Get would stink!)
You can't give it to her
So the sages aver
Yes, a Get must last – what did you think?

(19a)
An illiterate witness can't write
His name on a Get. That's all right!
You can carve out his name
He can sign just the same
By inking his name bold and bright.

(19b)
Says a man to his wife, "Here's your Get,"
Throws it into the river. Regret
Gets the better of him
Or perhaps, on a whim,
He says, "'Twas just blank paper – now wet."

(19b)
Does a Torah scroll count as a Get
It contains the right verses; and yet
Would the Sofer aver
It was written for her?
Still, it won't say her city. Hence nyet!

(20b)
"Here is your Get, but the paper
Belongs to me" – Some stingy caper!
That is not a divorce
(The poor woman, of course –
She's be better off with a [sic] raper!)

(21a)
Write a Get on the hand of a slave
That is, one that the husband then gave
To his wife. That's Okay,
So is handing her, say,
A slave who in his hand the Get waves.

(21b)
An edible Get – what's the deal?
Does it bear the kosher stamp and seal?
Yossi HaGlili says: "No!
Must be book-like, you know.
Did a book ever serve as a meal?"

(21b)
A Get can't be stuck to the ground
It must be something carried around.
Can a tree or a plant
Be a Get? No they can't--
But an olive-leaf Get would be sound.

(22a)
A tree planted in holy ground
Gets its sunlight from some land surround-
Ing Israel. This tree,
Do the rabbis agree?
Do we tithe from it? Where is it found?

(23a)
Any Israelite may bring a Get
Save the deaf, blind, not Bar Mitzvah yet.
But what if he's blind
Then his sight he does find?
He could not see it signed, rabbis fret.

(23a)
A blind man cannot see a thing
Thus no image can any bells ring.
Well then how does he know
It's his *wife* who does go
With him into his bed, not his fling?

(24a)
Her own Get a woman may bring.
Yes, the rabbis allowed such a thing
When the husband said "Take
Up the Get when you make
It to that place." "I'm free!" she can sing.

The Shofar of Theseus (Rosh Hashanah 27a-b)

The Mishnah in Masechet Rosh Hashanah considers the question of what constitutes a kosher shofar:

"A shofar that cracks and is put back together is not kosher. If one sticks together various broken shofar pieces to make a shofar, it is not kosher."

The first case refers to a shofar that is broken and then restored; the second case refers to a shofar made of the component parts of other shofarot. According to the mishnah, neither may be used in fulfilling the obligation of hearing the shofar blast.

The Gemara explores the ram-ifications of this ruling:

"If one adds on extra materials to put together the shofar, whether of the same type of material or a different type, it is not kosher. If one seals up a hole, whether with the same type of material or a different type, it is not kosher. Rabbi Natan says: With the same type of material it is kosher; with a different type of material, it is not.

With the same type of material it is kosher, says Rabbi Yochanan, in the case that the majority of the original shofar remains intact. And from these principles we can conclude that if it is put together with a different type of material, even though the majority may remain intact, it is not kosher.

Some apply this principle to the end of the statement [of Rabbi Natan]. With a different type of material it is not kosher, says Rabbi Yochanan, in the case that the majority no longer remains. And from these principles we can conclude that if it is put together with the same type of material, even if the majority no longer remains, it is kosher."

This mishnah calls to mind the ancient Greek paradox known as the Ship of Theseus, which deals with the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object. Consider a ship that is comprised of wooden planks. One plank decays, and is replaced by a new plank. Then another plank decays, and it too is replaced. This process continues until none of the original planks remain. Is the vessel still the same ship?

This paradox was first recorded by Plutarch in the first century:

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”

In light of this philosophical paradox, we might refer to the shofar of our sugya as the Shofar of Theseus, since it, too, remains intact only by having its parts replaced (or at least re-assembled). When considered in this light, it becomes clear that this is a sugya about when things change and when they stay the same. When is a shofar still a kosher shofar, and when is it changed beyond recognition?

I find this an interesting way of formulating the question because the shofar, of course, is the instrument of change. We blast the shofar during the month of Elul and on the high holidays that follow so as to remind ourselves that the time of teshuva is upon us. We must mend our ways! This is the time to cast out all those parts of ourselves that we are better off without, and to replace them with smoother, shinier spares. How do we remain true to ourselves amidst this rigorous self-analysis and self-reconstitution? How do we, in spite of the many refrains of "we have sinned, we have sinned," view ourselves as more than just pieces of dust? To invoke the language of Humpty-Dumpty: When all the King's horses and all the King's men have examined our every inner chamber, how do we put ourselves back together again?

Perhaps the challenge of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is to be able to tear ourselves apart with our intense introspection, and yet nonetheless to remain whole. To remain true to ourselves even while changing ourselves. If this sounds like a paradox, at least it is not without philosophical (and prophetic!) precedent. From down in the bowels of Theseus' ship--from the belly of Sheol in whose depths we, like Yonah, are cast--may we learn to cry out to God in true prayer and may we be delivered.

Yishmael My Son, Bless Me (Brachot 7a)

My translation from Ruth Calderon's
Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

The sanctuary is silent. All alone, Rabbi Yishmael crosses the twenty-two cubit distance between the antechamber and the altar. Further and further inside, beyond the curtains that are always drawn, as if walking through water and coming ever closer to its source. He has already immersed himself five times in the ritual waters, and his body is as soft as a freshly-laundered garment. Now, dressed in four articles of clothing like one of the regular priests, he is conscious of his exposed forehead, which is usually covered with the gold plate bearing the words "holy to the Lord." In his hands is a firepan made of beaten gold containing finely-ground incense. Its smell enters his nostrils and the smoke rises like a pillar, parting the hallway before him. The smoke from the incense trembles and then is still, like a solid black candle.

His mind is filled with thoughts of the cows, rams, and sheep that passed before the priests in the evening in preparation for the sacrifices. He thinks of the Jerusalem elders who came to make sure he stayed awake all night, as was the custom. Their voices can still be heard in his ears, like the roar of a distant ocean inside a conch shell. His ears are no longer his; his eyes are no longer his; his sleep is no longer his. His whole body has become a sacred vessel. When he parts the last curtain, he can feel the tautness of the string that is tied around his right ankle. This is the string with which the other priests will drag out his body, should anything go awry in the Holy of Holies.

The inner sanctum is filled with the smell of the past. Yishmael has never been able to describe what it is like to his family at home. It is a different space than anything he has ever seen before. He walks inside, his heart quaking with each step. He can feel his own death like a ghostly presence. Dizzy and exhausted after a night of no sleep, he feels the weight of the day's labors on his shoulders. As if performing the steps of a complicated dance, his minds runs through the morning immersion to the confessional beside the sacrifical cow, and from there to the lottery box where the goats were designated—one for God and one for Azazel, and then to the cliff where the latter goat was sent off into the wilderness, and then another confession and sacrifice and another collection of blood in a bowl, followed by the removal of the firepans.

Although he is alone in the Temple, he feels beleaguered by the priestly elders who seem to be peering at him with expectant eyes, measuring each step he takes and each wave of his hand. He is seized by a sense of fear: What if he is not worthy? What if he makes a mistake? His mouth is filled with the words of the confessional prayer: "I have strayed, I have sinned, I have transgressed before you, I and my household. Because on this day I will atone for you to purify you of all your sins. You shall be purified before God." He remembers his hands resting on the head of the cow and the shudder that ran through the animal's body, its sharp smell, its vigor and strength. He had leaned with all his weight on its great back, trying to lose all his anxieties and doubts in the warm flesh.

The names of the various types of blood used in sacred worship are as strange to his ears as song lyrics in a foreign tongue: Blood of the skin, blood of the soul, blood of the essence. The meaning of these terms eludes him, though he has memorized what he must do: "The firepan is in his right hand and the spoon is in his left hand, until the high priest comes between the two curtains which separate the Holy from the Holy of Holies, which are a cubit apart. He walks between them until he comes to the northernmost part. Then he turns and faces south, and walks to his left along the length of the curtain until he reaches the ark." He can recite these words by heart, but they do not seem to accord with the dark hallway in which he finds himself. Where is the ark? He steps through the thick darkness into the Holy of Holies.

Yishmael senses a presence, as if someone is watching him. He stands in place enveloped in the smell of the incense, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. Someone is sitting there. Is there someone else in the sanctum? Did he make a wrong turn? His heart flutters as if caught in a trap. He suddenly does not feel like the high priest, on whom all of Israel's hopes are bent; he does not even feel like an ordinary priest, or like a regular human being.

From behind the pillar of smoke, he sees light.

"Achteriel Yah Hashem Tzvaot," his lips murmur.

Across from him is a high and lofty throne. Should he prostrate himself before it? He dares to raise his eyes. The face of the One seated on the throne appears as if a storm is passing over it.

"Yishmael my son, bless me." He is been addressed by name, as a man addresses his fellow. "Yishmael" – prounounced just as his mother would say it. "My son." This is a face-to-face encounter, filled with grace, like a meeting between father and son. But bless me? What could that mean?

Yishmael does not understand what the man seated on the throne wants from him. The sound of his voice and the words that he speaks do not accord with his expectations. For a moment he fears that a foreign god has penetrated the inner sanctum and has sat upon the throne. After all, it was a well-known principle that heavenly beings never sat down. But then the seated presence calls him by name. In that moment Yishmael divests himself of his role as high priest, and becomes only himself. He listenes. He tries to overcome his fear and his preconceived notions. He wishes to be fully attentive, freed from his anxieties.

Suddenly he understands. Yishmael is filled with blessing, and he is ready to bestow blessing on others. The words come to him with love: "My it be Your will." The words follow one another without any effort on his part, like a person praying for the well-being of a friend. "May it be Your will that Your mercy conquer Your anger, and that Your mercy overcome Your stern attributes." He enjoys this newfound generosity of spirit. He is happy that he wants to bestow goodness. He glances at the seated presence with a tinge of embarrassment, aware that he is saying the right thing.

He continues, "And may You behave toward your children with the attribute of mercy. And for their sake, may You go beyond the boundary of judgment." The seated presence nods graciously. Yishmael no longer doubts himself. He knows what to do next. He comes to the ark and places the firepans between the two cloths. He stacks the incense on the coals and the whole sanctum is suddenly filled with smoke. He exits and then enters an outer chamber and prays a short prayer, so that he would not upset the people, who would begin to worry about what happened to him in that most holy of chambers at the holiest time of the year.

Truly, how splendid was the appearance of the High Priest when he exited the Holy of Holies in peace, without any harm.

This story is based on a sugya from Brachot 7a, translated here:

Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha said:
Once I entered into the Holy of Holies
To burn incense in the Inner Innermost sanctum
And I saw Achteriel Yah Hashem Tzvaot
Sitting on a high and lofty throne of compassion
He said to me: Yishmael my son, bless me
I said to him: Master of the Universe
May it be Your will that Your mercy conquer Your anger,
That Your mercy overcome Your sterner attributes,
That You behave toward Your children with the attribute of mercy,
And that for their sake, You go beyond the boundary of judgment.
He nodded to me with His head.
And this comes to teach us
That the blessing given by an ordinary person should never be taken lightly.

Sheer Nonsense

When I woke up from a Shabbat afternoon nap today -- which may, given how crazy the next two days are looking, be the last time I sleep before Rosh Hashanah -- I was bathed in a cold sweat. I had just had a terrible nightmare in which I had accidentally done a Heicha Kedusha on Rosh Hashanah! Horror of horrors! There went Zichronot, Malchiyot, and Shofarot, down the tube! (I mean, down the shofar.) Mourning over the hours of wasted piyut practicing, I slowly awakened to the realization that it had all been but a fleeting dream, like man's life – its origin in dust, its end in dust.

Calmed by this notion, I fell back to sleep, only to wake up once more with another strange idea burrowed inside my brain, this time in the form of a song I seem to have composed in my sleep. The words were set to the "K'vakarat roeh edro" part of the U'n'taneh Tokef, and they went something like this:

God is counting sheep.
God is Big Bo Peep!
God is counting, God is counting
Maybe God can't sleep.

Lying in bed, I tried to analyze these bizarre lyrics. Apparently I had been thinking about the words of the U'n'taneh tokef, one of the central prayers of musaf on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Drawing on the imagery from the mishnah in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, this prayer compares God to a shepherd who is counting the members of his flock as they pass, one by one, underneath his rod. I must have been dreaming about God counting sheep, an image that I associate with being unable to fall asleep.

On Rosh Hashanah, of course, we are told we should not fall asleep in the daytime. The Talmud Yerushalmi states that "if one sleeps at the year's beginning, his good fortune likewise sleeps." And so we should not let the image of God counting sheep lull us into a pleasant midday mid-shul slumber. Perhaps we would fall asleep at the very instant God was counting us! How would we ever recover from that one?

I am not the first to write about sleeping on a holy day of judgment, a notion that has inspired such poems as Jane Mayhall’s “Sleeping Late on Judgement Day” and Wallace Stevens’ “Sunday Morning” (where “complacencies of the peignoir” are privileged above the “the holy hush of ancient sacrifice”). Certainly for me, though, the thought of sleeping on judgment day inspires more anxiety and trepidation than for either of these poets, shaped as I have been by the awe-inspiring liturgy of the Machzor.

After all, as we read in the U’netana Tokef (again from the Mishnah), God is able to count us like sheep because God is one "who fashions all people's hearts together, who knows all their actions" (Psalms 33:15). In other words: There is no pulling the wool over God's eyes!

Shana tova – may we enjoy a rousing tefillah and a year of spiritual awakening!

Books Recently Read, and Recommended

Enchanted Night - Steven Millhauser
How is This Night Different From All Other Nights - Elisa Albert
Evening is the Whole Day - Preeta Samarasan
The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami
The Sister - Poppy Adams
An Imaginative Experience - Mary Wesley
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower

Ten Ways in Which the "Selichot Season" Concert of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra Differs From a Concert Anywhere Else in the World

1. The concert begins when a world-famous clarinetist enters from the back row playing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), encouraging the audience to sing along as he makes his way through the aisles.
2. In between musical pieces the aforementioned clarinetist uses his instrument to blast a Tekia, Shvarim, Truah, Tekia, sounding even better than a real shofar! (Could've fooled me.)
3. Three cell phones go off during the slow, quiet mandolin solo, destroying the audience's rapt concentration.
4. Each time the conductor speaks (which is often), someone from the back row yells out "Lo shomim" (we can't hear!!); and then someone from the front cries out, "Az lo tishmeu" (so you won't hear!!).
5. The conductor announces that he does not plan to play the pieces in the program – as far as he is concerned, the program notes are more or less incidental.
6. In between movements, half of the audience claps, and the other half hisses at the clappers for this apparently egregious violation of concert etiquette.
7. The pianist inserts a few bars of Hatikva into the cadenza of Haydn's piano concerto, and the audience members remain unfazed.
8. The clarinetist stamps his feet and begins dancing with wild Hasidic-like gestures during his solo.
9. The address of the theater, which happens (aptly) to be "5 Chopin St.," is spelled "5 Shop-in St." on the concert program. Shop in, stop in, drop in, and hear some music while you're at it!
10. When the mandolin soloist is introduced, the conductor says that "not only is he the best mandolin player in the world – he is also still single!" A quick glance at the concert program reveals, alas, that he lives in Padua....

Heleni and the Seven Dwarves

The development of a Talmudic sugya at times resembles, to my mind, the development of our conception of the cosmos. I found this to be the case today in a sugya I was learning in the first chapter of Masechet Sukkah, which deals with the particular laws governing the structure of the sukkah. How tall may a sukkah be? How wide? Must the walls reach all the way up to the top? The rabbis say a sukkah may be no taller than 20 amot; Rabbi Yehuda sets no maximum height. Various later sages suggest that actually, Rabbi Yehuda disagrees with the rabbis only in the case of a very particular sukkah – one whose walls do not reach up to the top, or one which is as small as the minimum area requirement for a house; or one which is only large enough to contain a person, the majority of his body, and his table.

To delimit the exact disagreement between Rabbi Yehuda and the rabbis, the Talmud cites an early text about Heleni, a queen who ruled in a small kingdom in what is now Syria over a generation before the destruction of the second Temple. Heleni converted to Judaism and became an important patron of the Temple. In the first chapter of Sukkah, we are told that she sat in a particular kind of sukkah that, although perhaps of questionable halachic status, nonetheless did not arouse the suspicion of the rabbis:

A story is told of Heleni the Queen whose sukkah was taller than 20 amot, and the sages would pass in and out of it, and they did not tell her anything [i.e. they did not rebuke her for having an unkosher sukkah].

Apparently, this story serves as evidence for Rabbi Yehuda's claim that a sukkah has no maximum height. Yet, as the rabbis question in this very passage:

You call that proof? She was a woman, and women are not obligated to sit in the sukkah.

Rabbi Yehuda then defends himself on the grounds that Heleni had seven sons, who were surely obligated to sit in the sukkah. And if you should say that perhaps her sons were too young to be obligated in the commandment to sit in the sukkah, keep in mind that she had seven – surely at least one was old enough to be obligated to at least begin learning to sit in the sukkah! And yes, it is true that the commandment to educate boys about the sukkah is only a rabbinic one, and not a Biblical one; but still, Heleni (who was, after all, a convert) lived in accordance with rabbinic Judaism as well as Biblical Judaism, the Talmud goes on to assert.

Is this proof for the sage who says that Rabbi Yehuda only disagrees with the rabbis in the case of a very small sukkah? After all, it is hard to imagine that Heleni was sitting in a tiny sukkah – she was a queen! Ah, perhaps she was sitting in sukkah made up of many tiny little chambers. But would a queen sit in a sukkah of tiny little chambers? Unlikely. Perhaps she was in one tiny room within a large sukkah, and her sons were sitting in the big proper sukkah. But weren't her sons with her? Well, perhaps she was in the small room within the sukkah with a table was protruding out, and her sons, each tiny enough to fit in a space of seven tfachim by seven tfachim, were all stacked up there on the table, such that technically they were beside their mother while still sitting in a proper sukkah.

At this point, my imagination runs haywire as I continue to adjust my picture of Heleni and her sons in the sukkah in accordance with the rabbis ever more bizarre and far-fetched propositions. I am reminded of Ptolemy, the second-century Hellenistic astronomer who tried to make Aristotle's earth-centered model of the universe conform to the reality of the observational data of his time. According to Aristotle, the earth lay at the center of the universe, with the sun and all the planets revolving around it in uniform circular motion. Yet by Ptolemy's time, this model was deeply problematic. It did not explain, for instance, the retrograde motions of the planets. In order to account for irregular planetary motion, Ptolemy developed a deeply complex system involving complicated mathematical principles including epicycles, or small circles in which the planets move while tracing a larger circle. The epicycle model was powerful, but its inability to account for certain planetary motions demanded the creation of another model, the epicycle-on-deferent model, which in turn was followed by the equant model – each ever more mathematically complex than its predecessor. The Ptolemaic universe may have remained true to the concept of uniform circular motion, but at the expense of simplicity and elegance.

The addition of epicycles and equants in attempt to render the geocentric model consistent with observed phenomena reminds me of the successive attempts to refine the story of Heleni and her sukkah in order to explain the basis of the disagreement between the rabbis and Rabbi Yehuda. Several successive "epicycles" are added to further complicate the story:
1. It wasn't just Heleni – she had seven sons!
2. Heleni, though she lived several generations before the sages of the Mishnah, followed the laws of rabbinic Judaism!
3. Heleni wasn't sitting in an ordinary sukkah, but a multi-chambered one!
4. There weren't a series of equal-area chambers, but a few small chambers within the larger big sukkah!
5. Her sons were not in the chamber with her, but they were nonetheless beside her, all stacked on the table!

The final image of these seven babies stacked up in the very small space of a table (which distresses Rashi as well) reminds me of the bend-over-backwards acrobatics that Ptolemy had to engage in to preserve the geocentric model of the universe. The only difference is that in the Talmud, there is no Copernicus to do away with the hopeless commitment to the earth at the center, and no Kepler to replace circles with ellipses and develop new laws of planetary motion. Where are the sixteenth-century astronomers when you need them?

It would be a fitting role for Elijah, who seems to be the Talmud's choice deus-ex-machina. I can imagine Elijah busting in on the scene with his own De Revolutionibus and presenting a more simple and elegant model for Heleni's sukkah, thereby freeing this poor queen from her tiny chamber and restoring to their proper size her seven dwarves. May it happen speedily in our day!

On First Looking Into Chapman's Hebrew

The great Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik is famously quoted as having said that reading a poem in translation is like a kissing a woman through a veil. For this reason, I did not read Bialik in translation, nor any other Hebrew poet for that matter. In fact, when I first came to Israel and started reading in Hebrew, I began with poetry. This made sense to me: Poems are short, so I could have a complete aesthetic experience in the reasonable space of fifteen minutes. Moreover, in a poem every word matters – since there are so few words, each one is enormously dense, packed with more units of meaning per square syllable than in prose. And so I did not mind looking up any word I did not know, because each additional word was weighty and laden in the context of the poem I was reading.

Since I refused to read Hebrew poetry in English, my first experience of reading poetry in translation actually involved reading English poetry in Hebrew. This began due to a rather ironic turn of events. I was at one of the book fairs sponsored by National Hebrew Book Week a few months ago when I noticed a new book by Jorge Luis Borges. In Hebrew it was called M'lechet Hashir; the title in English was The Craft of Verse. Given my love of poetry, this was definitely a book I wanted to read. But in Hebrew? Then again, I reasoned, the original was surely written in Spanish, so if I read it in English, I'd be reading in translation anyway. And how would I ever find such a book in Israel in English anyway? Steimatzky's carries the bestsellers like Tom Clancy and Khaled Hosseini, but they would certainly not have Borges on poetry. So taking my chances, I bought the book in Hebrew, and delved in.

I refer to this as an ironic turn of events because I later learned that Borges actually originally delivered these lectures in English, as part of a series of lectures given at Harvard University in 1967-8. The tapes were discovered less than ten years ago – at that point they were transcribed and published by Harvard University Press. The Hebrew translation, which we sold through our literary agency, was published this summer by Babel (the name of the house is another irony); this is the copy that I purchased at the book fair.

In these lectures, Borges discusses metaphor, epic poetry, the origins of verse, poetic meaning, and his own poetic creed, as well as the philosophy of translation. He draws on a wealth of examples from literature in modern and medieval English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese. But it was the English poems that most excited me as I read these lectures in Hebrew translation. For the first time I discovered Keats, Byron, and Poe in Hebrew! For me this was utterly astonishing and mesmerizing, as if – well –

Rather than try to invoke my own metaphors, I will quote from one of the first poems that Borges quotes in this book, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by John Keats. Keats wrote this sonnet when he read Homer in a new translation, finding it familiar and at once infused with something entirely new. When he read Chapman's translation, he felt "like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken; / Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men / Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- / Silent, upon a peak in Darien." I too, in discovering Keats for the first time in Hebrew--both familiar and at once infused with something entirely new--felt like an astronomer who has just discovered a new planet, or like an explorer who has stumbled upon the Pacific Ocean. I knew by heart the poems that Borges was quoting, but all of a sudden, I was discovering them all over again!

As I read on in the Hebrew translation of Borges' lectures, I came upon many familiar English poems in Hebrew. Each time, I could hear the English pulsing underneath the surface, beating in my brain without any conscious effort on my part. The line that most struck me was from Frost, "And miles to go before I sleep." In Hebrew this became, "u-MIlin laLEchet b'TERem i-SHAN." I capitalize the stressed syllables to show how the Hebrew keeps the exact rhythm of the English, where the dactyls capture the heaving and falling of heavy footsteps in the snow. I was dazzled by this, as if the snow had suddenly begun to fall all around me on that hot June Jerusalem afternoon. Because only snow in the summer in Jerusalem would have been as strange and wondrous as Frost in Hebrew, I daresay.

Since first looking into Borges' Craft of Verse, I have read many other poets in Hebrew. My two most recent acquisitions are Gerard Manley Hopkins HaLev, Lev Harim Lo ("O the mind, mind has mountains") and Mark Strand's Ha'Sha'a HaMeucheret (The Late Hour). I particularly enjoyed reading Hopkins in Hebrew because the poet was a Jesuit priest who frequently invoked lines and phrases from the Bible. I was astonished to see that the word m'rachef was not used for "brood" in the line, "Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings." This seems to me so obviously a reference to Deuteronomy 32:11: "Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings, broods [y'rachef] over his hatchings." Apparently the translator did not agree. These, and other issues, preoccupy and fascinate me when I read favorite poems in Hebrew.

It may be, as Bialik said, that in reading Keats and Frost and Hopkins in Hebrew, I am kissing a woman through a veil. But I have kissed that woman many times by now – I know her lips and her eyes and the contours of her face so intimately after long hours holed up with my Norton anthologies. Now this woman comes out to me at once familiar and utterly new, walking behind veils of shimmering silk that are ever changing from purple, to red, to blue. Now they are opaque and now, for one moment, they are blessedly transparent, and I gaze like a watcher of the skies.

Personal ad (Sukkah 2a)

Looking for a temporary girlfriend, just for Sukkot

A woman who is taller than 20 meters is too tall for me.
(But my brother Yehuda, who is a giant, is OK with that.)
If she's shorter than 10cm,
Or is she does not have at least three friends she can lean on,
Or if she is not happy more often than she is sad,
Then she is not for me.

Ten Ways to Know that Summer is Over in Jerusalem

1. You can no longer find cherries anywhere, but the first blood-red pomegranates are in all the markets and even on some of the trees (like the one in my backyard).
2. You hear the sound of the shofar (if you are jogging in the streets at 7am, or, um, attending Shacharit – I guess).
3. The pizza parlors and ice cream shops are crowded with frum 18-year olds from America in knee socks (knee socks!), all just arrived for a year of yeshiva study, playing with their cell phones/Ipods/cameras (who can tell the difference?) while chewing big wads of bubble gum and chatting in loud Brooklyn accents….
4. The honey jars are by the cash register in all the supermarkets – the impulse buy of the season.
5. Colleagues start using the excuse, “Oh well, it’s nearly time for the holidays, when nobody does any work anyway.”
6. You can eat Shabbat dinner at a normal hour again.
7. The billboards on all the streets are plastered with ads about lectures on repentance: Tshuva! Tfillah! Tzedakah!
8. If you swim after 10am, you will not be splashed and bashed by the rowdy campers who hijack the pool all summer (hurrah!).
9. After a three-week lull, people start getting married again (like the very young and innocent-looking Hasidic couple whom I inadvertently bumped into last night on their way from the chuppah to the yichud room, when I took a wrong turn out of the cell phone shop in an otherwise deserted business complex in Givat Shaul that apparently also contains a very modest wedding hall….)
10. You open your daily planner to jot down a note for next week, and discover that you have come to the end of the book. Time to copy all the names and addresses into a new planner – whose names will be written in that book? Whose will not? Who by fire, and who by water? Yes, the holiday season has arrived…..

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Gitin Perek Aleph: המביא גת

(2a)
You deliver a Get from afar
On a wagon, a goat, or a car.
When you hand it to her
You must clearly aver:
"Saw it written and signed, here you are!"

(2b)
What's the reason for that declaration?
"There they mind not the dame's appellation,"
Raba says. "I say no,"
Rava says. "It is so:
Scarce are witnesses in those locations."

(5a)
A woman may bring her own Get
Though not common, it's something we let
Her do, but she must state:
"They wrote, signed off my fate
In my presence, for my sobriquet."

(6a)
If the witness did not see the scribe
Write the whole Get, but he can describe
Both the sound of the quill
And the scroll, if you will,
That's OK (if he's part of the tribe).

(6a)
"I was home while the scribe did his thing
Though I left for the market to bring
Some food back while he wrote
Out the parchment Get note
Does my test'mony still have its zing?"

(6a)
Is Bavel like Israel? Not so?
Must a witness say, "Saw, here you go"?
Bavel has many nooks
Filled with scholars with books;
They won't break to be witnesses, though.

(6a)
How far does Bavel extend?
Does it reach to the river's last bend?
The second arch of the bridge
Is the outermost ridge --
Know this if it's a Get you must send.

(6b)
The famed Hill Concubine went astray—
But what was her crime? Well, some say
'Twas a fly in his soup
That threw him for a loop
Or a hair (which is gross anyway).

(6b)
Says Rav Chisda, "No man should instill
Excess fear in his household." Men will
Come home before Shabbat
Say, "Did you light or not?"
But their tone must be calm and not shrill.

(7a)
Says Abahu: "No man should instill
Excess fear in his house." It could kill!
One man scared off his wife
And she gave him a knife
To dice up living limbs from the grill.

(7a)
A groom may not wear on his head
Any crowns – though the bride may, instead.
With no Temple now stand-
Ing, the rabbis command:
We who sinned must now carefully tread.

(7a)
If you see that you don't have much food
Do not sit around hungry and brood
Give some of your stuff
To those poorer; enough
So you'll be saved from hell. Ain't that shrewd?

(7b)
If you're sailing atop a big ship
Into Israel (now that's a long trip!)
If there's some dirt aboard
Must you tithe for the Lord?
Must the seventh year's planting be skipped?

(8b)
Every non-Israel land is impure
If you step there, you are too, for sure.
If you come in a box
Or a chest that has locks
Are you safe because you are immured?

(9a)
If you hear when they hand you the Get
Then you turn deaf before you have met
Up with that fellow's wife
This is no cause for strife
Find the witnesses – they'll fix things yet.

(11a)
A non-Jewish witness may sign
On a Get, on the dotted black line
If his name is not Roni
Or Yitzchak or Yoni
But James the Third, Lord Valentine!

(11b)
Most Jews living outside of the land
(That is, Israel, so we understand)
Have the names of non-Jews
Because what would you choose
For your kid – Fruma Malka, or Fran?

(11b)
Says a man: "Give this Get to my wife.
Nope! I now change my mind! By your life!"
May the husband retract?
Can he take the Get back?
If he's causing her gladness, not strife.

(11b)
Rabbi Yirmyah was part of a group
Of men learning. His head soon did droop
He heard something not smart
And woke up with a start
He said: Kids! It's a good thing I snoop!

(12a)
May a slave say (please don't think him rude):
"Give me liberty or give me food."
In a time of bad drought
Must the slave sit it out
With his master (and his attitude!).

(12b)
If a sick slave is cured in a flash
We ask: Who gets to keep all the cash
That they now do not need
For medicinal weed?
Add it in to the master's great stash.

(13a)
Many slaves do not want to be freed
If it means it's a wife they now need
Because they'd much prefer
Any servant girl – her,
Say, to sleep around with and thus breed.

(14b)
The mom of some peddlers was ill
She said, "Here is what you must fulfill:
Give my daughter my pin
That I love, she's my kin."
And the sages complied with her will.

Swimming in the Early Days of Av

My friend Roni saw me on my way to the pool this week and was surprised to see where I was going. "You? Swimming during the nine days? I'm shocked! Even I don't swim during the nine days." She was referring to the well-known custom of refraining during the week before Tisha b'Av from pleasurable activities, including buying new clothes, eating meat, and bathing for pleasure (an activity that is commonly thought to include swimming). Rather than try to defend myself, I asked her, "Why don't you?" She thought for a moment and then responded, "Because how else would I get in the right mindest for Tisha b'Av? I don’t eat meat, and I rarely buy new clothes – so it's only the prohibition on swimming that actually reminds me of the time of year." I was glad that I had asked her, because in hearing her explanation as to why she does not swim, I realized why I do.

Unlike Roni, it would be impossible for me to forget what is going on in the Jewish calendar now. I feel like I have spent much of the last month getting ready for Tisha b'Av. I have been teaching classes for the last few weeks about the symbolism of the Temple for the rabbis, and I wrote an essay about this same subject (previous post!). I have also been to several lectures about Tisha b'Av, most notably a class last week at Beit Avichai about forms of mourning in Jewish tradition, and a shiur last night about tragedy from ancient Greece to Shakespeare to the Talmud. I have leyned several of the haftarot from Jeremiah and Ezekial about the sinfulness of the people and the destruction that awaits them. When not leyning these haftarot, I have been practicing the perek of Eicha that I will chant at the Kotel tomorrow night. In addition, my chevruta and I have been learning the fifth perek of Gittin, which includes all the stories about the eve of the destruction of the Temple. (Unfortunately, although Daf Yomi is also on Gittin, we hit the fifth perek two weeks after Tisha b'Av, which is appropriately tragic.) And for the past two weeks, I have been reading the final chapter of the first volume of Rabbi Benjamin Lau's Chachamim, which deals with Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai (most famous for his cry, later paraphrased by Patrick Henry, "Give me Yavneh and its sages!"), the zealots, and the events surrounding the destruction of the Temple. I even inadvertently invited Bar Kamtza for dinner this Shabbat!

Through it all, though, I have been swimming nearly every day in the Olympic-sized Jerusalem swimming pool on the ground floor of the office building where I work. To my delight, the pool has been considerably less crowded this past week, since so many of the religious people don't swim. (On Monday night, when there is "all women's swimming" for the sake of religious women who will not swim with men, the pool was nearly empty; for the first time ever I had an entire lane to myself!) While I swim, the melody of Eicha often runs through my head, and sometimes when I swim backstroke, I find myself practicing out loud. At other times I keep the copious notes I am taking on Rabbi Lau's book in a plastic sleeve at the edge of the pool, and review the material between laps. Swimming is one of the few activities I do that does not involve feeding new ideas into my brain. When I swim, I reflect and process and digest. If not for swimming, I don't think I would remember half of what I have been studying all summer about the history surrounding Tisha b'Av. Perhaps, then, I could have answered Roni by saying, "Why do I swim? Because it helps me remember all about Tisha b'Av!" The reasoning might be hafuch-al-hafuch (that is, topsy-turvy), but it's true.

Juliet's Balcony

As a teenager, I attended a public high school on Long Island where I was the only observant Jew. I quickly got used to explaining to my teachers and classmates about the various Jewish holidays, which were the reason for my poor attendance record at various points throughout the year. The only holiday that I never had to explain was Tisha b’Av, since it always arrived in the summer, when school was not in session. And so the story of the destruction of the Temple, which is the reason we mourn and fast on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, was unknown to my classmates, who had otherwise received from me quite a comprehensive Jewish education.

One summer, when I was training for the high school track team, I made a plan with my friend Katie to go running three days a week. She would pick me up in her car at 7 a.m. and we would drive to the school track, where we would run laps for 45 minutes. It just so happened that during that particular summer, there was construction work being done on our synagogue, which we would pass in the mornings on our drive to the school. One day I realized that our next scheduled morning run coincided with Tisha b’Av. I called Katie on the phone to inform her that I’d have to miss a day. “Why?” she asked. “Oh,” I explained. “It’s a day of mourning tomorrow because of the destruction of the Temple.” Katie paused for a moment, and then responded in astonishment: “The Temple was destroyed? I thought they were just doing construction!”

This story still makes me laugh, but I think it also hints at a more serious issue, namely how difficult it is to understand the significance of Tisha b’Av in today’s day and age. Why was the destruction of the Temple such an incredible tragedy for the rabbis, even for those rabbis living hundreds of years after both the first and second Temple (destroyed in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively) were no longer standing? Why is it that this day took on successive levels of sadness—to the point that the Mishnah in Taanit (4:6) explains that five of the most devastating tragedies in Jewish history took place on this date? Not only were the two Temples destroyed, the Mishnah asserts; also, this was the day on which the spies sent to scout out Canaan brought back a negative report, and Bar Kochva’s revolt failed, and the Romans razed Jerusalem. The rabbis convert Tisha b’Av into a general national day of mourning, unquestionably the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

In the absence of the Temple, rabbinic Judaism proceeded to engage in the creative process of inventing a decentralized, prayer-based form of Jewish worship; but the rabbis never stopped missing the Temple and longing to return to its glory days. The Talmud is filled with statements and stories that give voice to these sentiments. We are told, for instance, that Rabbi Yosey reports that God Himself mourns the destruction of the Temple, wailing like a dove and crying: “Woe to the children -- because of their sins I destroyed my home and burned my sanctuary and exiled them among the nations” (Brachot 3a). Elijah goes on to teach that God mourns this loss frequently:"Whenever Jews enter into synagogues and study houses and answer, 'May the great name be blessed,' the Holy One Blessed Be He nods His head and says, “Blessed be the king who is praised in his home, and woe to the father who exiled his children, and woe to those children who are banished from their father’s table” Elijah compares the destruction of the Temple to the banishing of children from their father’s table, since the people of Israel, lacking the system of sacrificial worship, can no longer attain the same degree of closeness to their heavenly father.

It has been nearly 2000 years since the second Temple was destroyed, and yet still we are obligated, each year, to mourn this loss. But, try as I may to get into the right mindset for Tisha b’Av, the metaphors traditionally invoked just don't do it for me. And so I prefer to conjure a different image—one that reflects my own associations with loss and longing. I think of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet is standing at her window leaning her cheek against her gloved hand, and Romeo gazes up at her under cover of darkness. Juliet sighs (“Ay me!”), and Romeo hangs on to her every sound and gesture (“She speaks! O, speak again, bright angel”), wooing her from below her balcony in language reminiscent of the Song of Songs, which Shakespeare seems occasionally to invoke (“Stony limits cannot hold love out”). I imagine the balcony as the site of many subsequent late-night trysts, as it is the one place where the lovers can speak freely to one another without risking the wrath of the Montague and Capulet clans. I think about how Juliet must long, each day, for night to come, so she can go out on her balcony to speak to her Romeo.

And then I imagine that one day, Juliet comes home from school to find that her parents have boarded up her balcony. Her window is covered with wooden planks fixed rudely to the wall; her balcony has been hacked at with axes and spades; and pieces of the railing lie strewn on the street below her window. “Her gates have sunk into the ground, he has smashed her bars to bits.” (Lamentations 2:9). Juliet is utterly distraught: how will she see Romeo that evening? How will she communicate with her lover? “See, O Lord, the distress I am in! My heart is in anguish.” (Lamentations 1:20) It is not only her balcony she has lost, but the whole elaborate system of semaphores and scheduling that she and her lover have constructed to ensure that they see each other regularly. Juliet wails. “Bitterly she weeps in the night, her cheeks wet with tears. There is none to comfort her of all her friends” (Lamentations 1:2).

It may seem surprising that I choose such a romantic image, but this kind of analogy is not without precedent. In the rabbinic imagination the Temple was, indeed, the rendezvous place between God and Israel. As Rav K'tina says in the Talmud, "At the time when Israel would go to the Temple on the festivals, they would roll back the ark curtain to reveal the cherubs, who were hugging each other, and saying: Look at how beloved you are of God, like the love between a man and a woman" (Yoma 54a). That very same passage compares the poles that protruded through the ark curtain to the breasts of a woman, using a proof text from the Song of Songs: "My beloved to me is a bag of myrrh, lodged between my breasts."

And when it comes to the loss of the Temple, the rabbis invoke similar images. In a passage in the Tractate Yoma that pulses with lyrical poetic intensity, they take turns reminiscing about the Temple. Rabba bar bar Channa recalls that the smell of the incense in the Temple was so fragrant that a bride in Jerusalem during the time of the Temple would not need to wear perfume. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha responds with a story: “An old man told me: Once I went to the city of Shiloh [where the portable sanctuary used to reside], and I breathed the smell of the incense from between the city walls” (Yoma 39b). This imagery is deeply passionate, if not overtly sexual. Who said the rabbis were not romantic? It is true that the tractates dealing with marriage are preoccupied with brute economic facts, and that marriage in the Talmud is essentially a business transaction; but when it comes to the Temple, the rabbis wax more poetically than Romeo, Don Juan, and Cyrano de Bergerac combined.

And so although I do not personally desire the restoration of Temple worship, it is these images I invoke to get me into the right mindset on Tisha b’Av. I think of Juliet pouring out her heart like water as she cries, “My eyes are spent with tears, my heart is in tumult, my very being melts away” (Lamentations 2:11). The language of Shakespeare flows into the language of Lamentations and then I, too, am able to mourn and weep.

Books Recently Read, and Recommended

Ghostwalk – Rebecca Stott
The Book of Dahlia – Elisa Albert
Second Fiddle – Mary Wesley
The Camomile Lawn – Mary Wesley
Maisie Dobbs (entire series) – Jacqueline Winspear
The Keep – Jennifer Egan
Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri
The Outcast – Sadie Jones
Glass, Irony and God (esp. "The Gender of Sound") – Anne Carson
Beaufort – Ron Leshem

Hebrew Books:
בשכבי ובקומי אשה – Mira Magen
רצח בחוג לספרות – Batya Gur

The Wedding Night

My translation from Ruth Calderon's
Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

In the West [that is, in Israel] when a man married a woman, everyone would then ask him: “Found or find?” He in turn would respond with one of two words, both taken from verses in the Bible: “Find” as in the verse, “I find a bitterness worse than death in women,” or “found” as in the verse, “One who found a woman found goodness.” (B. Brachot 8a)

A warm clay candle rests in my palm, the weight of the oil passing from the front to the back of my hand with a quick flick of the wrist. In the evening the oil was congealed, with a small warm puddle of liquid gathered just around the flame. Now the entire candle is warm oil -- the flax wick is light and floating and the flame appears as if suspended in midair.

The room is cold and the man standing across from me has his head buried in a notebook. The pages are tied together haphazardly. He reads while half-asleep. Occasionally the chant of his learning breaks forth from his throat; then he plunges back into quietness like a whale diving back into the ocean. It is the second watch of the night. This man is my new husband. This is not how I imagined my wedding night; this is not what the women told me to expect when they stood over me to remove the hair from my body with oils and lime. Why did they bother? What is the use of my soft skin, my plucked eyebrows, my colorful nightgown? Outside cats and beggars devour the remains of the wedding feast. If only everyone knew the real reason I went under the wedding canopy. I am a pillar of fire, not a bride.

And my mother, what would she say? At the beginning of the evening, I was so happy. My wedding dress was tight against my waist, a veil hung from my head, and a circle of candles illuminated the courtyard like stars fallen down to earth. Under the wedding canopy, under the dome of the sky, I was enveloped in the happiness of everyone around me and in the display of honor towards the family I was joining. I did not feel homesick. I was excited as if I had found a lost object by the roadside. Familiar expressions of blessing fell upon my ears, and during the wedding benedictions I mustered the courage to look at my bridegroom. I had not seen his face since our engagement. I found him attractive. Then there was dancing, and when he danced with the men his eyes shone. He captured my heart with his awkward steps.

The groomsmen accompanied us until our rooms, and for a while we could still hear them singing the familiar wedding song: “With neither eye make-up nor blush nor braids in her hair, she radiates grace.” I thought that he had chosen to remain silent until we could no longer hear the voices of the merrymakers outside. I also remained silent. After the voices had faded off into the distance, I sat on the bed in my wedding dress. I was secretly grateful that he was not too close to me, and I was pleased that he did not seize upon me suddenly. But then I grew flustered, unsure what to do. Beside the wall, between the shadows, I took off my dress, folded it carefully, and rested it beside the bed. I climbed into bed and covered myself with a sheet. I knew the reason a bride enters under the wedding canopy. I lay on my back and waited for a sign. He took off his clothes slowly, and folded them in a neat pile under the bed. The light of the candles illuminated the two of us between the shadows. I unfastened the barette in my hair and peeked out from between the sheets. The smell of jasmine filled the room. “Bring a candle so I have light,” he said evenly. Was I supposed to get up?

While I was lying there, my nakedness was covered and enveloped. My body disappeared in the bed and only my face was visible. If I stood up, I would bare my flesh; he would see me from all sides. He waited. His prayer shawl functioned for him as a sort of nightgown. Its whiteness was soft and pleasant against the dark night. I heard once that in the Torah scroll belonging to Rabbi Meir, it was written in Genesis that God dressed Adam and Eve in "garments of light" instead of "garments of leather." Now I saw a dim light from the whiteness of the candle. As in a dream, I stood on my feet and took the candle from the column in the wall. I approached him, the candle in my hand. The candle defined a small circle of light in which we could see: Cheeks, lips, eyes. He extended a strong but gentle arm and positioned me as he wanted me, facing him. I took the candle and stood before him. He picked up his book and continued learning.

The hours passed. I lost track of time. I stood with the candle in my hand, my mind wandering back to our wedding earlier that night. All evening, my eyes had been drawn to his mother. When I sat with the women, covered in a veil, I saw her making her way uncomfortably through the wave of well-wishers and guests which rose up around her. Her beauty was still pronounced, her eyes bright. She carried herself proudly. The toughness and anger from her long days of loneliness did not disappear when her husband returned home and she became, once again, the wife of the great rabbi, his footstool. She did not exude warmth like my mother, but I thought I could grow to love her nonetheless.

All through my childhood, I heard the stories: How he betrothed her in secret, and how her father cut her off from his possessions when Rabbi Akiva traveled far away to study Torah. My mother and the other women, when they would sit together sorting lentils, used to talk about her sadness. They, too, would wait at home for Torah scholars who spent most of their days in the study house. Rabbi Akiva's celebrated return should have compensated for the hard, lonely hours, between a crying baby and an unlit stove, with no adult company except for the neighbors.

It seemed to me that my husband was much more the son of his mother than his father. Would the son also devote himself to study like his father? Would I remain a "living widow," raising children who would not recognize their father? Now, in the room, I steal a glance at his book. Back when we were young, my grandfather used to reward us with nuts when we could recite a chapter by heart. I was good at such recitations, before they shut me out of the study house, along with the other girls. "Rabbi Akiva says: One lights a candle from another's flame; one gains light, and one stays the same." How do you light one candle from another? I am embarrassed by what I am picturing in my imagination. But his eyes are in his book; he does not see me.

The candle is no more than a spoonful of oil. The wick juts out from the lamp and the smell of the burning olive oil is pleasant. Will the oil last? I do not know how much time he still needs, but it is clear to me that I am responsible for the candle. I shift my hand gently to conserve the oil as best I can.

Maybe I have forgotten something about how brides are supposed to act? Did I do the right thing in removing my gown? Am I supposed to say something? I try to remember my mother's words. When she came to speak to me about the wedding night, I saw how embarrassed she was and had mercy on her. She averted her glance and said, "Anything a man wants to do with his wife, he may do – you be good to him, and then all will be good for you." She went on about the subject of the mother-in-law, and spoke about pain. She instructed me to recognize that he would be preoccupied. "A groom is exempt from reciting the bedtime Shma on the first night."

Now everything is a riddle or a big mistake. Maybe I ruined my marriage? Maybe I will not be found a virgin? My heart is pounding; such things have been known to happen. A girl may lose her virginity by means of a beating or a plank of wood. I once heard of someone who stained her clothing with the blood of a bird to redeem herself with her blood.

I look at him, his eyes glued to his page. My hand trembles. A stream of oil drips behind the candle, towards the wick, and the candle is nearly extinguished. And maybe he too does not know what to do? After all, he is still a boy. Is he waiting for a sign from me? I come closer to him, holding the candle so he can see, following his movements with the book. We sway in place, almost dancing. My nakedness through the sheet does not ruffle him. We are like two small boys who have undressed before bed. When the chanting once again escapes his lips, his voice is pleasant, on key.

Morning comes and we are still standing there. I look at him in the first light: His face is lovely. His eyes are honey-colored with flecks of green. When I pretend to fall asleep, my eyelashes flutter and he casts a cautious glance in my direction. Examining me. When I open my eyes as if I have just awoken, his eyes retreat back between the letters.

When the sun rises higher in the sky, I put down the candle. The oil has nearly run out and the wick is resting on the underbelly of the wet candle. The mouth of the candle is filthy and disgusting, encased with charcoal. My hands are also filthy, and I wipe them on the clothing that should have redeemed me with my blood. One way or another, my clothes have become stained. I sit back on the bed, and it seems I fall asleep. When I open my eyes, I do not see my husband. Through the shutters, striped rays of light penetrate the room. I hear his father's voice: "Found or find?" I listen with intense concentration.

"Found," says his sweet voice in the night, and his words fall softly like morning dew.

"Amen," I murmur, and sink back to sleep.

This story is based on a passage from Yalkut Shimoni, Proverbs 18, translated here:

A story is told about the son of Rabbi Akiva who got married.
What did he do? When he brought his bride home,
He stayed up all night reading the Torah portion.
He said to his wife: Hold a candle and illuminate my page.
She held a candle and stood before him.
She illuminated his page until morning came.
In the morning, Rabbi Akiva approached his son.
He said to him: "Found or find?"
He said to him: "Found."

Roman Holiday

And do the heavenly angels not understand Aramaic? (Sotah 33a)

We are preparing for a trip to Rome. You are reading the Lonely Planet guide and Time Out Rome; I am finishing up today's daf, Sotah 33, which alludes to the edict by the Roman emperor Caligula (called Gaskalgas) who decreed that an idol be erected in the Temple in Jerusalem. At the very last moment, as the Jews were in a panic about the fate that awaited their sacred place of worship, the high priest Shimon HaTzadik heard a voice from within the Holy of Holies that cried out in Aramaic, "The decree of the hated one has been annulled, for Caligula has died." The Talmud cites this incident as proof that angels in heaven can understand Aramaic. In the background, I hear you trying to pronounce some words in Italian, poring over the page of helpful phrases in the back of the guidebook. Parla inglese? Non capisco.

The public buildings and baths and streets which this wicked kingdom makes, were their intentions for the sake of heaven, they would have been worthy to possess the world. (Mid. Hag. to Gen. 44:24)

Our very first stop after dropping off our bags in our tiny hotel room near the Termini, the train station, is Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Of the scores of churches we will visit in the next two days, this one has pride of place – it is our "home church," you might say, since Gerusalemme is the same Jerusalem from which we hail. The church was founded in 320 CE by Emperor Constantine's mother St. Helena, who brought back relics of crucifixion cross from Jerusalem. On the façade is a statue of St. Helena herself, who appears to be swaying with the cross in the way that a woman might dance with a broomstick. We take a photo that we will print in Jerusalem, thereby bringing the cross back home.

From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom: "Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardships that have befallen us, that our ancestors went down to Egypt….We cried to the Lord and He heard our plea, and He sent a messenger who freed us from Egypt. Now we are in Kadesh, the town on the border of your territory. Allow us, then, to cross your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, and we will not drink water from wells…if our cattle drink your waater, we will pay for it. We ask for only passage on foot. (Numbers 20:14-19).

We decide, perhaps in homage to the next week's parsha, that we will walk all over Rome, taking not a single bus, train, or cab. But our three days in Rome coincide with a three-day heatwave, and everywhere we go we sweat. Each time you pause to look in your guidebook, I sink down exhausted onto the ground, grateful for a moment to rest my aching legs. But relief comes in the form of the free-flowing fountains all over the city. I am referring not just to the great fountains: the Trevi Fountain (Salvi, 1762), with its great statue of Neptune flanked by two Tritons; the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Bernini, 1651) in which the four great rivers--the Ganges, Danube, Nile, and Plate--are represented by four giants; the Fontana del Tritone (Bernini, 1642) on Via Veneto, featuring the Triton and his conch shell. These fountains capture our imaginations, but physical salvation comes in the form of the small hydrant-shaped fountains on many of the street corners, which flow constantly with water. We carry our Mei Eden bottles and refill frequently. Coming from Jerusalem, where we turn off the water while soaping in the shower and half-flush the toilet, it is hard to adjust to the abundance of fresh water so freely and generously available to us as we make our passage on foot through Edom/Rome.

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs…. (John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale")

For me the most special place in Rome will always be the Keats-Shelley Museum, housed in the very rooms where the greatest of the English Romantic poets John Keats died of consumption in 1821, at the age of 25. There he wrote, in his last days, a letter to a dear friend: "I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow." I peer out the window of his bedroom, which overlooks the grand and majestic Spanish steps which lead from the Piazza di Spagna (named for the Spanish embassy located there in the seventeenth century) to the Trinita di Monti church. Shivers run up and down my spine when I learn that so many of my favorite writers stayed in this area at one time or another. Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth. I decide that if we make it to the Forum in the afternoon, I will stand on the Rostra, the platform used for public oratory, and declaim to you one of my favorite odes.

The restaurant, five minutes from Giovanna's apartment, was next to the Portico d'Ottavia. There were of course hundreds of other restaurants she might have tried, hundreds of versions of cacao e pepe and carbonara and deep-fried artichokes she might have eaten…At the restaurant the waiters knew by now to bring her a bottle of acqua gassata, a half-litre of vino bianco, swiftly to clear the second place setting away. They left her alone with the book she would bring, though mostly she sat and looked at the remains of the Portico, at it chewed-up columns girded with scaffolding, its massive pediment with significant chunks missing. (Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth)

Late Friday afternoon we wander through the alleys of the Jewish ghetto, first created in 1556 by an edict of Pope Paul IV, who forced all the Jews to live inside a high-walled enclosure. It is 7:30pm and the sun is beginning to sink in the sky, but Shabbat does not begin until 8:30pm. We find a small vegetarian pizzeria right next to the Portico d'Ottavia, part of a monumental pizza built in honor of Augustus' sister in the first century CE. I am convinced that we are eating in the same restaurant mentioned in the breathtaking Jhumpa Lahiri novel I am reading, which I carry with me all over the city even though it is hardcover and heavy. I read you the passage to see if you agree, staining the white pages with my oily hands. While we are eating, we notice two men in black gabardines passing by, presumably on their way to shul. We pay quickly for our meal, musing at the bizarreness of calling this Shabbat dinner, and then follow the passersby.

Perhaps you will say: They have statutes and we do not have statutes?… there is yet place for the evil inclination to reflect and say: Theirs are more suitable than ours!… (Sifra to Aharei Mot 13:9)

The synagogue in the Jewish ghetto is not quite as ornate as the city's finest churches, but the high ceilings, painted walls, and decorative columns were clearly built with the ecclesiastical model in mind. I walk up two flights of stairs to the women's section, where I sit in the last row by an open window near a sign that reads: "Si prega di FARE SILENZIO durante le tefilloth." A gentle breeze blows from the Tiber river below, and I find my place in the siddur. It is strange to read the Italian stage directions printed inside, which remind me of a musical score: After the Shma, "Baruch Shem K'vod" is to be recited in sotto voce; and the Chatzi Kaddish is labeled "Mezzo Kaddish." The women around me are dressed in tank tops and jeans, indistinguishable from the other Italian women I have been seeing on the streets. It is strange for me, coming from Jerusalem, to see such women in shul – where are their kerchiefs, their long skirts layered over lacey pants, their double strollers? They chatter in Italian to one another, though they stop talking to take three steps back before the Amidah, aware, then, of what they are doing. Below us all the singing comes from an operatic chazzan whose voice fills the entire building, and from the choir that accompanies him from their hiding place behind the bimah. I sit quietly, taking it all in.

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
Wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hill towns….
How much better to command the simple precinct of home
Than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
(Billy Collins, "Consolation," from The Art of Drowning)

We are eager to get home because my sister will be arriving in Jerusalem right when we return, and we are supposed to pick her up at the airport. I have not seen my niece in eight months, and I am counting down the moments until our reunion. But when we get to Fiumicino airport at 7am, we learn that our flight is delayed. A one-hour delay stretches to a four-hour delay, and El Al tries to console us with a voucher for lunch at an Italian pizzeria. There is nothing we can eat there, so I exchange my free pizza and pasta for six bread rolls and a bottle of soda. All around us the Israelis on our flight stack their trays with plates of hot food, crying "voucher, voucher" to the bewildered cafe clerks. In the end, we return to Israel just when my sister's flight lands; she spots us in the Israeli passport line and runs in our direction, greeting us with a bear hug and a giant grin. That night I unpack and begin going through our pictures; my sister tells me the next morning that she and her husband celebrated their arrival in Israel by going out for dinner, to a restaurant called Little Italy.

Not Pregnant

Hi Tammy, it's me. I hope I'm not catching you at a bad moment. I have some big news. It means a lot to me to share it with you. Do you have a minute? You might need to catch your breath when I tell you this, and you should definitely be sitting down. OK, here goes. Well, you know all our friends are getting pregnant these days? Sarah, Stacy, Edna, Rachel – yes, it's quite the thing to do. Well, I have news for you: I'm not pregnant. Yup – I'm not pregnant!!!! Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it myself, and it's been nearly three months already. I hope you don't think it's too early to tell, but I've been keeping the news to myself for what seems like ages. Three months of not being pregnant, but I didn't want to say anything, because you know how it is, in the beginning you can never be sure, maybe that period was just a fluke. But it's real, and I'm sure of it! You must have been wondering why I was acting the way I was acting. Now you know! For the past three months, ever since all our friends starting announcing their pregnancies, I've been feeling just awful. Oh, it was the worst. I'd wake up in the morning--especially before big days at work--with this horrible feeling in my stomach. I had to run to the bathroom, and there would go yesterday's dinner. This happened day after day, this nauseous feeling each time someone else got pregnant. I was like, gosh, not being pregnant is agonizing, how am I going to deal with this??? Anyway, my doctor tells me it's finally behind me – from here on, not being pregnant will be a lot easier to deal with. Except, well, you've got to hear this. I crave chocolate! All the time. Especially at night. I have to eat something sweet. It's really horrible. I hope it doesn't go on for too long, because I'm beginning to show. I mean, if this chocolate craving continues, I'm going to have to buy maternity clothes even though I'm not pregnant! Wouldn't that be embarrassing. Anyway, please don't tell anyone yet – I haven't even told my mother. I'm not ready yet, though I think she might have guessed. The other day I noticed her looking at me somewhat quizzically when I ordered a huge glass of wine at dinner. I can do that, hurrah, because I'm not pregnant!!! Oh well, she'll find out soon enough. There will be so many changes in the coming months now that I have this news. For starters, I will have to redecorate my apartment. It's so exciting! You'll have to come over so I can tell you more details. But really, don't bring a gift. I'm superstitious. Well, I'm registered at Victoria's Secret, but really, please don't buy me anything yet. It's too soon. I'm just glad to have your support. It's such a relief to be able to share! Thanks so much for listening -- I knew you'd want to be the first to know.

Fleeing the News

This is an article about a book I have not read. This may at first seem surprising. How much can I possibly have to say about a book I have never opened? I am reminded of a phrase that my friends in the publishing world coined to refer to books they had read and talked about, but had not read. This phrase is "reading around." To "read around" a book is to read the reviews, to read the flap copy and the blurbs and perhaps even an interview with the author, all without actually reading the book itself. This is the situation I am in, right now, with David Grossman's new novel Isha Borachat Mibsora [A Woman Flees the News].

When I first heard about Grossman's new book, I was determined not to read anything about it. A book by one of Israel's most famous living writers was bound to get a lot of press coverage, and I wanted to discover it for myself. I remember how frustrated I was when I sat down to read Grossman's earlier book Someone to Run With only after reading half a dozen articles about the novel's political allegory, which then colored my own reading experience. This time, I would not make the same mistake.

And so, like the title character of Grossman's novel, I was Isha Borachat Mibsora – I was a woman fleeing the news. I quickly turned the page over when I saw the reviews in the Haaretz newspaper, and I would turn the dial on the radio whenever an ad for the book came over the air. (I do not remember this being the case in America, but in Israel, newly-published books are advertised on the radio – a bit of plot summary, some praise for the auther, and then a closing statement urging the listener to go out to his/her nearest bookstore to find out what happens next…..) But no one can hide from the news, as Grossman's heroine probably learns as well. Despite my best efforts, the news reached me.

Grossman's new novel, I have learned, is about a love triangle between two men and a woman: Avram loves Ora, Ora loves Ilan, and the two men are close friends. They first meet in 1967 at age sixteen in an abandoned hospital in Jerusalem. Their bonds strengthen over the next few years, climaxing in the days leading up to the 1973 War, when Ilan and Avram are both stationed near the Suez Canal. Avram is captured and returns back a different man; Ilan marries Ora and gives her a son, but he is ultimately so overcome by survivor's guilt that he is unable to function. Ora has a second son named Offer, the product of a one-night-stand with Avram, whom Ilan raises as his own. All this is the background, relayed through flashback. In the present, set during a large military operation in the West Bank, Ora sends her son Offer to war, and then flees to the Galilee. She is convinced that her son is about to die, and does not want to be there when the army's messengers come to knock on her door.

Given that this is such an Israeli novel, I at first thought I would read it in Hebrew. After four years of living in Israel, I finally began reading novels in Hebrew five months ago, when I joined a Hebrew book club. But Grossman's novel is over 600 pages, and in our book club we average about 150 pages a month. (It generally takes us two months of biweekly meetings to get through an entire book.) It is unlikely that I'd be able to convince my book group to take on such a weighty tome, and I doubt I'd have the stamina on my own.

Still, I lingered by the stand of Grossman's publisher Hakibbutz Hameuchad at Shvua HaSefer, Hebrew Book Week, a week-long celebration of Hebrew books. During Shvua HaSefer, all the major cities in the country have fairs where publishers set up stands and sell their new wares at significant discounts. In Jerusalem, Shvua HaSefer is held at the old train station, an otherwise-empty courtyard that is sandwiched between two busy streets but sheltered from the noise and the traffic by high fences and tall trees. I have been there every night this week, wandering around from stall to stall to look at Hebrew picture books, cook books, new books on Talmud and Jewish philosophy, and even Hebrew study guides to American classics like Tom Sawyer and To Kill a Mockingbird.

It is a rare opportunity to see such a high concentration of new Hebrew books in one place, because the bookstores in Israel are quite small. Most are one room (not to mention one story), and there is no café or even a place to sit down. (Steimatzky's once tried selling coffee. I saw an ad about it in the paper, and went into the shop to see what it was all about. To my utter shock, they were selling jars of instant Elite ground coffee!! Apparently, some businessman had tipped them off to Barnes and Noble's success, but not provided the full story…..) I consider myself lucky if I can maneuver in a Steimatzky's shop without knocking a few books off the shelf with my bulky backpack. At Shvua HaSefer, there is always enough room to move around, and never enough time to see all the books on display.

I flipped through David Grossman's novel each time I visited his publisher's table, but finally decided that I would wait until the English translation comes out. This will not be for at least another two years, since the English rights have not been sold. (I know this because David Grossman's agent, who is auctioning the book right now, is my boss.) So I am in that awkward period now of waiting for a book that is already out to come out in another country in my language.

Generally, I am in the opposite place. I am usually waiting for books I have already read in English to come out in Hebrew. My job as a literary agent in Israel is to sell translation rights to publish books in Hebrew. This means that I work with all the major publishers around the world to find publishers in Israel. Once I sell a book and draft the contract, it usually takes about two years before the Hebrew edition is published. According to the terms of the contract, the Israeli publishers are obligated to send us two gratis copies of the finished product. And so we have a shelf in our office with Hebrew editions of Dara Horn's In the Image, Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, and even the complete annotated Wizard of Oz, to give just a few examples.

Now the tables are turned, and I wait for a Hebrew book to come out in English. Perhaps it will be ready by the next time I travel to America, so I can sit in a big comfortable armchair in Barnes and Noble, lean back with a cup of steaming cappuccino, and discover the news for myself.

Seconds of Seclusion: Sex and the Not-So-Single Sotah (Sotah 4a)

I wish I had been stuck in an airplane bathroom or riding in an elevator while learning today's Daf Yomi, which is about how long is long enough for a man and woman who are alone together to arouse suspicion. The Torah states that a woman may be suspected of adultery if she is secretly alone with another man (Numbers 5:13). The Talmud adds a few additional caveats: The woman needs to have been warned, this warning needs to take place in the presence of two witnesses, and the woman needs to have been alone with her seducer for a minimum period of time.

But how long is that period of time? כמה שיעור סתירה? The rabbis suggest a series of answers, each of which seems (to my ears, at least) laden with sexual overtones:

Rabbi Eliezer: For the time it takes to encircle a date palm. This is the Freudian/phallic response.

Rabbi Yehoshua: For the time it takes to mix a cup [of wine]. Cups are frequently associated with sex in the Talmud. In Nedarim 20b we learned that a man should not think of other women during sex with his wife because "A man should not drink from one glass while his eyes are on another." אל ישתה אדם בכוס זה ויתן עיניו בכוס אחר From Ketubot we know that a man would not sleep with a woman unless he checked her out beforehand, because "A man does not drink from a glass unless he first inspects it." אין אדם שותה בכוס אלא אם כן בודקו Furthermore, one of the three intimate labors that a woman performs for her husband (and which she is not allowed to delegate to a maidservant) is mixing his cup of wine.

Ben Azzai: For the time it takes to drink from a glass. Ben Azzai seems to require consummation. The rabbis at first do not accept his response. After all, the assumption is that each rabbi derives his answer based on his own sexual experiences.כל אחד ואחד בעצמו שיער But Ben Azzai never got married – how could he possibly know anything about sex? We know that Ben Azzai did not marry from Yevamot 63b, where this sage is attacked by the rabbis for saying that anyone who does not procreate is considered as if he committed murder. The rabbis respond to Ben Azzai, "Hey dude, practice what you preach!" נאה דורש ואינו נאה מקיים. Ben Azzai shrugs his shoulders: "What can I do? My soul's passion is for Torah." ומה אעשה וחשקה נפשי בתורה Here in Masechet Sotah, too, Ben Azzai speaks not from his own experience (presumably).

Rabbi Akiva: For the time it takes to roast an egg. Roasing an egg and fertilizing an egg are not all that different. Akiva, then, dispenses with the phallic symbol in favor of the ovoid.

Ben B'teyrah: For the time it takes to swallow an egg. Eggs, orifices, and oral activity. Indeed!

Pleymu (a student of Rabi) says: For the time it takes to extend an arm into a basket and grab a loaf of bread. Bread, too, is frequently associated with sex in the Talmud. "There is no comparison between one who has bread in his basket and one who does not" אינו דומה מי שיש פח בסלו למי שאין פת בסלו, the rabbis comment in extolling the virtues of having a spouse over remaining single. In a midrash about Potiphar, who entrusted Joseph with everything except "the bread that he ate" (Genesis 39:6), the rabbis comment that this bread refers to his wife. And in the continuation of our sugya in Sotah, we are told that "anyone who eats bread without washing first -- it is as if he had sex with a prostitute." Furthermore, snatching bread from a basket seems to suggest an illicit activity, and the extension of the arm can certainly also be phallic. Pleymu's suggestion preoccupies the rabbis, who want to know whether the loaf of bread is hot or cold; whether it is densely or loosely packed in the bag; whether it is a fresh loaf or a a stale one; whether it is made from wheat (which may slip from the hands) or from barley (which would not); whether it is soft or hard. Perhaps the rabbinic imagination, in its search for ever more graphic description, has other surfaces and textures in mind.

The rabbis' discussion goes on for quite a while, certainly for longer than it takes to roast an egg or mix a cup of wine. And so I can only wonder about the parallel sugya that was never recorded: What were their wives doing for the duration of this conversation?

Meditation on Turning Thirty

Today is my thirtieth birthday, which falls out each year during the period in which it is traditional to learn Pirkei Avot, the tractate of the Mishnah that contains many ethical precepts as well as teachings relating to Jewish learning, among them the following:

Age five is for learning Torah;
Age ten is for learning Mishnah
Age thirteen is for observing the commandments
Age fifteen is for learning Talmud
Age eighteen is for marriage
Age twenty is for pursuit [of a livelihood]
Age thirty is for strength….

The Mishnah seems to suggest that a person is expected to attain certain intellectual and personal milestones at particular ages. I find myself often internalizing this way of thinking. "Before another year passes I must learn how to drive!" "I am almost thirty – I should think about having children!" "I need to finish the Daf Yomi cycle before I turn 35!" And on, and on.

There is a value in this way of thinking -- it challenges me to set goals for myself, and to strive to attain them. But the older I get, the more convinced I become that there is no such thing as a "right age" for anything.

Last night I got together with a dear friend named Mira who lives with her husband and five children in a settlement over the green line. When we first met three years ago in a Jerusalem book group, she was in a crisis because she was turning 40, and I was in a crisis because I was getting divorced. Back then, she told me that she envied me because I was so young and had my life ahead of me; I told her that I envied her because she was so stable and settled and sure of her future.

Last night, over hot apple cider in a cafe in a quiet Jerusalem alleyway, it became clear that the tables had turned: I was on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, and Mira was planning to divorce her husband, something she has wanted to do for a while. Both of us were considerably happier than we were three years ago, though there was a certain wistfulness that I sensed when I rubbed my bare arms to stay warm in the chilly evening air. Having experienced the pain of divorce, it is hard to see someone else celebrate such a moment, especially when the couple in question has five children. And while a birthday is always a cause for celebration, it is also hard to accept that time can never be retrieved, and that some decisions are indeed irreversible.

Is thirty really an age of strength, as the rabbis declare? I should like to think so. But I should like to think every age is a time of strength -- the strength to face whatever challenges happen to lie in front of us at that particular moment. With the small candle in a ceramic jar flickering on the rickety cafe table, I close my eyes for a moment and wish for this strength to steady my steps in the years that lie ahead.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Nazir: Prakim Bet and Gimel

Perek Bet: הריני נזיר

(9a)
"I'm a Nazir from figs that are dried."
If the vower has thus specified
Does his nezirut take?
Hillel says, "Goodness sake,
No." Says Shammai: "He meant what he cried."

(10a)
If a cow lies there sprawled in the sludge
And you shout "Get up!" but it won't budge
You say, "I'm a Nazir
If you move from right here."
Does that take, though you meant just to nudge?

(11a)
A drunk woman looked at the wine
In her goblet. She shrieked, "I decline
To drink one more drop
I'm a Nazir. I stop
When it comes to all fruit of the vine."

(11a)
"When I vowed Nezirut, I was sure
That the rabbis would let me drink more
I would not make this slip
Had I known I can't sip."
Does it hold once he knows what's in store?

(11a)
"I'll be a Nazir and I'll shave
Off another who does thus behave."
Says another, "Me too!"
Then what are they to do?
Shave each other! Much trouble they'll save.

(12a)
Says a man to his messenger, "Go
Find a wife for me. Whom? I don't know."
From that moment each dame
Is forbidden. That same
Woman could be his new wife – Oh no!

(12a)
A woman is not like a chick.
No, a woman – her place is more fixed.
A chick may go roam
Far away from its home
But a woman to her home she sticks.

(12b)
A messenger cannot revoke
Any vows that his master's wife spoke.
Just the husband may say
To his wife, "Vow? No way!"
Only he can, and no other bloke.

(13a)
"I'll be a Nazir if a son
Will be born to my wife. Yes, just one."
If the son is stillborn
Then the father, forlorn,
Can consider his vow as undone.

(13a)
A Nazir who completes thirty days
Brings his sacrifice, then crosses ways
With a dead man. He's thus
Impure. Although he must
Shave he cannot do so as it says.

(15b)
A man who has had two emissions
On his seventh day has a remission
Once the pascal lamb's brought.
Though he may feel distraught
He need not keep Pesach Two's traditions.

Perek Gimel: מי שאמר

(16a)
"Behold, folks, I am a Nazir"
Shave on day thirty-one. But come hear:
If you shaved on day thirty
To feel, say, less dirty
You get off OK, have no fear.

(16b)
Say "Nazir, I" in a cemetery
Not a wise thing to do – no, not very.
Yochanan says: Nazir!
Lakish: Get out of here!
What you've done, all agree, is contrary.

(17b)
To a graveyard one comes in a box
Or a closet or trunk shut with locks
Some friends take off the lid
From the place where he hid
He's impure from his hat to his socks.

(18a)
A Nazir who touched many dead
(He touched one, and then look where that led!)
He may bring just one lamb
(Er… or was it a ram?)
Just one sacrifice falls on his head.

(19a)
A woman vows "I'm a Nazir"
Then her husband says, "Come again, dear?"
Does she still bring a bird
If he nixed what he heard?
Did he uproot, or chop with a spear?

(19b)
Queen Heleni's son went to war
She cried, "I cannot deal any more!
I'll become a Nazir
If he comes back safe here
I vow seven years – no wine," she swore.

(20a)
"That man vowed Nezirut – he vowed twice."
"He vowed five times, my words are precise."
These two men disagree
Each says, "Listen to me"
Hillel rules, "Just two months should suffice."

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Nazir Perek Aleph (כל כינויי נזירות)

(2a)
A person may say many words:
"Behold they're upon me, the birds"
"Nazik" and "Naziach"
"Eheh" and "Paziach"
He is thus a Nazir (it's absurd!).

(2a)
The tractate "Nazir" – this we find
Close to "Sotah," that is, right behind:
Why? If one sees a dame
Who has been through that shame
He will swear he will drink no more wine.

(2b)
If he says "Eheh" he's a Nazir
Maybe he means to fast? Swear off beer?
If that's all that he mentioned
We guess his intention
Because when he vowed one passed near.

(4a)
"I will be like that man whose own eyes
Have been gouged by those Philistine guys"
With these words he alludes
(Though his language his crude)
To the famed Samson, so we surmise.

(4a)
A "Samson Nazir" never shaves
(Don't get busted by Philistine knaves!).
He does not break his vow
And need not bring a cow
If he steps by mistake on some graves.

(4a)
As a "lifetime Nazir" you may cut
Off your hair every thirty days. But
If you come near the dead
It's not "off with his head"
Still, he's stuck in the sacrifice rut.

(5b)
If one vows, "Nezirut! Nezirut!"
He becomes a Nazir twice, to boot.
He shaves on day thirty
And then brings a birdie
At day sixty, so we compute.

(7a)
"I'm a Nazir to Kalamazoo"
Vows a man. But how can that be true?
Count the days that it takes
To walk there (feet will ache!)
Nezirut lasts that long, we construe.

(7b)
Says a man "All my house now I sell
Top to bottom." But he does not spell
Out which parts are included;
The buyer concluded
He'd also acquired the well.

(8a)
If he vows, "A nazir! I am one!
For the number of days of the sun!"
That is three sixty five
Months; Alas, to survive
That has to this date never been done.

(8b)
"I'm a Nazir Pentagon!"
That is Greek for "five." He takes upon
Himself 150 days
Or so Sumachus says:
Vow in Greek, Nezirut is still on.

Narcissus (Nazir 4b)

Said Shimon HaTsadik, "I never ate
The sacrifice of a Nazir but once:
A strapping youth with fair eyes, shoulders straight
Came to the Temple. There the lad confronts

Me. I say, "Son, why do you wish to shear
These curly locks that graze your neck? Pray tell!"
Says he: "I was a shepherd, south of here
I went to draw fresh water from a well--

"I leaned over the water, stricken dumb
By my reflection. 'Bum!' I cried, 'Forswear!
You'll end up as a worm! A tiny crumb!
Renounce your vanity. Shave off that hair!'

So no more Nezirut. My curls are God's."
"May there be many like you," Shimon nods.

Stopping for the Siren

When the siren went off all over Israel at 10am this morning for Yom HaShoah, I watched as the country came to a momentary standstill. From my third-floor office overlooking the Jerusalem municipal swimming pool, I watched swimmers freeze mid-lap and stand at attention in the water. Just beyond, on the busy shop-lined artery of Emek Refaim, I saw merchants leave their stores and stand in the doorways; I saw drivers turn off their engines, get out of the front seat, and stand beside their vehicles; and I saw burly strong-armed workers stop unloading groceries from a truck and put down their crates for two full minutes of silent commemoration.

This memorial siren will go off twice again next week, on the evening and morning of Yom Hazikaron. It has been sounded every year on Yom Hashoah since the early 1960s, and, as such, might be considered a national symbol. It is even the subject of a video installation, as I learned two nights ago when I went to an exhibit on contemporary Israeli art that opened this week at the Israel Museum. In this video, called “Trembling Time,” the young Israeli artist Yael Bartana filmed the Ayalon Highway as the siren sounded at the start of Yom Hazikaron. Using slow-motion photography and the reverberating sound of the siren, Bartana shows how time comes to a halt even on the busiest thoroughfare.

I wish I could say that when the siren went off this morning, I was entirely focused on the victims of the Shoah. I wish I could say that my head was in the right place, that I was absorbed in solemn reflection and engaged in heart-felt prayer. While I was grateful to have the time to commemmorate, I found myself, in those moments, also marveling at what it means to stand still. I am not a person who likes to stop – “How dull it is to pause,” I often find myself quoting from Tennyson. I would rather walk for 45 minutes than wait five minutes at a bus stop. When I come to a red light, I usually walk to the next corner instead of waiting for the light to turn green. In my work, too, I rarely take breaks; instead I usually do three things at once, regarding my efficiency as an aesthetic of sorts. And so stopping--for a siren, or for anything--is very much against my nature.

And yet Judaism is a religion that demands that we stop. Each week on Friday afternoon, we have to put aside whatever we are doing for at least 25 hours and greet Shabbat. (“Creative people have often told me that they find this impossible,” Avivah Zornberg once commented.) We stop the rhythm of our normal days for holidays -- for celebrations as well as commemorations. Our lives unfold on an axis of personal time--our jobs, our needs and wants, and the needs and wants of those we love--but always against a backdrop of sacred time. We move not just at our own pace, because with every step we take we are pulling along behind us thousands of years of Jewish history, like a cumbersome bag of oddly-shaped objects which is constantly bumping against our heels. As Jews, we cannot move forwards without looking back at what we are carrying along behind us, and occasionally even sitting down on a bench for a while to open the bag and examine one or another of its contents.

When the siren goes off for Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron, I remember what it means to live simultaneously in personal and sacred time. I want to keep going about my daily business, but instead I stop and attune myself to the sacred rhythm in the streets and shops all around me. When I open my mind in this way, I am flooded with memories that are not just my own. I think of the Holocaust survivor I visited last week who told us about her beloved brother whose identity card photo, which is all she has left to remind her of him, hangs over her sickbed in a moshav north of Tel Aviv; I think about the soles of shoes I saw at Yad Vashem, which the Nazis had made from pieces of Torah scrolls; I think about the mother of a good friend who came to Israel as one of the 1700 Jews who left Hungary in 1944 on Kastner's train. In these moments of reflection, I would like to believe that the world can be repaired also when we only stand and wait. And if those two minutes sometimes feel like an eternity, I tell myself that perhaps this is because they bring us ever closer--as individuals, and as a people--to the Eternal.

כל המרבה לספר: New Things I Have Learned for this Pesach

From Rabbi David Silber (of Drisha):

--The two sets of Biblical verses that comprise the core of the Haggadah, ארמי אובד אבי (Arami Oved Avi) and עבדים היינו (Avadim Hayinu), are both taken from the book of Dvarim rather than Shmot. Why? We would expect to be focusing on the exodus, that is, on Exodus! No, the focus of the seder is not the story itself, but the telling of the story. Dvarim is the book of remembrance, in which Moshe narrates the exodus for the people – a project more similar to our own on Leyl Haseder.

--The wise and the wicked children basically ask the same question, but they ask it with a different attitude. The wise child essentially asks, "I am sure there must be meaning to Pesach – but what is it?" The wicked child, on the other hand, asserts, "I'm sure there is no meaning to this Pesach you are doing." Thus the wise child merits a detailed explanation of the meaning of the seder, while the wicked child is told only (in the sternest of teeth-blunting terms) that the seder does indeed have meaning.

From Rabbi Benny Lau (of Beit Knesset Ramban):

--Of the wicked child, it is said: "And since he excluded himself from the community, he blasphemed against the very essence." What is that very essence of our tradition? That no one should remove himself from the community.

From Professor Avigdor Shinan (of Hebrew University):

--Over the course of the first 800 years of the Common Era, the haggadah got its form as we know it, taking shape mostly in the seventh and eighth centuries.
--The piyut "קדש ורחץ" (Kadesh Urchatz) dates back to eleventh century France. The final stage of the seder here is Nirtza, which is the only future-oriented stage. (All the others look to the past, concerned as they are with remembering and retelling the exodus.) A few of the six piyutim of the Nirtza, the final step, are discussed below.

--The piyut "חסל סידור פסח" (Chasal Sidur Pesach) is actually the last part of a much longer piyut composed in northern France in the eleventh century by Rabbi Yosef Tuv Elem. He wrote this piyut not for Pesach but rather for Shabbat Hagadol, the Shabbat before Pesach, when it was customary to read most of the haggadah at minchah. And thus "כאשר זכינו לסדר אותו" )Ka'asher zachinu l'sader oto( refers to that which is learned in shul (i.e. the learning about the seder), and ken nizkeh la'asoto refers to that which will be enacted a few days later at home (i.e. the seder itself). It is only we who study this piyut out of context who think it refers to the present day and the future redemptive era! Moreover, the line "לשנה הבאה בירושלים" (Lashana Haba'ah B'yerushalayim) was added much later, in the seventeenth century; with "הבנויה" (Habnuya) added at the turn of the twentieth century as Zionism gained force.

--The piyut "ויהי בחצי הלילה" (Vayehi Bachatzi Halayla) was written in the fifth/sixth century by the famous paytan, Yannai. It was written not for the Seder, but rather for the Shabbat on which we read the verses from the Torah about the night of the Exodus (found for us in Parshat Bo Exodus 12:29). The piyut was written as a lead-in to the Kedusha. Thus it enumerates the many miracles performed for God's chosen people at night, including Avraham's Brit ben Hab'tarim and Jacob's wrestling with the angel. It concludes with extolling the glory of God, and by extension His angels, who rise on their feet and sing "Kadosh, kadosh."

--The piyut Chad Gadya, written in grammatically incorrect Aramaic (for example, d'zabin means to sell, whereas to buy is zaven), first appeared in haggadot in Prague at the end of the sixteenth century. It too, has bafflingly little to do with Pesach, and was probably inserted into the seder to keep young children awake until the end. Although many explanations have been posited, folklorists have found parallels in all cultures, suggesting it is probably more universal than some of us would like to think.

--The piyut "אחד מי יודע"(Echad Mi Yodea) also had nothing to do with Pesach at its inception. After all, none of the numbers are identified with anything Pesach related – even ten is not the ten plagues, but rather the ten commandments! This piyut was written as a polemic against the Christian world. You Christians say there are three gods? No, there's just one! You say there is one father? Nope, there were three! And even: You say conception happens immaculately? Nope, it takes nine months! Although originally written with 12 verses, a thirteenth was later added to serve as further polemic – in Christianity, thirteen may be an unlucky number (consider the number of attendants at the last supper) but in Judaism, thirteen is especially lucky (bar mitzvah, the midot of God, etc).

The Last of the Chametz

In just a few hours, my colleague Efrat and I will set out for the London Book Fair, one of the major annual events in the global publishing industry. There thousands of editors, literary agents, authors, and booksellers from around the world will gather at the convention center at Earl’s Court to pitch new titles, sell rights, show off ever-younger and ever-more-daringly-experimental debut writers, and pop open many a bottle of champagne at the afternoon receptions. There, too, I will dress in the Ann Taylor black slacks I pull out of my closet only on such occasions (as they are far too formal for my sundress-and-crocs Jerusalem lifestyle), and make my way from stall to stall for a regimen of 45 pre-scheduled half-hour appointments over the course of several days. Exhausted and overwhelmed, Efrat and I will return to Jerusalem on erev Shabbat which leads directly into Pesach, landing at Ben Gurion airport, no doubt, surrounded by throngs of tourists from around the world arriving for the holiday.

Returning home on the day before erev Pesach is not going to be easy, even though I am (thankfully!) not making a Seder in my apartment. Still, I need to get rid of most of my chametz before I leave tonight, and arrange for the sale of what is left. I also need to stock up on Kosher-for-Pesach foods, as the supermarkets will be a madhouse on Friday and will anyway all be closed by 1pm, when the city shuts down. It’s all a bit overwhelming, which is why I was more than happy to offer Efrat a few crackers just now when I came down to her office. “Please take some,” I said. “You’re helping me get rid of my chametz.”

“Don’t remind me,” she said. “I’m dreading this holiday.” Efrat is completely secular, and I was positive she does not keep kosher. So why does she hate Pesach? Surely she eats chametz throughout the chag. Noticing my bewildered expression, she explained what she meant. “It is impossible to get bread on Pesach in Jerusalem. None of the supermarkets sell it, and even the aisles with crackers and pretzels are covered up with wrapping paper. Usually I go out a few days before the holiday and stock up, but this year I won’t be here. I just put a dozen bagels in my freezer, as well as two bags of pita – hopefully that will last me.”

Efrat went on to explain that each year, on Pesach, she feels like she is under siege. She, and surely others like her, have suffered under the Chametz Law passed by the Knesset in 1986, which stipulates that a "business proprietor may not publicly display chametz products for sale or consumption.” It is true that last week the Jerusalem municipal court ruled that the sale of chametz in a store or restaurant during Passover does not constitute a "public" sale, and is therefore not prohibited by the current law banning the sale of chametz in public. Still, religious members of Knesset are now asking for an emergency session to change the law so as to preserve the uniqueness of the Jewish State – as they see it. Others, apparently, see things differently.

In these last few hours before we leave for the book fair, Efrat is stocking her freezer with leavened products, and I am trying to rid my freezer of even the slightest trace of breadcrumbs. When we arrive in London, each of us will try to eat as much bread as possible, buying fresh rolls at Café Nero and boxed triangle-shaped sandwiches from Pret a Manger at the bookfair kiosks. Each of us will feel like this is our last chance to freely enjoy Chametz before the week-long commemoration of our people’s bondage in Egypt and their journey to the promised land – a land which, with its Chametz Law and its craziness, is (for better or worse) the place we both call home.

The Lepers (Ketubot 77b)

My translation from Ruth Calderon's
Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

The lepers were sitting at the entrance to the bathhouse. Some were scratching themselves with their fingernails and others with pottery shards or clumps of earth they had found. Groups of children would look at them and then run away, excited and repelled by their ugliness. They would linger beside one old man who used to expose a hole in the skin of his leg to awaken the mercy of passersby.

It was impossible to know whom the terrible disease would strike, and rumors would circulate in the city about ways of avoiding contagion. Most of the lepers were beggars, including one who came from afar; but even in the newer neighborhoods where the wealthiest families lived, there were people with suspicious open wounds. No one dared approach the infected, and in synagogue they used to quote Rabbi Yochanan, who said that one should stay away even from the flies that came near them.

Those who frequented the bathhouse left red-faced and perfumed with the fresh scent of almond and rose. They rushed past the horrific display, anxious to avoid infection. Many would toss a coin into a jar as they passed, thinking to themselves "Charity saves from death" (Proverbs 10:2) as they hurried off. Righteous women would bring bread or stew once or twice a week, but of the sages, only Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi would come close enough to sit among them. Ben Levi would come to the synagogue at sunrise for the morning prayers, and afterwards he would return to the street and sit on a mat next to the entrance to the bathhouse, between the lepers and shady alley where lumps of soap and dry rags were distributed. The bath attendant, a rotund, pleasant man, always knew when Ben Levi was due to arrive, and would prepare him a cup of hot tea. Within an hour the sound of his learning could be heard, calming the sleepy sick who were still wrapped in filthy blankets like great cocoons. When they awoke to his chanting, they would file out one after another to greet the new day. Ben Levi would learn until noon, and then he would return to the study house to join the small circle of learners in prayer. And then again in the afternoon, until just before evening, he could be found beside the lepers, learning and reviewing, sometimes answering passersby with words of Torah. "You're not afraid of getting sick?" they would wonder. And his wife would wail angrily and worriedly, "Aren't you afraid of dying?" He would smile at her and answer with the verse, "A loving doe, a graceful mountain goat," which he would then interpret. "If Torah has graced me such that you agreed to be my wife, will it be so difficult for Torah to save me from illness?"

Years later, when it became time for Ben Levi to die, those responsible for him said to the Angel of Death, "Go do his will. Give him a pleasant death." The Angel of Death knew from experience that leading Torah scholars to their death, whether they were still in their prime or had reached ripe old age, was not a difficult task. Torah scholars were always ready for him, as if they were expecting him; they were not shocked and startled by his arrival like other men. With Torah scholars, the Angel of Death was spared the routine crying and pleading and paralyzed looks. Perhaps that tiny trace of pride inside them countered the fear of death, overcoming that momentary pain when the soul escapes the body. Perhaps they were consoled by the fact that the Torah they had learned in their lifetimes would merit them a place in heaven. In any case, the Angel of Death interacted politely with Torah scholars, according to the protocol of manners that governs the relationship between a person of status and his equals.

This time the Angel of Death chose to come dressed like a beggar who knocks at doorways with open palms; this was one of his favorite costumes for escorting men to their deaths. The order he had received, to act in accordance with Ben Levi's will, deprived him of the little authority he had. He muttered to himself unconsciously and set out on his way at daybreak.

That morning, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi woke up earlier than usual, long before the other worshippers, and arrived at his place in the study house before dawn. The Angel of Death and Yehoshua ben Levi stood opposite one another in the dim early morning, in that hour when it is impossible to distinguish a dog from a wolf. It was difficult to see clearly with all the shadows, but Ben Levi's white clothing, his hair still wet from his ritual immersion, and the scent of soap that clung to him all signaled to the Angel of Death that this man knew that his time had come, and was prepared.

Ben Levi was not a man of many words. The Angel of Death, too, preferred to remain silent – he simply took off his cloak and drew his knife, which he would raise as a sign above the heads of those destined to die. The look in Ben Levi's eyes confirmed that he accepted the fate that awaited him.

The ritual raising of the knife was accomplished without fanfare. And then with total serenity, Ben Levi said to the Angel of Death, "Show me my place in the world to come," as if he were engaged in a business transaction and wanted to see the quality of the merchandise he would be receiving. The Angel of Death answered him with something like "fine" or "so be it," and the two of them set out on their way. They passed farther and farther beyond the roads of the city and its houses, whose shuttered windows resembled closed eyes. The Angel of Death knew that this journey should be a silent one, and he respected his companion's right to his own private thoughts. He was surprised when Ben Levi suddenly turned and asked him for his knife, "lest you frighten me along the way."

Frighten you? The Angel of Death was taken aback. He squinted his many eyes to peer at Ben Levi, who didn't seem frightened at all. Still, perhaps because the Angel had been given explicit instructions to do his will, which had never been fully detailed, or perhaps simply in order to avoid unnecessary delays, he agreed to give Ben Levi his knife. After all, he had received far more unusual requests from those he had escorted in the past. It was a strange feeling for the Angel to walk empty-handed; without his knife, it was easier to walk freely. He felt like a young angel in training, and even thought about humming to himself as he walked.

When they reached the wall of heaven, they stood beside a section of the wall that was a bit lower than the rest. The Angel of Death lifted up Ben Levi and showed him what lay on the other side. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi looked beyond the wall and saw the portion assigned to the Torah scholars – spacious, airy, and open on all four sides. Just steps away was a hut made from the skin of the Leviathan sea monster, where righteous men passed to and fro.

Ben Levi looked to his left and right and then jumped, suddenly, to the other side – a living man inside of heaven! The Angel of Death, overcome with fright, grabbed him by the corner of his garment and cried out, "Come back! Get out of there!"

Ben Levi, from the other side of the wall, was still dressed in the clothing of this world, his soul still inside his body. Without any concern for propriety, he waved dismissively at the angel, as if to say that he would not exit. "What will you do to me now," he seemed to be taunting. The Angel's face tightened like a baby on the verge of tears, his hand clutching the corner of his garment. He turned to seek help from the chief angel responsible for sending him on this mission.

The chief angel dispatched one of his novices to find out what had happened. The young angel came back distraught and recounted what he had seen. Groups of angels gathered around, seating themselves atop the clouds so they could peer down at the argument that had broken out across the wall of heaven. The righteous, bored by the monotony of their pious afterlives, peeked at the other side of heaven. Eventually the rumor reached the Holy One Blessed Be He, who declared: "If Ben Levi ever asked to have one of his vows nullified, he must return; if not, then he need not return." Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi heard the words of the Holy One Blessed Be He and flashed a small smile at the Angel of Death.

The Angel of Death said to him, "Hand over my knife." His voice was loud and petulant, without any trace of respect or civility. Ben Levi ignored him. In spite of the hour—it was time for the afternoon rest—throngs began to assemble at the wall of heaven. It was time for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to return from the study house, and the chief angel did not want any more trouble. A voice from heaven called out, "Give him the knife, because it is needed for those still living."

Something in the tone of this voice, almost maternal in its softness, calmed everyone down. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi threw the knife over the wall, the Angel of Death headed back the way he had come, and a sweet afternoon rest spread across the expanse of heaven.


This story is based on a sugya from Ketubot 77b, translated here:

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi clung to them [the lepers] and studied Torah.
How did he interpret the verse: "A loving doe, a graceful mountain goat" (Proverbs 5:19)?
If the Torah graces those who learn it, will it not also protect me?
When he was about to die, they said to the Angel of Death: Go and do Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi's will [and let him die as he wishes]. The Angel of Death went and appeared before him.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: Show me my place [in the world to come].
The Angel of Death said to him: "Yes, by my life."
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: "Give me your knife, lest you frighten me with it on the way."
The Angel of Death gave it to him.
When they got there [to the wall of heaven] he lifted him and showed him [his place in the world to come]. He asked him, "Lift me a bit more," and he lifted him. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi jumped and fell to the other side.
The Angel of Death grabbed him by the corner of his garment.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: I swear I won't leave this place.
The Holy One Blessed Be He said: If he [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi] ever asked to have one of his vows nullified, he must return; if not, then he need not return.
The Angel of Death said to him: "Return my knife."
He did not return it.
A voice from above called out: "Give it to him because it is needed for those still living."

Sonnet: Nedarim 91b

A man slept with a woman -- not his wife
But when her husband came, then quick the rake
Hid out behind the door to save his life
Among some lettuce nibbled by a snake.

The husband thought the lettuce leaves would go
Well with his salad. "Just the thing I crave!
That lettuce." The rake heard and yelled out "No!
It's poisoned!" Thus the husband's life was saved.

Now would the rake cry out if he had done
The deed? Says Rava: "No! He must be pure.
Adulterers don't care to save someone!"
It's obvious! But we can't be so sure:

Perhaps he did not let her husband eat
So she would be like stolen waters – sweet.

Water Works (Nedarim 80)

I came home from work yesterday to find that there was no water in my apartment – first only a faint trickle came out of the faucets, and then nothing at all. I called Gichon, the water company, and learned that the previous tenant in my apartment had not paid one of his bills, and thus my water had been turned off. When I asked why I had not been warned in advance, the clerk told me that they don't warn people who don't pay, and that I would have to come to their offices tomorrow morning at 9am to set matters straight.

When I arrived at the Gichon offices on Derech Chevron this morning, there was a long line of people in front of me waiting to be seen. I tried to keep my distance, since I hadn't showered and I was sure I smelled dreadful. While waiting my turn, I took out my Gemara and began learning today's daf. The Mishnah begins:

"A husband may revoke a wife's vows if they relate to matters of self-affliction….If she vows, 'I will not wash.'"

In other words, a husband is permitted to revoke any vows his wife makes that cause her to suffer. If she vows that she won't wash for a day, for instance, her husband can revoke the vow so that she can bathe (and he doesn't have to smell her). But when we get to the Gemara, the rabbis are not so sure that not washing really constitutes self-affliction. As Rabbi Yossi says, "Disgustingness for one day does not constitute disgustingness." (Nivul d'chad yoma – la shma nivul). Or does it? To determine the answer to this question, the rabbis draw from the laws of Yom Kippur, on which we are forbidden to wash (as well as to eat, drink, have sexual relations, and anoint ourselves with oil). The discussion unfolds as follows:

"And did the rabbis say with regard to washing that it involves self-affliction when one does not wash? They challenge: Even though all (the five activities mentioned above) are forbidden (on Yom Kippur), a punishment of excommunication is given only for eating and drinking and doing work. And if you should say that her not washing constitutes self-affliction, then one who washes on Yom Kippur should also get excommunicated. "

Anyone who violates the Torah's command to afflict oneself on Yom Kippur is deserving of excommunication. The rabbis are suggesting that since washing is not a Yom Kippur prohibition deserving of excommunication, it cannot constitute a form of self-affliction. Hence a husband should not be allowed to revoke this type of vow.

I am feeling a bit sweaty and gross as I read through this argument, and I'm grateful that it's finally my turn in line. I approach the counter and explain to the uniformed water company official whose nametag says Maayan that my water has been turned off. She asks for my address, and looks me up in her system. Then she asks to see my rental contract, which I thankfully thought to bring with me. While she examines these documents, my Gemara is resting in my lap, and I glance down occasionally. I decide that learning in this place is not all that inappropriate, given the connection between water and Torah. As we learn in Taanit: "Why is Torah analogized to water? As it is written 'Lo, all who thirst should go to water' (Isaiah 55: 1) to teach you that just as water flows from high places to low places, so too, Torah can only stay with one who is humble in spirit." (Taanit 6a). Torah is also compared to water in the very sugya that I am learning about washing, where we are told: "Be careful in the presence of dirt, and large groups, and be careful to teach Torah to poor people, as it is taught 'Water will drip from their boughs (dalyav –also their impoverished ones).' But not all the images are so positive: "The waters are not stopped except because of the forsaking of Torah" (Taanit 7b), we are taught, and so I keep learning.

Maayan looks up at me after reviewing all my documents. "OK, we will turn on your water within seventy-two hours." I look back at her horrified, forgetting to be humble in spirit. "Seventy-two hours?? That's crazy! How do I shower until then? How do I brush my teeth? Or cook? I can't get by for three more days without water!" I wonder which of the many sources I should quote to her, and finally decide upon Shmuel's claim: "Uncleanliness of the head leads to blindness; uncleanliness of clothing leads to dementia; uncleanliness of the body leads to boils and sores." Does Gichon really want to be responsible for all this self-affliction? "Can't you turn it on sooner?" I plead.

Maayan smiles apologetically as she returns my documents to me. "Ein davar ka-zeh," she says, which literally means "there is no such thing." This is one of my least favorite Hebrew expressions, because what it really means is, "I don't care enough about your plight to make any more efforts on your behalf." I sigh. As I walk out of the building with sunken shoulders, I console myself with Rabbi Yossi's final claim. He insists that not only does not bathing not constitute self-affliction, but it also does not constitute "matters between him and her," the other category of a wife's vows that her husband can revoke. According to Rabbi Yossi, a woman's abstention from bathing will not make her husband find her repugnant. "We have never found a fox that dies from the dirt of his own hole," he remarks somewhat crassly. I tell myself that hopefully no one will die because my armpits stink to high heavens.

That evening, I come home from work with a few bottles of water from the market around the corner. But to my astonishment, when I walk in to the kitchen there is water trickling out of the faucet, which I had neglected to fully close. "Eyn davar ka-zeh," I tell myself – it can't possibly be! And yet it is. I jump in the shower, rejoicing in my good fortune. When I get out, I have a quick glance at tomorrow's daf, which seems to be about a woman who vows not to wear make-up and not to have sex. Stay tuned!

Sonnet 130 meets Nedarim 66b

My house/wife's eyes are wider than the sun
A goose's feet more flat than her two feet.
If hairs be flax, black flax her strands, each one.
As bellies bloat, so hers had much to eat.

I have seen ears hang low or stick out far
But hers are measured twice the normal size
Some passages remain a bit ajar
But not the nostrils sealed beneath her eyes.

I'd love to hear her speak yet well I know
That lips so thick can't make a pleasing sound.
And though I never saw a goddess go
My blemished wife could please no man in town.

And yet, I think my Lichluchit as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Amelia Bedelia marries a Babylonian (Nedarim 66b)

As a child, I was a big fan of the Amelia Bedelia books. This popular series featured a dark stocking and apron-clad housekeeper who was famous for her silly but well-intentioned errors. In Amelia Bedelia Plays Baseball, the eponymous heroine is instructed to run home, so she runs all the way to her house. In Amelia Bedelia Goes to School, she is told to take her seat, so she walks out of the room with her chair. On in on, in story after story, Amelia Bedelia delighted me and countless other children with her literal-mindedness.

Although it is years since I read these books, I was reminded of Amelia Bedelia today when I learned daf yomi, a program in which Jews all over the world participate in a seven-year cycle to learn the entire Talmud at a page-a-day rate. We learned today about a man from Babylonia who married a woman in Eretz Yisrael who was strikingly similar to my favorite housekeeper. Here is the story as rendered on Nedarim 66b:

A man from Babylon came to Israel and married a woman there. He said to her: "Cook me two lentils." She cooked him exactly two lentils. He got angry (literally "he boiled") at her. The next day he said to her, "Cook me a seah's worth of lentils (a very large quantity). She cooked him exactly a seah. He said to her, "Go bring me two pumpkins." She went and brought him two candles (because in Eretz Yisrael, the Babylonian word for pumpkin means candle). He grew furious and said to her, "Go smash these candles against the bava (the Aramaic word for gate). Beside the gate sat the sage Bava ben Buta rendering judgments. She came to him and smashed the candles over his skull. He said to her, "Why did you do that?" She said, "I did as my husband told me." He said: "Since you did your husband's will, God will grant you two sons like Bava ben Buta."

Like Amelia Bedelia, this hapless housewife from Eretz Yisrael can't seem to stay out of trouble. She takes everything literally, and is consequently always in a fix. As with the Amelia Bedelia books, which were written by children's educator Peggy Parish as a way of teaching children about language, the Talmudic story serves as a lesson about the nuances of language (particularly as it varied between Bavel and Eretz Yisrael) and the danger of too much precision. The Talmud is comprised of halacha, legal discourse which deals with the right way to live life in all its minutiae, and aggadah, stories that fly in the face of legalistic details and show life in all its complicated messiness. This passage is of course a part of the aggadah, and it serves remind us that no matter how much we seek to dictate and regulate, there will always be the Amelia Bedelias among us who ensure that life is full of delightful surprises – so long as your name is not Bava ben Buta!

Sonnet: Nedarim 25b

One man lent cash. His friend did not return
The cash but claimed he had. So both men came
To Rava who ruled in a voice most stern:
"Don't tell me. Go to court and say the same."

The borrower arrived at court and leaned
Upon a cane, which secretly alone
He'd stuffed with all the borrowed cash. The fiend!
He handed it to he who'd made the loan

And took the Torah scroll in hand and swore:
"I gave it back." The lender's cheeks did burn
Incensed, he broke the cane. And to the floor
Fell all the coins he'd lent. And thus we learn:

A borrower or lender you may be
But swear so others hear you truthfully.

Sonnet: Nedarim 22a

When Ulah came to Israel, there were two
Men from Bey Chozey flanking him. One stood
Up suddenly and knifed his fellow through --
“Do you think,” he mused, “I did as I should?”

“Er…yes,” poor Ulah stammered, and he bent
To help the dying man to die in peace.
But Ulah had no peace. His heart was rent.
He sought from Rabbi Yochanan release.

“Perhaps I aided sinners!” (His concern) --
“You had no choice,” thus Yochanan assured:
”But was the killer so enraged?! We learn:
To anger we in Israel are inured.”

“In Bavel folks get mad and lives are lost
And this was ere the Jordan had been crossed.”

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Nedarim: Prakim 1 and 2

Perek 1: כל כינויי

(3b)
"I'll be a nazir ere I die!"
Vows a man, but does not specify
On which date. Since we say:
He could die any day
He must start nezirut. Time will fly.

(4a)
A Nazir vower cannot be late
He must start on the very same date
If he vows near a grave
He can't start to behave
Like one. Try to avoid such a fate.

(6b)
"Behold you are now sanctified
And you, too" – to the one at his side
Is he bound now to two
What's the poor groom to do
Can both women cry out, "I'm a bride!"

(7a)
A toilet must be designated
You must know which spot has been slated.
If you say: It is this!
But you don't take a piss
Is there anything that you've created?

(7b)
Rabbi Abba said: “One time I stood
In front of Rav Huna. We could
Hear a woman in pain
Screaming God's name in vain.”
Huna banned and allowed, as one should.

(8a) For SHF
One who says to his Beit Midrash buddy
"Let us wake up tomorrow and study.”
He must then awake
For he cannot forsake
Torah (or ditch his friend, who'll feel cruddy).

(8a/b)
Acha said, "Ashi, am I ill-fated?
I dreamed I was excommunicated
And then reallowed
Was it something I vowed?”
"All our dreams have chaff," Ashi evaded.

(9a)
Kohelet says, "Better not oath"
Meir: Not to vow's better than both
Vowing unwilling
To fill; and fulfilling
Yehuda, it seems, was less loath.

(9b)
Hillel the Elder, it's said,
Had no Temple theft crimes on his head.
He would sacrifice fast
So that no beast would last
Long enough to be his ere 'twas dead.

(10a)
The earliest pious ones lusted
To bring sin offerings, as if busted.
How could they win
God would not let them sin!
So they'd vow Nezirut, which God trusted.

(10b)
Wording vows right can be quite a pain
You must first name the sacrifice slain
Only then say "to God"
Point, or give it a nod,
Lest you say (God forbid) "God" in vain.

(10b)
Some words used for vows are like vows
We must know which words which sage allows
Maphichna, Mikachna
Minzachna, Mikasna
Say those and you might lose your cows.

(11a)
Rabbi Meir held "From vows negated
We can never conclude what was stated."
Yehuda said, "Errr….
Can we not just infer
What one meant?" "Forswear no," Meir baited.

(11b)
"Let this be like the sacrifice meat
Ere we've sprinkled the blood" – can he eat?
What if something ill-fitted
Is, for now, permitted –
It sounds like he's trying to cheat!

(13a)
Firstborn is forbidden from birth
Thus it's not a good thing on this earth
On which to hang vows
Choose instead Temple cows
(With no Temple, what is it all worth?)

Nedarim 2: ואלו מותרין

(13b)
Says a man to his wife: “You shall be
Like my (bless her soul) mother to me.”
Our sages, they state:
This vow carries no weight
Still, we don't let him off easily.

(14b)
Says a man, "Konam now my shut eyes
If a sleep past tomorrow's sunrise."
Despite what you think
He can't now sleep a wink
Lest sleep take him next day by surprise.

(15a)
If you swear, "I won't sleep for three days."
Then we beat you in terrible ways.
For no human can keep
Three whole days without sleep
Once banged up, you can sleep right away.

(15b)
Says a woman, "I vow I won't take
Any pleasure in sex that we make"
Her husband, it's said,
Cannot force her to bed
Why? To her, he's like unkosher steak.

(16b)
One who says, "I vow I'll take no joy
In this Sukkah with all of its "noy"
Such a vow does not take,
It is not his to make.
For are mitzvoth for us to enjoy?!

(17a)
If you vow, "I will be a Nazir"
Then you add on tomorrow. Come hear:
First the thirty days pass
Then another, alas,
Only then are you done, so we fear.

(18a)
If you swear "I won't eat! I won't eat!"
Then you sample a most tasty treat.
Is it one vow you've broken
Or two, since twice spoken—
Was there a sage whom you did meet?

(19a)
If he says: "I will be a Nazir
If the number of grains that are here
In this pile are more
Than a hundred." Before
He can count, some are stolen. Not clear.

(20a)
If he vows "My wife's pleasure in sex
Is a Konam to me," then regrets
What he said, he can say,
"Not that wife, if you may,
I vowed just with respect to my Ex!"

(20a)
If you look at a woman's bare heel.
Then your sons will go bad. That's the deal.
Resh Lakish disagrees
"Not the heel, if you please
It's That-Place-Which-I-Cannot-Reveal."

(20a)
Angels said: If you kiss in That Place
Then your sons will be lame, a disgrace.
If you talk during sex
They'll be deaf, which will vex
If you peep they'll be blind – so save face!

(20b)
Oh, the angels may do as they please
But to set human minds now at ease:
Halacha says you do
All you want, it is true,
With your wife (that is, if she agrees).

(20b)
Wailed a woman to Rabi "I set
Him a table – and look what I get!"
Rabi had to admit
That the Torah permits
Sex this way. She had no grounds to fret.

(20b)
A man should not drink from one glass
With his eyes on another. (That ass
May be nicer than this
But so what if it is?
Look at this one, for she is your lass.)

Radio in this City

On Friday morning, I was cooking for Shabbat and cleaning my Jerusalem apartment while listening to a radio station that shall remained unnamed. While I cut up cauliflower, I listened over the airwaves as someone leyned selections from the Torah portion and haftarah. (This is generally good review for my own leyning the next day in shul – except when the radio rabbi leyns in Sephardi trope!) Then, while chopping onions, a new program came on: a d'var Torah about the leadership skills we can learn from Moshe Rabbeinu in sefer Shmot. This was followed by the 11 o'clock news, which concluded with, "Shabbat begins at 4:32 and ends at 5:49. The times for Shabbat this week are sponsored by Hepi diapers. We remind you that Hepi diapers have special adhesive that can be used on Shabbat. Make your baby a Hepi baby all week long!"

By the time my vegetable kugel was in the oven, it was time for my favorite program: Chidat Haparsha, a trivia question about the weekly Torah portion. The question this week, in honor of the Ten Commandments which were inscribed "from one side and from the other side," was about a palindromatic word that appeared in the parsha. As soon as the riddle was announced in full, listeners began to call in with answers. It turns out that there are a lot of palindramatic words in this parsha, as I learned, though no one gave an answer that met all the qualifications. I stayed tuned.

I was surprised at what happened next: A woman called in, Shulamit from Bee'r Sheva, the first woman I'd ever heard on this program. She answered, "The word is Hineh," and then proceeded to explain how this word answered each part of the riddle. The radio announcer heard her out, and then asked, "And what is the verse in which this word appears?" Over in Be'er Sheva, Shulamit paused. "I'm in the kitchen," she said, "I don't have a Tanach in front of me." The radio announcer apologized; the answer had to be accompanied by the full text of the verse. But it seems that woman had made an impact, because the next caller was also a woman – Chedva from Netanya. Chedva gave the same answer as Shulamit, but cited the verse, albeit incorrectly. "I'm sorry," said the announcer. "That's not the verse." She had just one or two words wrong, I noted. Chedva sighed. "I'm also in the kitchen," she said, and I felt the weight of thousands of years of Jewish women's kugels bearing down on her shoulders as she sighed and hung up.

Not surprisingly, a man called in next, gave Shulamit's original answer with the correct text of the verse, and the Hasidic choir on the air broke out in a round of rousing zemirot. And so, as happens each week, a man won Chidat Haparsha, and the radio announcer moved on to the pre-Shabbat traffic report.

I was not planning to travel anywhere that afternoon, so I turned off the radio and went back to my cooking. I have nothing against women in the kitchen--someone has to cook for Shabbat--but I do wish that more women leyned the parsha. The secret of leyning well is that you really do learn the Torah by heart. This means that you can cite the right answer to Chidat Haparsha even while your hands are stuffing a chicken. Who said women can't have it all?

Extempore Effusions on the Comlpletion of Masechet Ketubot (Prakim 3-4)

Perek 3: אלו נערות

(29a)
These are women for whom there's no fine
If you force them to bed (not a kind
Thing to do): the one taken
Captive, then forsaken
The convert, the slave for a time.

(29b)
Shimon Hatimni announced
If a woman could not be one's spouse
Because she's forbidden,
Then, though one was smitten,
There's no fine (but one's still a louse).

(30a)
Jacob said to his sons: Be on guard
Against hot and cold winds, they are hard
To withstand. And beware
Thieves and lions that tear
Human flesh. I don't want my boys scarred.

(30b)
When the Temple stood tall, one could be
Killed in four ways, unmercifully.
We today don't burn, kill
Stone or hang. But we will
Wait for these fates to come naturally.

(31a)
If on shabbos an arrow is thrown
And it lands on some silk that you own
And the silk then gets ripped --
Though the thrower has slipped.
Is it two sins, or one sin alone?

(31b)
If a man steals some cattle but ere
He has taken the beast anywhere
There's a blow to the head
It drops suddenly dead.
Is thief guilty? He's not. (Is that fair?)

(32a)
Ulla said: If a man should get lashed
For his crime, and pay also in cash
It's enough just to pay
We do not also say:
Beat the guy 'til his bones are all smashed!

(32b)
Rabbi Yochanan said: If one beats
His friend – just a small tap on his feet.
There is not much to pay
So instead, should we say:
Give him lashes? How much would be meet?

(33a)
For the pleasure of sex, one who rapes
And gets caught for it ere he escapes
Must pay dad fifty zuz
That's not all he must lose:
Shame and damage. Whip him into shape!

(33b)
If a man steals an ox that was slated
For stoning (this ox was ill-fated)
He drowns ox. Can he say:
"For soon-dead ox, why pay?"
He's still punished and incriminated.

(34a)
If you cook on Shabbat by mistake
When the food's finished, can you partake?
Need you wait 'til Shabbat
Ends, or do you need not?
Can you dig in right now to your cake?

(34b)
If a man drops dead leaving a cow
He had borrowed to his sons, so now
It's the sons' loan. It dies
Now the brothers surmise:
Is it our fault? Need we pay? And how?

(35a)
The Torah lists these side-by-side:
Killing beasts, killing men. Both we chide.
Does this mean then that we
Rule both absolutely?
Do we care 'bout intent? How they died?

(35b)
If a wombless girl gets raped one day
There's no fine for the rapist to pay
For it's only a lass
One can't rape. She can't pass
For one. She won't mature though she's gray.

(36a)
Until what age can orphans refuse
To wed the young men fathers choose?
Until she has two hairs
Or more black than white there—
What makes women mature, for the Jews?

(36b)
A girl about whom people tell
Lots of rumors, about what befell
Her. A rapist might get her
But like a forged letter
We don't collect charges. Oh well.

(37a)
A prostitute turns upside down
After she has been sleeping around
A form of abortion
This strange, strange contortion
Lest she bear sons to the whole town.

(37b)
If a man has been sentenced to die
Slay him right at the neck (do not try
Methods experimental.
Though you can't be gentle
Still, please try to feel for the guy.)

(38a)
A woman’s engaged. Ere the time
Comes to wed, she’s divorced in her prime.
Does she get any cash
Does it go to her stash
Does her father instead say, “All mine!”?

(38b)
Does a person mature once he’s dead
Do we freeze age, or add years instead
Do we say: He was five
When he last was alive
But he’d now have white hairs on his head.

(39a)
Three women may use birth control
One still nursing (for this takes its toll)
One’s who’s pregnant already
One young and not ready
For babies. They’re not quite her goal.

(39b)
The first time a woman has sex
She feels pain – but not as you’d expect.
Abayey’s mom quips
“Like when warm water drips
On a bald man’s head.” (Yes, we’re perplexed.)

(40a)
How much is the payment for shame?
It depends on the one who’s defamed.
A slave who threads pearls
Will get more than the girls
Who do needlework simple and plain.

(40b)
A girl’s earnings go to her dad.
We know this from a reason quite sad.
If she’s sold as a maid
He’s the one who gets paid.
(‘Twould be different if she were a lad. )

(41a)
Says a man “I’ve seduced your dear daughter
She looked to me great, so I caught her.”
He pays “shame” for his deed
Although he doesn’t need
To pay fines -- he admitted he sought her.

(41b)
Do not keep a dog in your house
(It could bite off the head of your spouse)
Or a rickety ladder
(It might slip and shatter
And injure much more than a mouse.)


Perek R'vi'i: נערה שנתפתתה

(42a)
"You've seduced my 'lil girl," yells a dad,
"It's the first time she's ever been had.
And now for your crime
Please hand over the fine."
"But I did no such thing!" balks the cad.

(42b)
If the dad drops dead before the time
He's collected the rapist's full fine
Who receives all the funds--
The poor girl, or his sons?
This took twenty-four years to divine.

(43a)
If a girl with no dad and no spouse
Lives out her sad days in the house
Of her brothers. Do they
Get to take all her pay
May she tuck it away like a mouse?

(43b)
If a woman's had husbands die twice
We suspect her of some sort of vice
For if both husbands die
We can't help asking why
(Is it poison she puts in their rice?)

(44a)
If a convert's young girl goes astray
Then we strangle the girl right away.
Since her dad's not a Jew
There is no reason to
Stone her out in her father's doorway.

(44b)
If an orphan is falsely accused
Of seducing a man, he won't lose
Any coins that he had
For she hasn't a dad
And it's fathers who get paid these dues.

(45a)
If your body begins to change form
After you commit sin, is the norm
That your punishment's changed
Is a new death arranged
Do we take what was once by a storm?

(45b)
"May God save us from that which you think!"
Rabbi Elah said, making a stink.
Said Chananya, "I see
Things quite contrarily:
May God save us from that which YOU think!"

(46a)
If a man says, "I vow half my worth"
Does he mean half his length? Half his girth?
He refers to his brain
Or his heart, something main--
It's like all that he's got on this earth.

(46b)
A father's entitled to all
That his daughter finds, every windfall.
He may cancel her vows
Bring her Get to their house
Wed her off to a man dark and tall.

(47a)
A young girl who works for spare cash
Must turn over all of her stash
To her dad, who we learn
Could have sold her to earn
Quite a hefty lump sum -- in a flash!

(47b)
Every wife is entitled to three
Things. Her husband must these guarantee:
She has food she can eat
Clothes to wear in the street
And great sex with him regularly.

(48a)
Says a man: "I can't get in the mood
To have sex when my wife's in the nude
Like the Persians, unless
We are both fully dressed
I don't want her." He's out of here, dude.

(48b)
The messengers sent by the groom
Travel with the bride from her dad's room
After she has walked out
Not yet there, but en route
She is in the domain then of whom?

(49a)
Daughters quite young will still need
Someone else who can help them to feed
But their dad's not required
Until he's expired
To give them their food, we've decreed.

(49b)
In Usha they fixed that a man
Must feed daughters who live from his hand
If even crows care
For their young, we should share
In the burden, those rabbis command.

(50a)
The Torah is learned at age six
At ten you get your Mishnah fix
At thirteen you fast
And then once you move past
That age, you can do all sorts of tricks.

(50a)
If your son's sent to school when too young
He will find that the place is no fun:
His classmates will chase
Him right out of the place
But worse still is the one who gets stung.

(50b)
Rav Himnuna said: Just as the guys
Don't inherit land when their dad dies
So the girls can't partake.
How the whole earth did shake
When he said that, for all were surprised.

(51a)
A virgin's ketubah must be
At least two hundred zuz, standardly.
If he got her for less
Then the rabbis profess
That he took her promiscuously.

(51b)
If a woman is taken by force
By a man who is cruel, harsh and coarse.
If she brings to him bread
Does that mean she was led
To sleep close to him without remorse?

(52a)
I won't sleep with him, is one wife's vow
If her husband does not disallow
He puts fingers inside
Her teeth. Can he then chide
If she bites? No, he can't have a cow.

(52b)
A father should dress his girl well
So a suitor will think she looks swell
He will glance at her rump
And then up he will jump:
"I must marry her! Please, will you sell?"

(53a)
Rav Yehuda of Big Teeth: Don't go
To inheritance meetings. You know
It is not good to be
There when much property
Is passed on, dad to son, with a row.

(53b)
She inherits until she's engaged
That is, 'til the day she comes of age
If no man takes her hand
Sucks for her! Understand
She can't feed off her dad at that stage.

(54a)
A widow who colors her face
With make-up, and dresses in lace
She no longer merits
The right to inherit
She wants a new man in his place.

D.H. Lawrence: favorite passages discovered upon re-reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the first time since high school

The world is supposed to be full of possibilities, but they narrow down to pretty few, in most personal experiences. There’s lots of good fish in the sea – maybe! But the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you’re not mackerel or herring yourself, you are inclined to find very few good fish in the sea.

She could sift through the generations of men through her sieve, and see if she couldn’t find one that would do. ‘Go ye into the streets and by-ways of Jerusalem, and see if you can find a man.’ It had been impossible to find a man in the Jerusalem of the prophet -- though there were thousands of male humans. But a man! C’est une autre chose!

It’s no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You’ve got to stick to it -- all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they’ve got to come. You can’t force them.

Was it actually her destiny to go on weaving herself into his life all the rest of her life? Nothing else? Was it just that? She was content to weave a steady life with him, all one fabric, but perhaps brocaded with an occasional coloured flower of an adventure. But how could she know how she would feel next year? How could one ever know? How could one say yes! for years and years? The little yes!, gone on a breath! Why should one be pinned down by that butterfly word? Of course it had to flutter away, and be gone, to be followed by other yeses! And no’s! Like the straying of butterflies.

Even if the kiss was only a formality, it was on such formalities that life depends.

And dimly she realized one of the great laws of the human soul: that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only appearance. It is, really, only the mechanism of reassumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise which only slowly depends its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.

Her body was going meaningless, going dull and opaque, so much insignificant substance. It made her feel immensely depressed, and hopeless. What hope was there? She was old, old at twenty-seven, with no gleam and sparkle in the flesh. Old through neglect and denial: yes, denial. Fashionable women kept their bodies bright, like delicate porcelain, by external attention. There was nothing inside the porcelain. But she was not even as bright as that. The mental life! Suddenly she hated it with a rushing fury, the swindle!

She was thinking to herself of the other man’s words: Tha’s got the nicest woman’s arse of anybody! She wished, she dearly wished she could tell Clifford that this had been said to her, during the famous thunder-storm. However! She bore herself rather like an offended queen, and went upstairs to change.

Well, so many words, because I can’t touch you. If I could sleep with my arm round you, the ink could stay in the bottle…But a great deal of us is together, and we can but abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon. John Thomas says good-night to lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.

* * *

From the author’s A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover:

English publishers urge me to make an expurgated edition, promising large returns . . . So I begin to be tempted, and start in to expurgate. But impossible! I might as well try to clip my own nose into shape with scissors. The book bleeds.

The man who finds a woman’s underclothing the most exciting part about her is a savage.

Marriage is the clue to human life, but there is no marriage apart from the wheeling sun and the nodding earth, from the straying of the planets and the magnificence of the fixed stars. Is not a man different, utterly different at dawn, from what he is at sunset? And a woman too? And does not the changing harmony and discord of their variation make the secret music of life? And is it not so throughout life? A man is different at thirty, at forty, at fifty, at sixty, at seventy: and the woman at his side is different. But is there not some strange conjunction in their differences? Is there not some peculiar harmony, through youth, the period of childbirth, the period of florescence and young children, the period of the woman’s change of life, painful yet also a renewal, the period of waning passion but mellowing delight of affection, the dim unequal period of the approach of death, when the man and woman look at one another with the dim apprehension of separation that is not really a separation: is there not, throughout it all, some unseen, unknown interplay of balance, harmony, completion, like some soundless symphony which moves with a rhythm from phase to phase, so different, so very different in the various movements, and yet one symphony, made out of the soundless singing of two strange and incompatible lives, a man’s and a woman’s? This is marriage, the mystery of marriage.

Sonnet: Ketubot 23a

When Nehardea's captive girls came back
Sage Shmuel's father set guards at their door
To watch them lest the local men attack
Shrugged Shmuel: "What's the point? Who watched before?"

His wizened father sighed: "Would you cast scorn
If they were your beloved girls?" And so
It came to pass. His daughters wept, forlorn.
And when released, they knew right where to go:

Chaninah's study house. Each lass stood tall
And cried with all her heart, "I'm pure, I vow."
Chaninah let them marry one and all
Their captives came, but no one had a cow.

"A sage's daughters, these," Chaninah knew--
And sad but wiser, Shmuel proved it true.

Vaera: Plagued by the Parsha

I knew it was a mistake to take on so much Torah reading this week. I ought to have learned my lesson by now. But when the minyan gabbai (who is thankfully no longer myself!) called to ask me if I would read the majority of the ten plagues this week, I got excited about the drama of the story and agreed, perhaps too readily. Since then, I have been afflicted by the Parsha Syndrome – the events I am leyning have started to shape my life in ways that are most unwelcome….

Let’s see, where did it begin? First, I woke up early in the week with beating, pounding tooth pain. I felt like someone was dropping several pounds of mortar and bricks on me, all of which were landing squarely in the tiny surface area of one of my top left teeth. The more I felt oppressed, the more the pain increased and spread out, so I came to dread eating anything other than yogurt and chocolate pudding.

Finally I appeared before the dentist, who had been in the middle of a root canal treatment on one of my other teeth. “What would you like me to do about the pain,” he asked. “Take it away!” I pleaded. “And when would you like me to do that?” he asked. “Tomorrow!” I cried. (I still haven’t figured that one out. Tomorrow?) He said, “I will do in accordance with your word, so that you know that there is no one like your great dentist.” His fingers were in my mouth during much of this conversation, so I was of impeded speech, though I think I got the message across.

The dentist prescribed antibiotics, and I promptly filled the prescription. The next morning, I woke up with a few red spots on my legs. It looked as if someone had taken soot from a kiln and thrown it up to the sky, so it all landed on my thighs. By the afternoon, the red dots had spread all over the surface of my lower body, so that no one was able to see my lower body. Then it spread, and only in the region of my face were there no dots. I itched all over, as if infested with lice or with a very severe pestilence.

Then I summoned the doctor at Terem and said to her, “I plead with you to remove these spots from my lower body.” The doctor told me that I was allergic to the antibiotics, but I should keep taking them lest the tooth flare up again. To relieve the itching, she prescribed antihistamines. When seven days had passed, she told me, I would finish with the antibiotics and be myself again.

The doctor did not tell me, though, that antihistamines make you drowsy. And so I got into bed and stayed awake itching, but then slept late into the mornings. I would try to wake up in the morning and feel a very heavy darkness surrounding me, a darkness so heavy that I could feel it. For three days I could not get up from bed, and I missed daf yomi and swimming and arrived bleary-eyed at work. I began to wonder: How long would this continue to be a snare to me?

Today I had to make another dentist’s appointment to deal with the infection that led me to take the antibiotics in the first place. I was supposed to go as soon as possible, but I know better than that. I scheduled it for two weeks from now, parshat Beshalach, when we are safely out of Egypt and free of the plagues. Given that I’ll probably leyn next week too, I’m not taking any chances.

Running Commentary

I was jogging in Jerusalem on Rehov Yaffo on Saturday night when I was harassed by a hasid. Well, I’m not sure if it was really harassment proper (by which I mean harassment improper), but it was an unwelcome comment. The man, who was wearing a long robe and a streimel, called out to me, “Why do you have to do this? Where are you running to?” grunting disapprovingly. I was modestly dressed in long pants (to the extent that pants can be modest) and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and I even had my hair braided underneath a kerchief. And yet my presence still disturbed him.

I was about to quote to him from Pirkei Avot and ask him why he was talking to a woman (which is discouraged by R. Yossi ben Yochanan), but I had a better idea. Having recently completed a masechet of the Talmud, I knew by heart the formula for the Hadran, the prayer traditionally recited upon completing a significant unit of text study. Much of this prayer compares “us” to “them” – “we” study Torah, while “they” engage in idle pursuits:

We express gratitude to you, God, that You have established our portion with those who dwell in the study house, and have not established our portion with idlers. For we arise early and they arise early; we arise early for words of Torah, while they arise early for idle words. We toil and they toil; we toil and receive a reward, while they toil and do not receive reward. We run and they run; we run to the life of the World to Come, while they run to the Well of Destruction.

“To the Well of Destruction” in Hebrew is לבאר שחת, which is what I hollered over my shoulder to the Hasid who asked me to where I was running. I wish I could have seen his face, and I wonder if he shared this story when he arrived, surely less breathless, in the World to Come.

Cross-posted to http://www.lilith.org/blog, the Lilith blog.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Ketubot, Prakim 1-2

Perek Aleph: B'tula Niseyt

(2a)
On Wednesdays the virgins should marry
So their husbands can wake and not tarry
To go Thursday to court
(If need be) and report:
"There's no blood on the sheet that I carry!"

(2b, 3a)
Said the man to his wife, "Have no fear
Have this Get if I do not appear
Back within thirty days."
There were dreadful delays
O'er the river, he called out, "I'm here!!"

(3b)
Virgins marry on Tuesdays as well
For the rabbis knew danger befell
When the Romans could come
Every week and say "Hummm,
Let's go kidnap that bride – she looks swell!"

(4a)
If you've mixed all the wedding feast wine,
Cooked the meat, baked the bread very fine.
Then the groom's father dies--
Close the room where he lies
First get married, have sex, and go dine.

(4b)
There are intimate labors we cite
As a wife's tasks for he-she-holds-tight :
Mix the wine to his taste
Wash his hands, feet, and face
Make the bed where he lies every night.

(5a)
"You shall be with a spike on your gear"
Said the rabbis, "We read that as 'ear'"
If you hear something crude
(Though you might appear rude)
Stick your fingers in so you don't hear.

(5b)
Rabbi Yishmael's famous aside:
Why are tops of the ears tough as hide
With such soft flesh below?
So a man need not know
All that's said. Stick that soft part inside.

(6a)
If it chances a little girl's wed
And her husband finds blood in their bed
Any of those four nights
He assumes it's all right:
Menstruation it's not, though it's red.

(6b; Brachot 16a)
A groom need not say the Shma prayer
When he gets into bed with his fair
Bride. Why not, you might ask--
He's concerned with task
Yup, it's only of sex he's aware.

(7a)
Rav Zvid said: Virgin sex is OK
On Shabbat, on that most holy day--
Though you might tear some skin
The first time you go in
Still, Zvid did it himself, so they say.

(7b)
Even babes sang the Song of the Sea
In the womb they kicked jubilantly
"I will sing to the Lord"
Well, perhaps they were bored
Or like slaves they too longed to be free.

(8a)
Tell us, how many blessings are said--
Sheva brachot – or just six are read?
It depends how you hold:
What's the story we're told?
Adam then Eve? Together instead?

(8b)
All of course know the reason a bride
Stands there under the chuppah; but chide
Anybody so crude
As to say it – how lewd!
(There are things that we all know but hide.)

(9a)
If a man says, "The door feels ajar
I suspect, ere my time, she went far."
That's a bold thing to say!
Still, we trust right away
In his claim, and his wife becomes barred.

(9b, 12a)
If a man eats with his fiancée
In the home of her folks, far away--
He cannot bring then defame
With a "not virgin" claim
He was there! Perhaps he made her stray!

(10a)
If a man wanders through a dark night
And the doorway is blocked from his sight
Like a groom with his mate
Perhaps he'll penetrate
If he veers to the left or the right.

(10b)
How to know if a woman's had sex?
On a wine barrel seat her, and check:
If you can't smell the wine
In her breath, she is fine
And intact. (Does it work? What the heck!)

(10b)
Said one groom: "Rabbi, I did the deed
But I swear, my new wife did not bleed!"
Said the Rav: "Understand
She's a Dortki, whose clan
Don't shed blood, though their women bear seed."

(10b)
My mom said: Eating dates before bread
Is like taking an axe to a head.
After bread, though, a date
Is a well-oiled fate:
Eat your dates for dessert, then, instead.

(11a)
If a girl's of the wood-beaten sort
Her ketubah sum will be cut short
Since she's not all intact
(It's a sad but true fact)
She'll get less than a virgin in court.

(11b)
Tell us: How do you bring a bad name?
What exactly must be the groom's claim?
You must stand up in court
Say, "Your daughter falls short
Of a virgin." You'll heap her in shame.

(12a)
Two wedding guests would go to sleep
In the newlyweds' home. They would peep
To make sure all went well
Just in Judah. They tell
Jokes in Israel: "What customs they keep!"

(12b, 13a, 16a)
If an unmarried lady grows fat
And the rabbis ask, "Whose kid is that?"
And she says, "It's that priest,"
The kid's kosher. At least
We trust she knows with whom she begat.

(13a)
If the rabbis would chance to espy
An unmarried gal flirt with a guy
They would ask, "Who is he?"
"He's a kohen" (her plea).
Eliezer trusts she wouldn't lie.

(13a)
If a girl asserts, "It was a tree
That has taken my virginity."
Do we hold be her words?
Yehoshua: "Absurd!
We assume bastard rape, naturally!"

(13b)
If a captive girl comes with the claim:
"They did not sleep with me! I'm not maimed!"
We say, "Most non-Jews would
Rape a girl if they could
And so sadly, we can't trust the dame."

(14a)
Before wedding a widow, one checks:
"Is she pure? Should I make her my next?"
But a rapist would not
Care what woman he got
Do you think he first stops and inspects?!

(14b)
A young girl went down to a lake
Someone saw, and decided to take
Her by force. If the town's
One where kohens abound--
One may marry her (risking mistake).

(15a)
If ten butchers market their meat
Nine are kosher; one's not fit to eat
A man says I ought
To know from which I bought
It's an error I will not repeat.

(15a)
Nine frogs that go "ribbet" and "croak"
And one treyf creeper. Up came a bloke:
"I touched something slimy
But which one? Oh blimey!
Assume I'm impure," so he spoke.

(15b)
If a poor helpless baby is found
In a town where it's Jews who abound
We assume it's a Jew
(Do we cut off what grew?
It's so odd. Who leaves babies around?)

Perek Bet: HaIsha SheNitarmela

(16a)
Says the bride, "Back when we got engaged
Still a virgin I was – at that age
I was thrown to the bed
By some guy, ere we wed.
His field flooded." But what rules the sage?

(16b)
There's a "cup of good news" that is passed
In front of a bride who has cast
Off her white wedding gown
Once her husband has found
Her a virgin. Drink quick! It won't last.

(17a)
How to dance before a bride
Who is lovely, but on the inside?
Hillel says: "Say she's pretty"
Says Shammai: "A pity
To lie." "But you must!" Hillel chides.

(17a)
Rabbi Shmuel bar Yitzchak would dance
On three myrtle leaves he'd up and prance
"He shames Torah," one said,
But not so. For when dead
Stopped the pillar of flame, not by chance.

(17a)
Dancing with brides is quite lewd
Don't we think that it should be eschewed?
If she looks like a post
(As do some? As do most?)
You can boogie with real attitude!

(17b)
What's a "Hinuma"? we ask
Taking all virgin brides to the task.
A chuppah of myrtle?
A scarf for the fertile
So she could doze behind the mask?

(18a)
A man claims, "I owe just a bit."
Do we trust what he says? Not a whit.
For a man would not dare
To deny every share
That he owes. Rather just part of it.

(18b)
If a witness says, "True, 'twas my hand
That signed there. But you must understand:
I was under duress
When I signed, I confess."
There is no further proof we demand.

(19a)
Nothing comes before saving a life
Except spilling a man's blood in strife
Serving gods of bad nations
Improper relations
(Like bedding another man's wife).

(19b)
If two from the shuk say, "Their hand
Signed there. But you must please understand:
They were under duress
When they signed, we profess."
There is no further proof we demand.

(20a)
If a man says, “That’s signature’s mine
Though I signed it before a long time.”
If, on his own,
He remembers the loan
You can trust him. The document’s fine.

(20b)
Cemeteries are where dead are lain
But not all dead. A woman in pain
May not wait for a tomb
For her babe lost in womb
She’ll just hide it in nearby terrain.

(21a)
Sign your name on a pottery shard
Do it not on a scroll or a card.
Lest a criminal who
Prefers “false” over “true”
Steal that page and write more. It’s not hard.

(21b, Rosh Hashanah 25b)
If three folks see the moon in the sky;
Two cry, “It’s the new moon we espy!”
The third, with two more
Make a beit din, for sure.
“Sancified is the month!” they then cry.

(22a)
A beautiful maiden-girl said
To the suitors who flocked, "But I'm wed!"
And once every last dope
Had abandoned all hope
She married her heart's choice instead.

(22b)
Two witnesses say "Her man's dead."
Two say, "No, he is living" instead.
She can't marry anew
If she did, what to do?
We do not force divorce on her head.

(23a)
When some captive girls came back to town
Shmuel's father said, "Keep guards around
To ensure they stay pure."
Shmuel said, "Are you sure?
For who watched them until they were found?"

(23b)
If two girls taken captive come back
Each one swears, "I was in no man's sack!"
We cannot abide
Their claims. What if they lied?
Each must vow that the other's intact.

(24a)
Two ass-riders come into a town
One says, "He's got the best grain around
Mine's new, hence not so good."
Do we trust him? We should
Not. For they might switch off in each town.

(24b)
A non-Jew leaves the tools of his trade
By a river and goes down to wade
Or to take a long drink.
Are his tools, do we think,
Pure? The inner ones, yes, every spade.

(25a)
There are things only cohens can eat
Like the truma and kodashim meat.
If we see someone nibble
Then should we still quibble?
He might be not a priest but a cheat!

(25b)
"Yehoshua ben Levi, I swear
It's a Levi who's standing right there
How do I know it's true?
Aliyah number two
Is the one that he took. I was there!"

(26a)
Said a man who was chatting away:
When a young lad, my classmates would say
When they called me from class
To eat truma, alas:
"Yochanan who eats challah." Oy vey.

(26b)
If your woman is carted away
And it’s ransom they hope you will pay
You may then take her back
But we don’t cut such slack
If their goal was to lift axe and slay.

(27a)
If soldiers come tear through your town
In peacetime, with bottles around
Your wine’s not all right
If ‘twas open. They might
Have poured it for libations unsound.

(27b)
Reb Zechariah, the butcher’s own son
Said “I swear by the Temple” (which one?)
“That nobody came near
To my wife, who was here,
By my side, ‘til the non-Jews were done.”

(28a)
“As kids, we’d stop here on Shabbat.”
Do we trust in this claim? Do we not?
Can a man testify
“Dad, when we were small fry
Wrote like this”?? For perhaps he forgot.

(28b)
One guy married a woman and found
She was not quite the best catch in town.
His brothers then shattered
A barrel, and scattered
Its fruit to show she was unsound.

My New Bookcases

The move to a new apartment is traditionally sanctified and celebrated with the hanging of a mezuzah. For me it was otherwise: Though I moved into a new apartment over two months ago, it was only last week, when I finally bought and erected bookcases, that I felt I had truly established residency in my new home.

For the past two months, my books have sat in boxes on the floor of my bedroom. Well, that's not exactly true: Each time I needed to find a particular volume to quote from or reference, I would empty several boxes quickly and haphazardly without bothering to put anything back properly -- so most of my books were strewn across piles of boxes and overflowing onto my floor. It was not a pleasant sight, and I was frustrated by the disarray.

I knew exactly what had to be done -- in fact, I had chosen this apartment largely because of the little alcove beyond the kitchen which seemed to cry out to me, "Books belong here!" The alcove was just the right size for two wooden bookcases, and in a spurt of uncharacteristic materialism, I spent a series of Saturday nights wandering from store to store in the industrial area of Talpiot comparing models. I finally found what I was looking for at Ace Kneh U'vneh, a store whose rhyming name (especially when compared to its alliterative English equivalent "buy and build") I loved almost as much as its furniture. So I bought and built (along with two friends and their trusty toolkits), and I began the profoundly pleasurable activity of arranging my books on my shelves.

As I pondered what should go where, the possibilities seemed nearly endless. I had twelve shelves in total, each 80cm long, which fit about 35 books per shelf, assuming an average spine width of just over 2cm. My Steinsaltz gemarot would go on one shelf, along with any related reference books. All the books I have bought from Yediot Achronot's series Yahadut Kan V'Achshav would go on another, along with Avivah Zornberg, Shulamit Elizur, Ruth Calderon, and Yona Frankel. Poetry (Hebrew, English, and bizarre hybrids of the two like ee cummings in a language that knows no capitals and no vowels!) would have to go at eye level, so they would flash immediately on the outward eye. Nonfiction books relating to history of science (most of them ordered through my literary agency account from MIT Press under the pretense of trying to sell them to Israeli publishers) would stay together, perhaps mixed with the few other non-Jewishly related books of nonfiction I own: Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain, Rebecca Goldstein's Betraying Spinoza, and Victorian Literary Mesmerism (in which my senior thesis was published). On the bottom shelf, where no one was likely to bend down and look, I would put all the books I am embarrassed that I own – Vegan with a Vengeance, The No-Gym Workout, How to Behave in Dating and Sex, and the ones I can't even mention.

I remember in the glory of late-night arranging and rearranging one moment of panic, when I realized that I had grouped siddurim, machzorim, and bentchers with Keter's "Ktzarim" short story series simply because they were all the same height. I suddenly remembered my favorite part of Amos Oz' A Tale of Love and Darkness when the author relates how, at age six, his father cleared a space for him on his bookcases and let him put his own books there: "It was an initiation right, a coming of age: anyone whose books were standing upright is no longer a child, he is a man." Oz describes how, in an effort to conserve space, he arranged his books by height. That night, he was made aware of his error: "Father came home from work, cast a shocked glance toward my bookshelf, and then, in total silence, gave me a long hard look that I shall never forget: It was a look of contempt, of bitter disappointment beyond anything that could be expressed in words, almost a look of utter genetic despair. Finally he hissed at me with pursed lips: 'Have you gone completely crazy? Arranging your books by height? Have you mistaken your books for soldiers?'" I felt like Arieh Klausner was glaring at me from his position on the top shelf -- had I gone completely crazy?

Still, I knew there was rhyme and reason to the organization of my poetry and nonfiction (respectively), and no shortage of imagination when it came to the fiction. I have one shelf for my thirty-six novels by Israeli writers: Michal Govrin, Yael Hedaya, Savyon Liebrecht, David Grossman, etc. I have an entire shelf filled with all the novels I own by four authors of whom I can say I'll read anything they write: Alexander McCall Smith, Jacqueline Winspear, Dara Horn, and Nicholson Baker. I have another shelf for novels I have not yet read. This shelf is intentionally low down, far beyond eye level -- when I chose it, I was reminded of a piece on the Back Page of the New York Times Book Review several years ago, in which another avid reader commented that she wishes should could put the books she has not read with spines facing inwards, because she doesn't feel that she deserves to display them yet. Another shelf features novels I read and didn't like so much, and would be happy to give away. And then there are two empty shelves for the books that are still in my office at work, which I have to bring home now that I have the space.

These two empty shelves remind me that there is another bookcase, too, that is waiting to be bought and built. This is the bookcase that someday, Godwilling, I will fill with the twelve gigantic boxes of books that are sitting in my parents' basement on Long Island. These include classics from childhood and high school: the complete works of Austen and the Brontes, all the Norton poetry and literature anthologies, the novels of dear Madeleine L'Engle. There, too, are the scores of books I took with me when I left Random House b'richush gadol after three years as an editorial assistant -- each with the Knopf rough trim and the handsome Borzoi on the spine. I miss them all like dear long-distance friends: How often I have ached to reach out for one of them -- to quote a favorite passage to a friend in distress, or reread those delicious final paragraphs that send shivers up my spine each time afresh. The reality of my longing in all its poignancy, like the corners left unpainted in religious homes, carries with it an important reminder: Although I am the proud owner of two beautiful new bookcases, all the exiles have not yet been ingathered, and our world is still not redeemed.

Chanukah in Jerusalem

On the first night of Chanukah, I was in a coffee shop when the candles were lit; on the second night, I was in Ace hardware, awaiting the movers who would pick up my new bookcases and bring them to my home. I don’t know anywhere else in the world in which Chanukah candles are lit publicly at nightfall in coffee shops and hardware stores, but then again, there is no place in the world like Jerusalem.

I suppose I forgot, when I planned my week, that the custom in Jerusalem is to light candles immediately at nightfall. I forgot that everyone rushes home to light between the afternoon and evening service, “before the last feet have returned home from the market,” as the Talmud puts it. And so I was meeting my friend Daniel for our weekly date to read poetry together on Tuesday at 5pm in a coffee shop, when all of a sudden, a group of men burst through the door, placed a menorah on the counter next to the espresso machines, and began reciting the blessings over the candles. Everyone in the shop, from the freelance writers with their laptops to the awkward couples stammering through blind dates, looked up, and many sang along. I confess that I was mostly annoyed -- we were in the middle of a Tennyson poem, and the rousing chorus of Maoz Tzur was ruining the rhythm!

When it was time to light candles on the second night, I was standing by the entrance of Ace hardware with a giant shopping cart filled with the wooden panels that will hopefully become my new bookcases. The movers were due to arrive at 5:30pm; I still had ten more minutes to kill. All of a sudden, a group of workers in their red overall uniforms passed by me with trays of jelly donuts. They grabbed one of the display picnic tables, spread some aluminum foil on it, and placed a menorah in the center, surrounded by the trays of donuts. A public service announcement blasted over the loudspeaker: “Attention customers! All are invited to light candles with Ace at the front of the store.” A group of workers and customers gathered around, and one of them began to recite the blessings. He clearly wasn’t religious, both because he had to put on a kippah and because he lit the candles in reverse order. Still, it was more of a “moving experience” than I had expected….

For the third night of Chanukah, I hope to go to Nachlaot, a neighborhood with narrow twisted alleyways in the northern part of the city where you can find at least one menorah outside the doorway to each home, and sometimes many more. They are all Jerusalem menorahs – that is, they consist of a glass box with a copper top, inside of which are eight shot glasses with oil and wicks. I have heard that the Jerusalem menorah originated with nineteenth century Christian pilgrims who would use these boxes to carry fire from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre back to their neighborhoods. I love watching the flames dance in the pool of oil, as if the candles are communicating with one another as they light up the night.

Many of my American friends are surprised that Chanukah is such a “big deal” in Jerusalem -- they assume that Chanukah is given pride of place in America only because it is regarded as the Jewish Christmas. I find this comparison strange. Chanukah falls out close to Christmas, but also close to Thanksgiving, which seems like a far more fitting comparison. Chanukah might even be considered a Jewish Thanksgiving – a holiday on which we thank God for the miracle of keeping us alive as a people in spite of a difficult and scary period when we were not quite sure we’d survive. The words of the special prayer we recite, Al Ha-Nisim, emphasize this theme of thanksgiving: “And (we thank You) for the miracles, and for the salvation, and for the mighty deeds, and for the victories, and for the battles which You performed for our forefathers in those days, at this time…..” And so we celebrate Chanukah heartily and fully -- with the fried donuts of all varieties (jelly, caramel, chocolate, etc.) that are sold at all the bakeries, and the singing of Hallel (psalms of praise) each morning, and of course, the lighting of the menorah in places I can only hope I will continue to discover as the subsequent nights of Chanukah unfold.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Yevamot (Prakim 2 and 3)

(17b)
Your dead brother's wife had awaited
You to marry her. Her death created
A case hard to decide:
If her mom does reside
Nearby – can you wed mom? Too related?

(18b)
If your brother's not born when you wed
Then you find yourself suddenly dead
"Brother-not-in-his-life"
May he marry the wife?
Rabbi Shimon says, "Sure, go ahead."

(19a)
Can two events just coincide?
Can two brothers fall dead side by side
At one instant in time
In a single clock-chime
(Perhaps Einstein alone can decide?)

(20a)
A eunuch or one who's too old
To have kids may yet still be so bold
To do yibum with she
Who would then never be
Pregnant. (Life sucks when women are sold.)

(21a)
Shlomo said: You may also not sleep
With some others. Thus "do not" rules keep
Multiplying. They act
Like the handles intact
On a basket, And like orchard-keep.

(21b)
The Chaldeans said I'd be a teacher
If by that, they mean "great preacher"
I'll know how to explain
Laws of when to refrain
From one's son's wife, and when to beseech her.

(22b)
Tell me, why can't I bed my half-sister?
Would my father's wife care if I kissed her?
Tell me what desecration
Is in this relation
And thanks to which rule I've dismissed her?

(23b)
I have married a twin, but which one?
Such confusion is surely no fun.
For the Talmud will teach
That I must divorce each
Then chalitzah by brother is done.

(24b)
If a salesman is leaving the house
When I come back to greet my dear spouse
I don't want do be vicious
But hey, it's suspicious--
For why was he with her, that louse?

(25a)
The Get is brought by one who said
"I am sure that the husband is dead."
Then he himself marries
She whose Get he carries
The Mishnah rules "No, they can't wed!"

(26a)
Women visit each other a lot
And if one bed is all that they've got
They will sleep side-by-side
Not so men – petrified
They are; therefore, they rather would not.

(27a)
Is a woman whose husband has died
To the brother of spouse strongly tied?
Does the zikah bond mean
Brother's like one who's been
Engaged, thus barred from those on her side?

(28b)
Three brothers, two of them wed
Then the latter two die! Now they're dead.
But the third may not do
Stuff with wife one or two
They've both fallen, but not to his bed.

(29a)
What is "Ma'amar"? Sanctification
To one's yavam (before copulation).
Shammai says: It's like marriage!
Says Hillel: Disparage
Their bond! It is still in formation!

(30a)
Not every mishnah is needed
There are some that they should have deleted
But no mishnah will move
From its fixed-in-place groove
That's why some rules are taught, then repeated.

Vayetze: Learning How to Pray

“He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and the angels of God were going up and down it…. Jacob awoke from his sleep [mishnato] and said, ‘Surely the Lord is present in this place and I did not know it!’ Shaken, he said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to the heaven.’” (Breishit 28: 10-17)

What is it that Jacob did not know? What was the exact nature of his light-bulb realization? In this week’s shiur, Avivah Zornberg shared a drash from the Hasidic commentator the Meor VaShemesh, which I translate/paraphrase in these next two paragraphs:

**There is a midrash that says that Jacob awoke not from his sleep (mishnato) but from his Mishnayot (mimishnato). From this we learn that the essence of man’s worship is to come to perfect service of God and to grasp the meaning of God through both Torah and Tefilla. There cannot be one without the other, because an ignoramus does not become a pious Hasid; and conversely, one who says, “there is nothing in the world for me except Torah” does not have even Torah. It is true that by studying Torah for the sake of heaven and cleaving one’s soul and one’s very being to the letters of the Torah, a person can achieve great holiness; but a person can only truly fear and love and yearn for God through prayer, and through the surrendering of the self that prayer entails, as we know from all our holy books.

Our sages of blessed memory taught that when Jacob had his dream at Beit El, he established the evening prayer Arvit. Until this point, Jacob had not known the secret of prayer. God did not reveal Himself to him until he became aware of its tremendous power. And this is the meaning of the midrash that says that Jacob awoke from his Mishnayot – that is, he awoke from his study of Torah, for he had been studying for fourteen years in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever. Upon awakening, he realized that Torah alone would not bring him to a full awareness of God. Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is present” – meaning that though prayer, he was able to better understand God than he ever could through Torah alone. “And I did not know it” – meaning that I did not know the tremendous power of prayer, which enables us to come to know God in full fervor, and brings us, therefore, to the gates of heaven.**

This Shabbat, in which we read parshat Vayetze, will mark the first Shabbat that I am no longer gabbai of our minyan in Jereusalem. I am excited to be yotzeit y'dei chovati – to be free at last of my formal responsibilities and to pass on the mantle of leadership. No more running around the shul to find someone to leyn the accidentally-unassigned aliyah; no more setting up kiddush during musaf; no more fretting that the shliach tzibur sounds like a cross between a foghorn and a bilious pigeon. I am excited; but I am also nervous. In the role of the busy gabbai, I have had the best excuses not to daven; now, it seems, many of my excuses have run out. I might just finally have to learn to pray.

Why am I still so woefully oblivious to what the Meor Vashemesh calls "sod ha-tefilla"? Though I can’t claim to have spent fourteen years in a yeshiva, I do, like Jacob, privilege study over prayer. And so I manage to find the time to attend a 45-minute daily daf yomi shiur, but rarely feel I can spare the full half hour for shacharit afterwards. I go to a morning minyan at my yeshiva once a week, but I come late, sit in the very back of the room, and hide my head in a Gemara. I forget my tallit and tefillin more often than I care to admit; the accoutrements of prayer seem like just an additional nuisance. Shabbat, as I have said, is not much better. On Friday nights, when I do go to shul, I take a chumash rather than a siddur and read through the parsha in a last-minute attempt to come up with a dvar Torah for the Shabbat that everyone around me is so joyously welcoming.

I am not proud of that fact that whenever Torah and Tefilla compete for my time, Torah wins hands-down. It might be tempting to chalk it up to hyper-intellectualism, and to say that I am just so absorbed in my studies that I can't be bothered to daven. But any time I find myself drawn to such excuses, I remember a story that my Talmud teacher told me three years ago. Once upon a time, he related, he used to learn Gemara during minyan. His rav noticed that he would do this every day. One day his rav came up to him and said, "Shmuel, you must be such a talmid chacham given all the Gemara you learn during davening. But I have to ask you: If you're such a talmid chacham, don't you know better than to learn Gemara during davening?"

This question haunts me when I find myself reaching for the chumash instead of the siddur on Friday nights, and when I learn in the back of the room during morning minyan. I know that it is not just a love for Torah that keeps me from appreciating the power of Tefilla. Rather, there is something about Tefilla that is agonizingly difficult for me. There are essential differences between Torah and Tefilla that draw me so passionately to the one, and exclude me so frustratingly from the other.

Though they are both ways of coming to know God, Torah and Tefilla are quite different from one another. Torah is about novelty—about conquering as much new territory as possible, and synthesizing more and more information, and coming up with chidushim that cast everything that came before in a whole new light. Tefilla, on the other hand, is about repetition and return. Each day and each week and each year, we recite exactly the same tefillot as the day and weeks and years that came before. The Amidah of Tuesday is the same as the Amidah of Monday; the Shabbat musaf this week is identical to the Shabbat musaf last week; and we will say the prayer for dew this Pesach as we said it last Pesach. Whereas Torah study is about taking the unfamiliar--the next daf of Gemara, a new sugya, a new perush--and internalizing it until it becomes familiar, Tefilla is about taking the familiar--the same words we say day after day--—and saying them with such kavana that it is as if we are renewing each day the miracle of their creation.

Learning Torah is about forging onwards, plowing ahead, breaking new ground. The metaphors we use for studying Torah are those of forward motion and expansion. People who love the study of Torah are those who are never content to stay in one place, or to bask in what they already understand, for it is for this purpose that they were created. They know that Torah demands that we keep moving, that we keep turning it over and over, and that we do not stop even for moment to notice, say, a beautiful tree by the roadside. Tefilla, in constrast, is about standing still and looking inwards. The central prayer—the one that is called HaTefilla (the prayer) by the rabbis—is called the Amidah (standing) because it must be recited while standing in place, our feet pressed together like angels. If I want to daven, I have to wholly inhabit myself and my space. I have to be comfortable enough in my body to sit and stand and bow freely, all without ever stepping out of a very narrow imaginary circle drawn around my feet. I have to be focused and present and at peace. I have to be, in short, everything that I am not.

The shift from being a person who learns Torah to being a person who also knows to daven is the transformation we witness at the beginning of this week's parsha, as the Meor VaShemesh so beautifully articulates it. Jacob wakes up suddenly from his dream and realizes, for the first time, that dwelling in the house of God means embracing the divine through prayer. It is not a lesson easily learned, even after many years of study; indeed, it was only when he went out--vayetze--from the yeshiva that Jacob fully grasped the power of Tefilla. And so how do I effect this transformation within myself, I who spend every free minute studying Torah, and I who have never dreamt of ladders with angels ascending and descending from heaven to earth and back? I do not know. But perhaps if I put down my Gemara, close my eyes, press my feet together, and raise my voice in song with those around me--not just tomorrow, but the next day and the next day and the next--I might surprise myself one day and find that I, too, am in the company of angels.

Sonnet: Ketubot 67b

Mar Uqva had a pauper in his town
He'd slip four coins each day beneath his door.
The poor man wondered: "Where can he be found--
The one who does me good? Who helps the poor?"

It chanced that once Mar Uqva came home late
His wife came with him on that fateful day.
The pauper heard the coin and didn't wait.
He stepped out. "Quick," cried Uqva, "run away."

The Uqvas feared: "We have no time to spare!"
They jumped into a furnace hot and red.
His feet burned, "Ouch!"; but she seemed not to care
"Because I give them food," Ms. Uqva said.

We learn: A man should rather suffer flame
Than publicly cause someone else's shame.

Sonnet: Ketubot 65a

Abayey's wife, named Choma, came to court
She barked, "Dole out my food!" So Rava did.
She then said, "Next my wine – now be a sport."
Fair Rava said, "I can't do as you bid."

"But hubby dear served wine in glasses tall!
How tall, you ask? I'll show you." Choma raised
Her hands above her head; her sleeves did fall
Revealing shoulders bright. So Rava gazed.

Quick, quick ran Rava home, his loins aflame
And laid his wife to bed. She gasped: "Explain!
Who was in court?" "Er…Choma was her name."
His wife's eyes flashed in envy, rage, disdain.

So Rava's wife beat Choma to the ground:
"You've killed three men," she screamed. "Now leave this town!"

Learning Torah While Flying: Further Adventures (Ketubot 49a-b)

“Brovender’s or Drisha?”

I look up from my Gemara to find a tall man with a mane of black curls standing next to my aisle seat, peering down at me with an amused look on his face. He is about my age, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he points to my book. “Where do you learn?”

Oh dear, I think. Over the past two weeks, in flying from Israel to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to the US, and then back again now through Frankfurt, I have met many interesting characters who have interrupted my learning to find out what business a woman in pants has with a Steinsaltz Gemara. There was the lovely Swiss man from Basel who sat next to me learning the same daf, and taught me the difference between killing derech aliya and derech yerida. There was the Rosh Yeshiva from Bnei Brak who sat across the aisle staring at me on the Frankfurt-New York leg, until he finally overcame his reservations about talking to a woman and spent over an hour (!!!) telling me why it was more important to have babies than study Talmud. (I though it was bitul Torah to break from learning to speak with him; he thought just the opposite.) But this was a first. Through all these dapim of Ketubot, I have never before been picked up. And what a pick-up line indeed!

I sense immediately that my observer is way too cool and slick for my taste –his T-shirt says WANTED in big letters, which he decidedly is not. So I feel more like the anusa than the m’futah when I reluctantly close my Gemara and tell him my story. He, I learn, is a chozer b’she’elah, a person who grew up frum but decided to throw out the kippah with the mikvah water. He left Jerusalem and moved to New York, where he spends most of his time, as he puts it, “bumming around.”

“I’m in this inheritance battle with my siblings – my father died two years ago, and left us ten thousand dollars. We’ve spent over a million arguing about it.” He tells me this proudly, and checks to see if I am impressed by the sums of money he quotes. I am trying to pay attention, but my mind wanders when he says inheritance. Was it karka or m’taltelin? If his father had left a widow, would she have gotten first dibs? Are his sisters and brothers both equally entitled to their father’s possessions? What if his sisters are married? I could swear Rabbi Elazar said something about this once, out in the vineyard at Yavneh (49a)….

“You’re lucky your father left you anything,” I tell him. “He could have been a white crow.” My seducer, whose name is Elad, leans over my seat to look at the sugya I point to in explaining my words. The rabbis are discussing a law fixed in Usha, which stated that a father is obligated to feed his sons and daughters when they were young. Is this the halacha, or not? Rabbi Yehuda seems certain that it is: “Will a crocodile have babies and cast them on to the whole village?” In other words, a person cannot churn out babies and expect the community to take care of them. Rav Chisda agrees: “If a father were to refuse to feed his children, the townspeople should turn over a mortar (the equivalent of Hawthorne's scaffold), stand on it, and call out, “The crow loves his children, but this man does not.” And how do we know that the crow loves his children, asks the Talmud? After all, doesn’t the Bible say: “He [God] gives bread to beasts, and to crows who cry out” (Tehillim 147). If God has to feed crows, then surely their parents are not taking care of them! Lo kashya, says the Talmud – it’s not a difficulty. Rav Chisda was referring to black crows, who feed their young; whereas the Biblical verse was referring to white crows, who do not (49b – as per Tosafot rather than Rashi). Elad follows along, but he does not look happy. He still wants to impress me, but he can see that it is going to be a challenge.

“I wrote a book, you know,” he tells me. “Maybe I can show it to you, since you work with books?” This line, of course, is every editor's worst nightmare. Elad scurries off to fetch his book from his seat some rows back, and my companion to the left, an American man in his sixties who runs an international shipping company based in Italy, raises his eyebrows. "That guy likes you," he says, followed by: "Jewish men are like Italian men -- very horny, as I'm sure you know." I attempt a half-smile. "Save me," I plead. An airplane is more like a town than a field – let it be known that I cried for help.

Elad returns with an elegant black leather-bound volume that was clearly self-published. As with all Israeli books, the pages are too white, and I squint under the cabin lights. The book, a commentary on the Chumash, is entitled the Klil Tiferet, "because my last name is Klil. This is what I call myself as a commentator. I was feeling bored, and so I wrote this book." He points out a few passages that he wants me to read – all the sections on women. (A common error: If I am female, then surely it will be the parts in a book that are about women that will most speak to me. But of course!) While I struggle through some complicated Hebrew about Heleni HaMalka and the Sotah, he tries to do business with my seatmate. Grrr, I requested an aisle seat for this very reason – there's nothing worse than sitting between two big talkers! I can generally average four dapim on a transatlantic flight, but not with all these distractions….

After ten minutes of feigning interest in the Klil Tiferet (the commentary, I mean; not the commentator), I am saved by the Lufthansa flight attendant and her Duty Free cart. "Excuse me," she tells him. "We're about to begin serving dinner. I must ask you to return to your seat." Elad borrows my pencil to scrawl his phone number in the top margin of my Gemara, right above the title of the perek: "Na'ara She-nitpat’ta." He's on a different connecting flight, but he urges me to call him when I get to Jerusalem. "We'll hang out," he tells me. "Don't worry, I have nothing to do anyway." I open my Gemara and plow on.

In a Bind

“Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” (Genesis 22: 7)

God will provide, God will provide, I keep telling myself, as I make my 24th phone call of the day in search of a shofar blower for our minyan. It is erev Rosh Hashanah, and I should be washing my floor (long overdue) or making one of the four fruit salads I pledged to bring to the various people who invited me for meals (initially it seemed like a good idea – but how to shop for four fruit salads? And what ma’achelet will be fit for all that chopping?) – but instead, I am sitting at my desk calling everyone I know. “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you just before Rosh Hashanah – but I was wondering – do you know anyone who blows shofar?” At this point I feel like a broken (shvarim) record, repeating myself again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again (t’rua) but what can I do except cry (or was it groan?) “Heeeeeeeeeelp!” (t’kia). We have the whole minyan organized – the chairs are set up, the kiddish is bought, the daveners are lined up – but where is the ba’al tokea? If you are out there, scratching your innocent behind against the brambles, please make yourself known!

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Yevamot (Perek 1)

(2a)
My husband died leaving no heir
I must marry his brother, and bear
Him a child. His name
Will live on; that's the aim
Of this mitzvah called Yibum. So there.

(2a)
Fifteen women's co-wives need not wed
Brothers-in-law once husbands are dead:
Mother-in-law and daughter,
Wife's sister, granddaughter
And others you'd rather not bed.

(2b)
A dame with no womb is excluded.
For yibum she won't be recruited;
She's not the right mate
For she can't procreate
As you might logically have concluded.

(3b)
It's forbidden to sleep with the wife
Of one's brother. Though after his life
Yibum then overrides
This "do not" rule. Besides
With such cases the Talmud is rife.

(4a)
If one's brother-in-law has bad boils
And the woman who sees him recoils
She need not bear his son
Which would be as not-fun
As a threshing ox barred from the spoils.

(5a)
A leper must shave all his hair
Really? Do you think all must be bare?
Does the Torah not say
That the sidelocks must stay
The "do not" rule gets overrode there.

(5b)
If a father says, "Son, break Shabbat!"
He may answer (respectfully) "Not!"
For both father and son
Must defer to the One
Who is holy. How holy? A lot.

(6a)
One may not build the Temple each day
On Shabbat one must rest. As they say:
"Keep my Sabbath and fear
My great Temple" we hear
That to mean: No more building, go pray!

(6b)
Treat the Temple with fear: That's a must!
This means do not go traipsing in dust
Or wear shoes while you're praying
It goes without saying
That spitting in God's home means bust!

(7a)
A murderous priest may not serve
At God's altar (to murder takes nerve).
Since worship one may
On the great Sabbath day
We say murder trumps shabbos: Observe!

(7b)
A leper must leave camp and wait
For a "week plus one," that is, for eight;
But if he emits
Semen ('twould be the pits)
May he dunk? Or must he return late?

(8a)
Two brothers who marry two sis-
Ters, then one brother no longer is
Alive; If the remaining
Bro chooses abstaining
From yibum then is he remiss?

(8b)
If a man may do yibum on two
Women he may choose which one to do;
If just one is permitted
Then both are not fitted
For yibum; the yavam is screwed.

(9a)
Rabbi Chiya's rule may be applied
To all fifteen (just ask Rashi why)
Levi said: "Or sixteen!"
Making Rabi turn green
"It seems you have no brain!" Rabi cried.

(10b)
If a man does chalitzah and then
Says, "Oops, wish I could do that again!"
So he marries shoe-lady
Then dies without baby
Have we our sixteenth case? No? When?

(11b)
Choose the widow already unfit
Do chalitzah, and let that be it.
For a man should not spill
From his well; others will
Drink up freely what's left in the pit.

(12b)
These are women allowed to prevent
Pregnancy: First is one who is meant
To be nursing; one still
Underage; and one filled
With a baby. For these we relent.

(13b)
The megillah is read on which day?
It depends in which city you pray.
Does the Torah not chide,
"You should not subdivide!"
Lo titgod'du, that is to say.

(14a)
Abahu would carry a torch
(Though unlit) on Shabbat from his porch
Out to most public grounds
Save in Yochanan's town
He knew factions, like fires, can scorch.

(15a)
Gamliel's daughter hadn't a womb
Sigh! Back then they would call that a "moom"
Did she learn once she wed
Had she known and misled?
When her husband found out, did he fume?

(15b)
"I don't eat olives; don't give me that!"
So said Yochanan, tipping his hat
To Beit Hillel. They get
Impure if they are wet.
Thus said Yochanan: "Take back your vat."

(16a)
Said ben Hurcanus: "Akiva are you
THE Akiva? The rabbi and Jew?
For your fame does extend
'Cross the world, end to end –
But a shepherd knows more than you do."

(17a)
The ten exiled tribes were so sad
That they suffered a fate that was bad:
After told "You must leave"
Women could not conceive
No new children were born – not one lad.

(17a)
If no woman will marry you, go
To Harpanya – due south, as the crow
Flies. It's where you can find
Those for whom no one's signed
A ketubah. How low will you go?

Chagigah Sonnets

(3b)
PUPIL EXCHANGE

Yosey ben Durmaskeet went out one day
To greet sage Rabbi Elazar in Lode
"What novelty was taught?" the teacher'd say
"Amone and Moav's pauper tithes are owed."

"Yosey!" cried Elazar as if aghast.
"Hold out your hands and let your eyes fall in."
The teacher wept for teachings of the past
For that which, billed as new, had long since been.

When Yosey's eyes fell out, the sage exlained:
"The slaves who fled from Egypt conquered land.
On Sinai, we learned holiness was gained
Then lost, so poor could reap – that was God's plan."

"Now may it be God's will that your eyes go
Back to your head, dear pupil." It was so.

(4b)
GRAVE EXCHANGE

Rav Bay-vee bar Abaye sat beside
Death Angel, who said, "Mir-yam who braids hair
Please bring to me." And later still he cried:
"Mir-yam the teacher! What's she doing there?!"

The messenger had goofed – he'd seen the wrong
One standing by the stove, to tend the flame
She dropped a coal, and did not live for long
The messenger had not first learned her name.

Rav Bay-vee gasped, "That's quite a grave faux pas!"
"Death without justice," Death replied, "can be."
"But does it not say "Dor holech, dor ba?"
Said Death: "Yes, but I store their years, you see."

"I do kill people much before their prime
Then add to Torah scholars extra time."

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Chagigah (Perek 1)

(2a)
All are obliged to appear
Before He-Who-Instills-In-Us-Fear
Unless you are not
Let me tell you, we've got
A long list of exceptions. Come, hear!

(2b)
A person half-slave and half-free
Says, "I serve both my master and me."
But he hasn't a mate
So he can't procreate
Thus says Shammai, "It simply can't be!"

(3a)
Can a mute learn? Well, it came to pass
Two mutes started attending a class
And when Rabi beseeched
That God heal those he'd teach
They gained speech, and their learning proved vast.

(3b)
Words of Torah are like cattle goads
That prevent cows from veering off roads
Thus with Torah we stay
On God's path, and don't stray,
Bringing life (not death) to our abodes.

(3b)
How to detect the insane?
Those who wander on dark lonely lanes,
Lie atop graveyard dirt,
Or start ripping a shirt.
Otherwise, you can trust he is sane.

(4a)
A smelter need not show his face
In the Temple, that most holy place
Nor a man who tans skins
Or who puts trash in bins
They are stinky, thus lack social grace.

(4b)
Those who cannot ascend to come greet
God, and eat of the sacrifice meat--
Include snobs who would then
Say they won't condescend
To come stand before God in bare feet.

(5a)
Rabbi Yochanan happened to see
One who picked unripe dates from a tree
He said, "You'll have to wait
Before eating that date."
Said the man, "They're for later, you see."

(5a)
There are sins we commit then forget:
Picking lice near a friend we just met;
Spewing forth lots of spit
Or things likewise unfit
God will punish us 'til we regret.

(5b)
If you speak in sign language, take care:
Understand what is said, or beware!
A Jew-hating geezer
Who signed before Ceasar
Could not explain; he was not spared.

(5b)
Rav Kahane hid under the bed
To watch Rav and the one he had wed.
He said, "Rav's not discreet
You'd think he's eating meat –"
Rav got angry: "Kahane, you're dead!"

(5b)
For three people, God cries: those who yearn
To spend time in yeshiva and learn
And the one in a crowd
Who stands out 'cause he's proud
And the student who really must earn.

(5b)
Rabi used to read Eicha and sigh
With the book on his lap, he would cry
He could bear it no more—
The book fell to the floor
He cried, "We who sink low were once high."

(5b)
The blind student said, "You've come to see
One who cannot see you, that is, me.
Hence the Seer Unseen
(It is God that I mean)
With see you and judge mercifully.

(5b)
Rav Idi would walk ninety days
To learn one day; and he said, "It pays."
He who learns once a year
(The text says) is as dear
As the one who learns always. Give praise.

(6a)
Little Shmuel did not ride the shoulder
Of his father until he was older
He was not to be seen
At the Temple, 'til weaned
"He's weak" Chana said, "Let him grow bolder."

(6b)
What did we get on the mount?
All of Torah? Ten laws? Which amount?
Said Akiva: "The tent
Of Moed was just meant
For review." (Not by Yishmael's count.)

(7a)
These are things that have got no fixed measure:
You may do them as much as gives pleasure
Leaving corners of fields
Bringing God your first yield
Learning Torah – that act we most treasure.\

(7a)
The sacrifice brought is to function
For God, not for human consumption.
Your table should not
Be filled, when your Rav's got
One that's empty – Yes, that's the assumption.

(8a)
On the festival day, when we greet
The divine, have a festival treat:
Chicken in every pot
(Not just one, but a lot!)
There is no happiness save with meat.

(8b)
From where do we know that to wed
Is forbidden? (Eat chicken instead)
As the Torah will say:
Go "delight in the day!"
"In the day" – that is, not in your bed!

(9a)
"The crooked cannot be made straight"
Said Kohelet the king (how he'd prate!)
Thus an off'ring forgotten
Or one misbegotten
May not be made up or brought late.

(9b)
A person who learns and reviews
A full hundred times – still he will lose
Out on what he'd have learned
Had he once more returned,
Said Bar Hey Hey. For knowledge accrues.

(10a)
When studying texts it behooves
He who studies to get in a groove
One who's learning Torah
Should not switch to Mishnah
Or vice versa. Stay put and don't move.

(10a)
There are laws that are truly "out there"
It's as if they have bloomed in midair.
Vows and fests and Shabbat
And a stolen priest's pot
Are suspended by something threadbare.

(10a)
Shmuel took every Tanna to task
Though he did not live then. But a bask-
Et of pumpkins, they say,
Is far worse, if you may
Than a pepper. So do let him bask.

(11a)
There are laws that are not in the text
Though we cite it as if in pretext:
To avoid, as one ought to,
Your forced woman's daughter
Please trust us. She's not fit for sex.

The Fish Pond (Taanit 24a)

My translation from Ruth Calderon's
Hashuk, Habayit, VeHalev: Aggadot Talmudiot (Keter, 2002)

We were twenty-five students sitting before the teacher during that parched summer. He was young, still wet behind the ears, and he taught us using melodies. Sometimes he would sing a tune slightly differently than we were used to, adding pleasant trills. He was thin and tall as a stalk, and his beard was still not full. I loved his school room, where we sat in groups of four, crowding around the scroll. The teacher's house was a home for me.

One after another, my friends began reading letters, and soon some could combine words to form sentences with sense and meaning. But I, no matter how hard I tried, saw only lines – stripes and shapes like the moon in its waxing or waning, in black ink atop a scroll that smelled heavenly. Whenever the teacher wasn't looking, I would lean towards the scroll to sniff it. I sang the melodies we learned along with everyone else, but the names of the letters escaped me. I tried not to let others notice my weakness – that I couldn't read.

One day one of the children made fun of me by imitating my stuttering. Tears trembled in my eyes, and a cold paralysis gripped me. I forgot the teacher's rules of decorum, and before the tears fell I lunged across to the offending boy and hit him. The bench collapsed forwards on him and together both boy and bench fell to the ground, accompanied by the tittering of the class. I felt relieved: the threat of tears had been averted, and my friends had delighted in my mischief.

Suddenly I heard the teacher coming towards me and my shoulders shrank, fearing the pinch that would follow. I was surprised to feel a gentle palm resting on my shoulder. Long fingers spread out over the length of my back. The teacher called me by name and asked that I get up and follow him out of the room. The other students looked at me, excited about my banishment. I was terrified, convinced that my schoolboy days were over, and that now my father would turn me over to the cobbler. All my friends would wake up to go study at the time when kings arise, but I would be up from the crack of dawn working with cold hands on disgusting leather.

We went out. The teacher told the other students to review their letters. The sun fell behind the hills. The