D'yo Ilu Yamey

Nezirut and Naso: Twenty-Two Years Later

2013-05-20T22:25:00.000+03:00

This past Shabbat I chanted my entire bat mitzvah parsha for the first time. When I became a bat mitzvah twenty-two years ago, I read what amounted to only one aliya, albeit the most interesting one. My parents’ Conservative synagogue reads on a triennial cycle, completing the Torah every three years, so that only a selection of the parsha is read each Shabbat. On my bat mitzvah, I read the aliya that includes the description of the Nazir, the individual who takes on additional stringencies so as to become a holier person. The Nazir vows not to drink wine, cut his hair, or come into contact with the dead for a certain period of a time. The term Nazir literally means “one who abstains,” and the Nazir may perhaps be best understood as an ascetic – one who denies himself pleasure for the sake of a higher purpose. It is no wonder, given my personality, that I identified so deeply with the Nazir – both then and now.

For the dvar Torah at my bat mitzvah, I spoke about the Nazir’s obligation to bring a sin offering at the end of his period of abstention. At first it seems strange that someone who seeks to become more holy has to bring a sin offering. How can holiness be sinful? In the eponymous tractate of the Talmud dedicated to the Nazir, Rabbi Elazar HaKapar considers this question: “Rabbi Elazar HaKapar said in the name of Rebbe: What does it mean, 'And he shall make expiation for the sin that he incurred on the soul' (Numbers 6:11). Against what soul did he sin? Rather, he sinned in that he distressed himself [by abstaining] from wine. And if one who distresses himself by abstaining only from wine is called a sinner, how much more so is one who abstains from all things a sinner!” (Nazir 19a). As I said at my bat mitzvah, Judaism is not a religion of asceticism. We are supposed to enjoy the delicious and pleasurable aspects of life – not in a greedy or hedonistic manner, but in a way that acknowledges and pays tribute their divine source. We are not supposed to engage in self-denial, but to enrich ourselves with all that life has to offer.

At the time, I was on the brink of adolescence, speaking from the bimah in a navy blue polka dot suit chosen by my mother, with my hair tied back in a bow I was sure was too big for my head. I had no idea how prescient my dvar Torah would prove when, just a few years later, I became ill with anorexia. It is a chapter of my life I rarely return to, as it seems both predictably mundane—of course an overachiever like myself would have anorexia—and painfully private. Always a lover of language, I recall musing on the phonetic similarity between “ascetic” and “aesthetic,” believing that through self-denial, I could achieve a sort of delicate beauty. And while I could easily be flooded by memories from that period, the one that seems most pertinent now is of a Shabbat spent in the eating disorders ward of the hospital, holed up with five other skeletons. I requested a cup of grape juice so I could make kiddish; but then I realized that before performing the ritual handwashing, I’d have to unplug my IV, thereby violating Shabbat. I remember standing there wondering what to do. Just weeks ago I was a normal college student, but I had been catapulted from the Ivy League to the IV League with little hope of release.

I thought about these matters again as I prepared to leyn Naso in full for the first time. Like the anorexic, the Nazir aspires to a certain level of self-perfection, believing that he or she can transcend the needs and desires to which most people submit. This perfectionist strain has always run deep within me, particularly when it comes to reading Torah. As far as I know, I leyned the parsha flawlessly last Shabbat – not because I wanted to make a show of reading perfectly, but simply because, well, I wanted to read perfectly. I also leyned the haftara, returning to the story of the prophet Shimshon, who was a Nazir from birth. The haftara portrays the annunciation scene in which an angel informs the unnamed wife of Manoach that she will become a mother to a savior of Israel. In the past I have always read this chapter of Judges as a feminist tale about a woman who could see what her husband could not; she knew immediately that she had spoken with an angel, whereas her husband – to whom the angel initially did not even deign to appear—needs to be hit on the head again and again until he gets it. This time, however, I read the haftara in a new light. Manoach’s wife, formerly barren, is told that at last she is going to have a child. But even though this dream will be realized, she is going to have to accept a less-than-perfect reality, because her son is going to be subject to difficult strictures – he may not cut his hair, or eat any grape products whatsoever, for he will be a Nazir from womb to tomb.

As I realized this year, this haftara is also a story about becoming a mother. And if being a Nazir is about being perfect, being a mother is just the opposite. It is about accepting that one cannot even presume to be perfect, and that any attempt to do so will inevitably fail. I used to think that being perfect meant waking up, davening, jogging, showering and learning daf yomi all before 9am. These days at 9am I am almost always still in pajamas, sitting on the couch with one baby on the breast and one baby wailing after her morning nap. Sometimes I am balancing a Gemara on the shoulder of the couch, but more often I am dozing off. Yesterday morning a grape rolled by as I was nursing. Our son was throwing his breakfast, which he insisted on eating while holding one of his favorite toys: his father’s shaver. (We take off the blade before giving it to him.) He will never be perfect, and neither will I. For that I suppose I can bring a Korban Todah, an offering of thanks.

Lechi, Korah, and Tagelet: Constructing Ei-Ruv of One's Own

2013-04-25T19:21:00.000+03:00

I began learning Masekhet Eiruvin in the first few weeks of our twins’ lives. Given their positions in the womb, Daniel and I even joked that we might name the girls Lechi and Korah, the terms used in the Talmud for the vertical and horizontal posts that must be affixed to an alleyway to symbolically close it off from the public domain in order to permit a person to carry there on Shabbat. The tractate as a whole deals with the rabbinic decrees enacted to legally permit carrying from one domain to another. The laws of Shabbat speak in terms of four domains: public, private, a Carmelit (neither public nor private) and a Makom Petur (“free space”), which is not really a domain at all. The rabbis teach that it is forbidden to carry from one domain to another, and it is also forbidden to carry more than a minimal distance within the public domain.

I thought about the distinctions between these domains during the three days I spent in the maternity ward at Shaare Tzedek hospital following the birth. I was in a small room which I shared with two other women. Like me, they were immediately post-partum; unlike me, they were Haredi and each had at least six other kids at home. We were separated from one another by colorful curtains that hung from tracks on the ceiling; the tracks surrounded the perimeters of each of our beds, with room for just the beds, a small bassinet (or two), and a nightstand. When all the curtains were drawn open, as they were when the cleaner came on Friday morning, the illusion of three separate “private domains” was shattered, and it became clear just how close we all were to one another. Even with the curtains drawn, I could hear everything they said to their visitors, and they could overhear each of my transatlantic phone conversations in which I gushed to my family and closest friends about the miraculous birth of our daughters.

I spent many hours on the phone during those few days in the hospital, except Shabbat of course, when the entire ward was on a pre-set Shabbat clock. Every two hours, both night and day, all the overhead fluorescent lights would suddenly flash on, and a pre-recorded voice over the loudspeaker would tell all the women to come to the nursery to fetch and feed their babies. Given that I was nursing not one baby but two, I could rarely finish feeding them both before the lights went off again, and so I was hopelessly out of sync with the Shabbat lights. Whenever I managed to time it right and the lights were on while I was nursing, I would read aloud from the daf, conscious of the Haredi women who could overhear every word and who surely regarded me as a curiosity, if not a freak.

In those early pages of Eiruvin, I was struck by the Talmud’s discussion of the term Dyumdin, which refers to the double pillars that were placed around public wells in order to make them into private domains in which it would be permissible to draw and carry water on Shabbat. At the beginning of the second chapter (18a), the Talmud records a discussion in which the rabbis try to determine the etymology of this word, which they assert comes from the conjoining of the Greek prefix Dyu, meaning two, with the Hebrew word Amud, meaning pillar. They then consider concepts that relate to the prefix “Dyu,” including Dyufra -- trees that yield fruit two times a year. They also discuss the two faces (Dyu Partsufin) of Adam, who was created with one face in front and one face in back, and was then split down the middle to become male and female. I thought about our twin daughters, created not from one egg but from two. They look as different from one another as night from day: Liav has blonde hair and an egg-shaped head and looks just like her older brother; her sister Tagel has dark skin and dark hair and big blue eyes. When I first held a naked and squirming Tagel, I said to the obstetrician, “Are you sure she’s mine?” “Geveret,” he responded, “She’s still attached at the umbilical cord.” As indeed she was. The miracle of two—or Dyu—continues to astonish me each time I look at them lying side by side.

Thus far I have learned four and a half chapters of Eiruvin aloud with the two girls, generally while nursing. (In fact, this is the reason I refuse to “double nurse” both girls at once even though I spend about eight hours a day feeding them; I always need a hand free for my Gemara or my iphone.) Perhaps it is appropriate, then, that it is in Eiruvin (54b) that we find a midrash on the verse, “A loving doe, a gracrful mountain goat. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be infatuated with love of her always” (Proverbs 5:19). As they often do when confronted with the Bible’s erotic imagery, the rabbis interpret this verse as referring to Torah. Just as a doe (Ayelet in Hebrew) has a narrow womb and is beloved unto its mate each time like the very first time, so too are words of Torah equally special the first time they are studied and on every subsequent encounter. (This midrash is the reason I could not name one of our girls Ayelet, even though it’s one of my favorite names.) Moreover, the rabbis go on to explain, just as a breast is available with delicious milk every time the baby wants to suckle, so too is Torah always available for those who want to savor its rich insights. I take comfort in the fact that my daughters not just learned Torah “with their mother’s milk,” but that the milk they imbibed was in fact Torah.

This midrash on the verse from Proverbs is part of a longer discussion about the value of learning Torah and how one should do so. These are among my two favorite pages in the entire Talmud, but they were particularly resonant when I re-encountered them again this week in my daf yomi study. The Talmud speaks of the importance of studying Torah aloud: “Rabbi Eliezer had a student who used to learn Torah in a whsiper. After three years, he forgot everything he had learned” (54a). The same passage teaches that “one who walks along the way and has no company should preoccupy himself with Torah” (53a). These passages guided me when I sought a way to incorporate daf yomi study into the busy life of a nursing mother of twins. I decided that I would read the entire daf aloud to the girls while nursing them in the morning. Instead of proceeding to read Steinsaltz’ commentary, as I used to do when I had more time, I now put the girls in their double stroller and go out for a walk while listening to a recorded shiur on my iphone. Each shiur lasts 45 minutes, which is exactly the time it takes me to walk back and forth for the entire length of the Tayelet, the beautiful promenade overlooking the Old City (and the source of Tagel’s new nickname, Tagelet). This combination of reading the daf aloud while nursing, and learning Torah while pushing the stroller along the way, seems like a fitting way to follow the guidelines for learning set forth in tractate Eiruvin.

In addition to learning the daf aloud with the girls, I also spend many hours leyning aloud to them. Just a few weeks after they were born I leyned much of the longer double parsha of Vayakhel Pekudei, a review of parshat Teruma which they had heard in the hospital. Generally considered one of the most boring sections of the Torah, the vast tracts of Mishkan material in the book of Shmot pose an exciting challenge to anyone who tries to leyn them because the same words recur again and again with different cantillations, and it is difficult to keep it all straight. At the same time, it seems to me that more than any other section of the Torah, the description of the Mishkan must be leyned with the utmost precision. 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). In reading these verses, we symbolically re-enact the building of this structure in accordance with God’s precise commands. We are constructing in words the Mishkan that the Isrealites built in the desert. As I practiced parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei with the twins at the breast, I was reminded that 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, or if we read, say, forty cubits instead of fifty, then the entire edifice could come tumbling down.

The critical importance of precision in language is a topic discussed in tractate Eiruvin. The Talmud contrasts the people of Judea, who used language precisely, with their counterparts in the Galilee, who did not (53a-b). If a man in Judea wished to sell a cloak, for instance, he would describe the color as being “like beets on the ground.” A wool-seller in the Galilee, however, would pronounce the word for wool (amar) so imprecisely that it was impossible to know whether he was referring to wool, a donkey (hamar),wine (hamra), or a sheep (eymar). It stands to reason that the leyning in Judea surpassed that of the Galilee, though the Talmud does not say so explicitly.

As I was trying to master the Torah’s complicated and repetitious description of the Mishkan’s construction, our son Matan received the gift of a toolkit from his visiting grandmother. His favorite tools are the screwdriver and drill, which he insists on carrying with him at all times. He refuses to eat meals without the screwdriver in hand. Often he attempts to screw in his food, thereby driving us crazy. And to our further consternation, the battery-operated drill makes a noise whenever the trigger is pulled. A delighted Matan walks around the house saying, “Push the button! Push the button! Drill on. Drill off. Drill makes noise. Too loud!” Often it seems that the one who is too loud is not the drill but Matan, who now has a habit of repeating everything he hears, presumably in a typical toddler’s attempt to hone his own language skills so that he might speak as precisely as his parents, or as the Talmud’s Judeans. His language drills amuse us to no end. Last week he said to his Ganenet, “Don’t drill the babies,” which is what we told him one Shabbat afternoon when we turned around to find him aiming his favorite toy at Tagel’s forehead.

The parshiot of the Mishkan and Matan’s obsession with his drill coincided with our move to a new home last month. Daniel, to his credit, was responsible for everything relating to the renovation of our new apartment. I do not handle transitions well under the best of circumstances, but we’ve had a particularly rough time with our new neighbors, who are upset about the disturbances caused by the renovation (even louder drilling noises) and who seem to seek out every opportunity to pick a fight with us. It is hard to imagine ever having the kind of neighborly relations that we had in our previous apartment, where our upstairs neighbor babysat for us when I had to run out to the store, and our downstairs neighbor lent us eggs and milk when the store was closed. It was even more difficult to imagine the kind of relationship between neighbors described in the opening chapters of tractate Eiruvin, where all the houses that open up into a given courtyard collectively set aside a loaf of bread in one common container stored in one of the houses, thereby showing that they all have a common share in each of the houses and can carry freely in and out of the courtyard. Such neighborly cooperation seems a far cry from our current situation -- though we remain hopeful that matters will improve before the daf yomi cycle returns to these issues in Bava Batra.

In the meantime, Liav, Tagel, and I are eager to see what lies in store for us in the second half of tractate Eiruvin, which we will surely learn to the accompaniment of Matan’s drill. I also just signed up to leyn all of parshat Naso, so soon the Mishkan will be not just built but dedicated, as I hope our home will be as well. May the words we speak within its walls be words of Torah, and may we encounter serenity and understanding in the days and years and pages that lie ahead.

Simchat Banot -- Liav and Tagel

2013-02-22T13:07:00.000+02:00

Friday morning, 22 February 2013
י"ב אדר תשע"ג

INK:

Our daughters were born last Thursday afternoon, and so I was still in the maternity ward on Shabbat parshat Teruma. As I do whenever I cannot make it to shul, I leyned the parsha aloud, this time while sitting in my hospital bed with the bassinets of our two daughters on either side of me. The hospital bassinets are essentially rectangular transparent plastic cases containing mattresses resting on a cart with wheels, and so I could observe my daughters at all times. As newborns are wont, they lay with their hands above their heads, each one looking towards the other and hence facing me as well as I taught them about the building of the Mishkan. I smiled when I came to the description of the two planks supporting the corners of the tabernacle, which are supposed to be To’amim, matching – a word I accidentally misread as Te’omim, twins. But the pasuk that most resonated for me was the description of the Keruvim on either side of the Kaporet: (24:20).

והיו הכרובים פורשי כנפיים למעלה, סוככים בכנפיהם על-הכפורת, ופניהם, איש אל-אחיו; אל-הכפורת--יהיו, פני הכרובים.

As I watched my two angelic daughters face towards one another with their arms swaying above their heads, I felt myself in that most holy of holy places between the Keruvim, where the divine presence communicated with the people of Israel (25:22):

ונועדתי לך, שם, ודיברתי איתך מעל הכפורת מבין שני הכרובים, אשר על-ארון העדות--את כל-אשר אצווה אותך, אל-בני ישראל.

The space between the Keruvim was the point of contact between the divine and the human. For me, the experience of giving birth to our twin daughters also afforded rare and intimate access to the divine, the Boreh Olam, creator of all living things. As I lay in the hospital between my two daughters leyning parshat Teruma, I was reminded that the Mishkan offered a new way of meeting God in the world and a new avenue for religious expression, which are gifts that our daughters offer us as well.

The Torah teaches that the faces of the Keruvim were turned toward one another. To my astonishment, this is also how Liav and Tagel sleep. Ever since we returned from the hospital, we have been placing them side-by-side in our pack-and-play crib. Regardless of how we position them, within a few moments they always turn their heads towards one another. Sometimes one baby opens her eyes and peers intently at her sister; other times they look into each other’s eyes before sinking into sleep. But they are almost always facing one another, each somehow reassured and calmed by the presence of her sister. We can only hope that this is how they will go through the rest of their lives, turning to one another in friendship, support, reassurance, and love.

The image of angelic presences speaks to me on another level as well. This past week, Daniel and I spent many intense hours trying to name our daughters. In so doing, we were reminded of a midrash about Jacob’s struggle with the angel in Parshat Vayishlach. Jacob asks the angel his name:

הגידה נא שמך
And the angel responds:
למה זה תשאל לשמי
The midrash in Breishit Rabba connects this verse to another encounter between a human and angel that appears in Sefer Shoftim: Shimshon’s father Manoach asks the angel his wife has encountered for the angel’s name, and the angel responds:
למה זה תשאל לשמי והוא פלאי
The midrash explains that angels change their names based on the particular mission they are sent to accomplish at any given moment. And so I imagine that in choosing a name for our daughters, we are also in some sense charging them with a unique mission in the world. I have felt this past week that so long as our daughters were still unnamed, every mission remained open to them. I imagined thousands of winged angels hovering over us, each representing a different name we might choose, and each angel beating its wings in hopeful anticipation that perhaps that angel might be the one whose mission matches the name we choose for our child. This amassing of angelic presences may explain why the first week of a newborn child’s life is such a time of intense connection to an otherworldly realm. The moment our daughters are named—like the moment when the box with Schroedinger’s cat is opened—all the angels fly off, leaving just two, one for each of our girls.

Perhaps the two angels who remained were the same angels that accompanied the namesakes of each of our daughters, Daniel’s father and my maternal grandmother. My Savta Gilla Rubin, for whom Tagel is named, was a vibrant, headstrong woman who grew up in Brooklyn but spent her entire adult life as the rebbetzin at the Wantagh Jewish Center on Long Island. Still, the place in the world where she was happiest was Yerushalayim, where she and my Zaidy spent many sabbaticals attending parshat hashavua shiurim just as Daniel and I love to do. Together they took their children on their first family trip here in June 1967, where Savta enjoyed showing off her Biblical Hebrew in all the most modern contexts. Having grown up with Zionist Hebraist parents and grandparents, Hebrew was, in fact, her first language. I was fortunate to share with her a love not just of Hebrew, but also of crossword puzzles and literary novels – I always knew which books were hers because she wrote in pen in the margins (I only dare use pencil) and because the pages were pervaded by her distinctive perfume which I can still smell to this day, exactly 18 years and one week after her death. We hope Tagel will draw from her spirit and embody her strength, her vibrancy, her love of language and literature and her attachment to the Jewish people.

DBF:

My father, Chuck Feldman, alav hashalom, would have rejoiced at this simcha, and his absence, which we feel so keenly today, is all that impinges on this wonderful occasion. A consummate family man, he knew that every simcha must be celebrated to the fullest. Our girls are the first grandchildren born to the family since our Saba left us, and so it is appropriate that the first of our daughters, Liav, bears a name that pays tribute to his memory. Li-av. To me my father was a model of commitment to family, community, and Am Yisrael. A devoted physician, he was also a leader of the Jewish community in northern New Jersey, especially in the realm of Torah education. He was a trusted advisor whose empathy and concern for others made him beloved to so many. He was a wonderful, charming man, and he relished every moment with his family. As my mother, may she live ad meah v'esrim, holds our beautiful Liav before us, we feel dad's bracha upon us. Along with Ilana's Savta Gilla and our other departed grandparents, Zaidy Mel Rubin, Grandma Betty and Grandpa Joe Feldman, Baba Sally and Zaidie Isak Levenstein, Dad is surely looking down upon us from the yeshiva shel ma'ala, smiling his radiant smile with his characteristic twinkle in his eye, as we welcome these two angelic girls into the family he was so proud to build. To quote the words of the Megilla which we will read next week, it is our tefilla that זִכְרו לֹא יָסוּף מִזַּרְעו.

It is also my happy lot in these days of Purim to offer words of shevach and hoda'a for all those responsible for this mishte v'simcha.

First to our parents, whose love and support accompanies us at every step as our family grows. My mom, Baba, arrived with her impeccable timing and inimitable grace just as our twins were born. Mom, you are always selfless in offering to do anything and everything on our behalf, including buying now a second crib for our home. You instill in us a sense of gratitude for all that we are blessed to experience. Ilana's parents, Savta and Saba Kurshan, have been our neighbors for the past few weeks, helping us prepare for the twins' arrival, caring for Matan, and offering all kinds of help, love, and support with characteristic good cheer and attention to detail. Thank you for all you have done for us during this special period, including reading the name dictionary that one last time. We are so pleased to celebrate with all of you, and we extend our love to the proud great grandparents in Princeton New Jersey, Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Jerry Kurshan.

We also recognize the endless generosity of my sister, Estie Agus, who, along with Elizur, and their adorable children, are extraordinary role models of chessed. Estie sends us food, clothes, babysitters, and everything we could possibly need. Liav and Tagel, prepare to be spoiled. As Matan has already discovered, you will quickly learn that visiting your cousins in Raanana is our family’s equivalent of Disneyland – if not Gan Eden.

We are also deeply grateful to our other siblings, including Mindy, who was here with us last Shabbat, and Naamit, who spent hours and hours in late-night phone consultations about matters medical and nomenclatural. Michael and Nira, Joe and Dana, Mindy and Eric, Naamit and Michael, Ariella and Leo, Eytan – we feel your love from afar, and we can’t wait to introduce you to your nieces.

Finally, to Ilana, I can only express my endless love and admiration. Everyone here knows how remarkable a woman you are, but only the children and I witness the full force of your creative genius day to day. You brought these beautiful girls into the world with determination, intensity, and even your characteristic wit -- who else would have been offering divrei torah in the delivery room between contractions to the nurses, the midwife and the anesthesiologist? With the blessed arrival of these two babies wrapped up in their little scrolls, may it be said that we commit our love to each other anew: קיימו מה שקיבלו כבר. It is the supreme privilege of my life to be your husband, partner, and father to our children.

Thank you all for joining us today. Chag Purim Sameach, enjoy the seudat Hodaya, and Mazal tov.

SABBA NEIL:

It was an Et Ratzon, a propitious moment, when we had the privilege of being in the hospital with Ilana and Daniel as Ilana gave birth to thesetwo beautiful babies whom we are naming today. These girls were welcomed into a room that was Tzahalah v’samecha—a room ringing with joyous cries.
These children are named today during the week we read Parashat Tetzaveh. The Parasha this week continues to address the details of theMishkan—this week not so much the construction of the Mishkan but rather the roles of the Kohanim and specifically the details of the clothing they were to wear when serving in the Mishkan.

Ktzat muzar--it is a little strange that the Parasha spends so much time on the external garments of the Kohanim. Normally in Judaism we focus not so much on the exterior features of a person—we don’t concentrate on their appearance or the clothes they wear but rather onthe integrity and purity that defines their souls and character. We are more concerned for the purity of the soul than the cleanliness of the clothes. But there is an expression “that clothes make the man”-- or perhaps it is more appropriate to say today that clothes make the woman. These tiny girls were born into the world without any outer garments or possessions—just two naked bodies squirming and crying b’simcha u-v’sa-son--as they made the passage from the world of the womb into theroom of the world.

But from the moment of their birth these two babies began the process of individuation that will continue throughout their lives. One was bornfirst; the other was born second. One with blond hair; the other with brown. One seemed pensive; the other active. Today the names thatIlana and Daniel give to these girls will further define them.

Each name is an external garment that dresses each of these girls in the clothing of their individuality. As twins part of their challenge in life will be not only to uncover their distinctiveness, but also to distinguish themselves from each another.

But it is not only their names which will define them during their lives. It is also their parents who will shape who they will become. Thesegirls have been born to parents who share a love of Torah, a passion for literature and a respect for history. They have been born to parents who have chosen to build their lives in Israel and to raise theirchildren in the homeland of the Jewish people. They have born as sisters to their brother, Matan, who so far has been very gentle and loving toward them. They have been born into two families, the Kurshansand the Feldmans who come from a lineage of study, learning and Ahavat Yisrael. I know I speak for Alisa and Rella when I say how privileged we are to be here as grandparents during these weeks and to share the beginning of these girls’ lives. And I know, Daniel, you will tell yourchildren the stories about your father so they will know the full richness of their inheritance.

And lastly these children will be defined by their community. Aside from the time Alisa and I have been able to spend with you, Ilana andDaniel, and with your children, it has also been wonderful for us to meet so many of your friends and to come to know the personal and professional communities of which you are a part. You will never have to raise your children alone because there is indeed a village of your friends here who will support you. We have been touched, as I know both of you have been, by the overflowing good wishes of all your friends and colleagues as well as by their concrete offers of help. We know that your children will always be surrounded by an abundance of theirpeers. Theirs will never be the only stroller pushed through the streets of Jerusalem; rather they will be surrounded by the strollers of so many other children that fill the streets of this city.

So these two girls born naked into the world have already been adorned in the garments of our tradition. We know these girls will grow upenveloped by the teachings of our texts and the music of our Masoret. Today you begin to dress and address them by their names. You wrap them in your love as their parents. You clothe them in the care of their grandparents, your friends, and your community. You crown these girls with the adornment of their Jewish inheritance. May thegarments that they wear be like the garments of the ancient Kohanim--clothing l’khavod ul-tif-ah-ret-- garments that adorn these girls in dignity and radiance.

המלאך הגואל אותי מכל רע יברך את הנערות

May your daughters always following in the footsteps of the angels who will guide their lives. May they always be a blessing to their familiesand to their community. May God watch over them and protect them. May God bless these girls so that they will both become an adornment and a crown l’kol am Yisrael--to the entire community of Israel.

Who Knows? An Adar of Anticipation

2013-02-11T14:04:00.002+02:00

Among the laws governing the reading of the scroll of Esther discussed in tractate Megillah is the stipulation that the megillah may not be read backwards: “One who reads the megillah backwards has not fulfilled one's obligation” (17a). The story of the Jews in Shushan unfolds in linear progression, moving from “sorrow to joy and from mourning to festivity,” as we learn only in the penultimate chapter (9:22). Of course, since we read the megillah every year on Purim, we already know how it will end, and the triumphant hanging of the evil villain Haman whose plot to exterminate the Jews was foiled by the beautiful Queen Esther comes as no surprise. Even so, we are commanded each year to read the Megillah with a sense of “who knows,” inhabiting a world of lottery and chance in which we cannot divine the ending but can only pray for a better outcome. As Esther’s uncle Mordechai says to her, “Who knows, perhaps you have attained a royal position for just such a moment” (4:14).

I write these words on Rosh Hodesh Adar of 5773 (2013), exactly six years after I first learned Maskhet Megillah in daf yomi. I sit here nine months pregnant with twins, thinking back to a time when I did not know if I would ever get married again, let alone be privileged to bring children into the world. I try to put myself in the shoes of the person I was back then, pretending that I don’t already know about all the twists and turns that life would take to sustain me and enable me to reach this day. As I try to identify with that uncertainty, I am struck by the realization that in a world of hester panim—a world where God’s face is hidden—the sense of “who knows” never completely dissipates. We may have a wider vista now that we have ascended to the top of one difficult mountain, but other, higher mountains lie ahead, and there is no guarantee that we will surmount them as well.

I think about this metaphor as I lie in bed, looking over the mountain that is my pregnant belly and wondering if I will ever be able to see directly down to my feet again. Last summer, when I first learned I was pregnant, I remember looking at the calendar and thinking that I’d probably give birth between Tu B’shvat and Purim. Tu B’shvat is over and gone, and with it all the flower and tree names we played around with these past few months. Today we ushered in Adar, the month of joy, and my husband reminded me that Rosh Hodesh Adar would make a great birthday. At this point, though, I don’t need any reminders. Everyone who sends me emails, surely in an attempt to be thoughtful and considerate, prefaces their messages with, “I’m not sure if you’re in the throes of labor as I’m sending this,” or “I wonder if you have already given birth.” No, no, not yet. The new month, whose invisible new moon is not even the barest sliver of a crescent, has not yet revealed what it holds in store. Still, it is a good thing to have made it to 39 weeks in a twin pregnancy. As a friend just reminded me, the zodiac symbol for Adar is two fish, perhaps because Adar is the one month that can fall out twice in a shana meuberet, a leap or "pregnant" year. But the symbol is also pregnant with personal meaning, since I have swam nearly every day these past nine months. “Are you teaching your babies how to swim?” the ladies at the pool always ask me. “Oh no, they are swimming already,” I assure them, imagining my two little fetus-fish awash in their individual sacs of amniotic fluid. At some point the seas will split and they will be cast on to dry land – hopefully long before Pesach, as I exhausted those metaphors in my previous pregnancy.

Meanwhile, as Purim approaches, I think of Esther enjoining the people to come together in fervent prayer that all should proceed smoothly when she risks her life to approach King Ahaseuerus (the last five letters of whose name, as commonly transliterated, are a near-anagram of uterus). The Talmud in the first chapter of Megillah interprets the verse that describes Esther’s reaction to hearing of the king’s decree to destroy and massacre all the Jews: “Va-tithalhal hamalka meod.” The word “Va-tithalhal,” often translated as “became agitated,” provides fodder for the midrashic imagination: “What is Va-tithalhal? Rav says: She became a menstruant. Rabbi Yirmiya says, “She suffered a miscarriage” (15a). Rashi explains that the cavities of her body dissolved. All these interpreters are playing with the etymological similarity between Va-tithalhal and “halal,” the Hebrew word for cavity or hole and the nomenclatural hallmark of the N’keva, the female. I wonder if maybe Esther heard the news and felt like she was in labor, bearing inside her womb the destiny of the Jewish people.

Sitting here on Rosh Hodesh Adar, attuned to the first signs of any contractions, I do not know when I will begin to feel changes in the holes and cavities of my body. The megillah is ten chapters, and I am already at the end of my ninth month – but I cannot scroll ahead to find out what happens in chapter ten. We read the megillah in order and live our lives day by day, and as Mordechai tells Esther “who knows” what tomorrow will bring. But as Adar begins, joy increases, and I can only pray that for us, too, it will be so.

Nine Months Pregnant: Counting Down the Shabbatot

2013-01-28T12:23:00.001+02:00

I have twenty-one dapim left in Masekhet Shabbat and twenty-one days until my due date, which means that if I and my unborn children both stay on schedule, I should be able to finish the Masekhet before they are born. These past few weeks have been a race to cover as much ground as possible out of fear that once our twins are born, my time will no longer be my own. I have spent many early mornings and late nights lying atop my bed propped up with pillows, which is the only way I can lie comfortably these days, since my stomach is so enormous. When I learn, I try to focus on the text and ignore the kicking inside my belly and the deadline that looms before me. These past few days, however, so many of the dapim have dealt with matters relating to pregnancy and childbirth that I am constantly reminded of what lies ahead – and inside.

Last week I learned the eighteenth chapter of the Masekhet, which concludes with a discussion about giving birth on Shabbat (128b). Shmuel, a sage who was known for his medicinal skills, asserts that so long as the womb is open, one may desecrate Shabbat in order to fulfill all the wishes of a pregnant woman – including lighting a candle for her and carrying oil through the public domain to bring to her. However, once the womb has closed, one may no longer desecrate Shabbat to satisfy her needs. The Talmud then goes on to ask the obvious next question: When is the womb considered open? Abayey says that it is from the moment the woman sits on the birthing stone. (My equivalent of the Mashberwould be the big inflatable exercise ball from Target which I lay on during the worst of my contractions in my last pregnancy, and which my husband Daniel just blew up again.) Rav Yehoshua says it is from the moment that blood begins to flow. And others say that it is from the time that the woman can no longer walk, and her friends must carry her – just as Daniel and mother had to lift me up and carry me to the car so I could get to the hospital in time to deliver Matan a year and a half ago.

The word used in the Talmud for womb is Kever, which also means grave. This analogy goes back at least as far as the book of Proverbs (30:16), where we are told that “Three things are insatiable…Hell, a barren womb, earth that cannot get enough water.” These are also the three matters which are controlled exclusively by God, as we are taught in the first page of tractate Taanit: “Three keys are in the hands of God and are not entrusted to any messenger: The key to rain, the key to childbirth, and the key to revive the dead.” That is, only God can control when rain falls, and when a woman goes into labor, and when the Messiah will come and revive the dead. I may think that I have it all planned out, and I may be confident that I’ll finish the Masekhet before the babies come, but it’s all in God’s hands. As the old ladies at the pool keep reminding me, it is most important that it should happen in a propitious hour, b’sha’a tovah -- even if that means that I have to lug this heavy Masekhet to the hospital with me.

At least I can rest assured that I am out of one of the danger zones, since I’m now into my ninth month. The rabbis teach that any baby born in the eighth month of pregnancy will not be viable, but is regarded as inanimate as a stone (135a). On the other hand, any baby born in the seventh or ninth month is assumed to be healthy. Apparently this was a well-known medical principle in the ancient world, though it is not clear on what it is based. In any case, I am grateful that I did not give birth in the eighth month (or the seventh month for that matter, which I daresay would have been far worse).

In the same sugya about helping a woman give birth on Shabbat, the rabbis discuss whether it is permissible to tie the umbilical cord on Shabbat (129b). They disagree about whether it is preferable to tie or to cut the cord; which is less of a desecration of Shabbat? But all the sages concur that in the case of twins, one must cut the umbilical cords lest the babies continue to be connected to one another, which would be dangerous. Given that we are expecting twins, it sounds like even if they are born on Shabbat, I won’t have any trouble convincing the midwife to cut the cords. This will be a disappointment to Matan, however, who likes to play only with things that can be plugged in. He spends most afternoons (including Shabbat, for that matter) plugging in and out our immersion blender (which he calls “the noises”), our portable radiator (“the cham”), and Daniel’s desk lamp (“a lamps”). The most exciting thing about our new babies (which he’s already named “hairdryer” and “screwdriver,” after two of his other favorite household items) would surely be the prospect of plugging their umbilical cords into an electrical socket – perish the thought.

While Matan was inserting plugs into sockets this morning, I finished the nineteenth chapter of the Masekhet, which deals with the issue of performing a bris on Shabbat. All the sages agree that a baby born on Shabbat is circumcised on Shabbat, and Rabbi Eliezer says that it is even permissible for the Mohel to carry the knife along with any other equipment necessary to perform the circumcision on Shabbat (130a). However, if there is any doubt about whether the baby is in fact due to be circumcised on Shabbat, or if there is any doubt about the baby’s gender, then one must wait until the next day to perform the circumcision. There are also those who say that if a baby is born by C-section, then the bris is not performed on Shabbat – though this is a minority opinion. The rabbis also discuss whether a baby who has already been circumcised may be treated on Shabbat: Is it possible to wash the baby? To sprinkle cumin (which was thought to have medicinal properties) on the site of the bris? To replace the bandage? During this discussion about caring for infants, Abayey interjects with a series of folk remedies that he learned from his mother (134a): First, his mother taught him that if a baby refuses to nurse, it is because its mouth is too cold, and one must bring hot coals to put on its lips. If a baby doesn’t breathe properly, one should bring the mother’s placenta and place it on the baby’s chest. If the baby is ruddy-complexioned, it has not fully absorbed its blood, and one should wait before circumcising it. I am not sure if any of these practices are part of the protocol in the maternity wards at Hadassah, but I hope I never find out.

By the time I am lying in that maternity ward, perhaps I will have reached my favorite sugya in Masekhet Shabbat, which deals with the astrological significance of the day on which a baby is born (156a): “One who is born on Sunday will be strong; one who is born on Monday will be quarrelsome; one who is born on Tuesday will be rich and fornicating….” Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi associates each of these destinies with the creation story. For instance, just as the waters were divided on the second day of creation, a baby born on this day will be drawn to divisive situations and will therefore be quarrelsome. So far these predictions have proven accurate: Matan was born on a Wednesday, the day the sun and moon were created, and he is indeed intelligent and wise. However, Rabbi Hanina argues that it is not the day on which a person is born that matters, but the planet ruling over the hour of the birth. That is, one who is born under the sun will be a proud man; one who is born under the moon will suffer illness; one is born under Saturn will have his plans frustrated; on who is born under Jupiter will be charitable. I never read horoscope columns, so I won’t know under what sign my babies are born. But the Hebrew word for sign is Mazal, and so suffice it to say that I hope it will be a mazal tov.

Do I really have twenty-one days left until I give birth? Will I end up having boys, and if so, will their bris be on Shabbat? What day of the week will they be born, and will they know how to breathe and how to nurse? The answers to all these questions are of course in God’s hands; for my part, I can only pray to the keeper of the keys. May the twins be born healthily, and in an auspicious hour. May we merit to finish this Masekhet that we have been learning together since Sukkot; and may we merit to return to it someday again.

Rededicating Chanukah

2012-12-08T18:56:00.003+02:00

Last year I lit Chanukah candles in a shiva house. My father-in-law had just passed away, and my husband, his mother, and his four siblings were sitting shiva in their New Jersey home. Each afternoon at about 5pm, the family would get up from their low chairs, take leave of any visitors, and make their way to the foyer to try to introduce a few moments of light into one of the darkest weeks of their lives. Several of my husband’s siblings commented that lighting Chanukah candles and saying Hallel and Shehechiyanu seemed so incongruous during a period of mourning; and it was especially hard to say the final line of the psalm for Chanukah, “You have converted my mourning into dance.” I remember standing alone by the burning candles after everyone had returned to their shiva chairs, watching the flames flicker like trembling tears and wondering whether my husband would ever be able to celebrate Chanukah with a full heart again.

Now, a year later, my associations with Chanukah could not be more different. Our son Matan, now 18 months, has been learning about Chanukah in Gan since Rosh Chodesh. He has come home with painted Styrofoam candles, homemade dreidls, and several new additions to his vocabulary: “Yvonne” (which we eventually realized is “Sevivon”), “Kad katan,” and “Poe” (not the author, but the emphatic completion of the sentence that begins Nes Gadol Haya). He refuses to eat dinner without an Yvonne in each hand, and he responds with glee each time it spins and lands on the floor. If you sing Matan the Sevivon song, he will put his hands on his head and spin around like a whirling dervish until he collapses from dizziness or exhaustion. I have been looking for an electrical Chanukiya for him, since he is obsessed with electricity and enamored of anything he can turn “on” and “off,” but I was told by several storeowners that they are not sold in Israel because the Israeli rabbinate won’t grant a Hekhsher for them lest someone “light” on Shabbat. I was told I could order one from the “Reformim” in America, though I’m still too bemused by this response to pursue the matter any further.

Thanks to Matan, this is the first year I have given Chanukah any thought before the 25^thof Kislev, when I usually remember at the last minute to buy a turquoise box of standard-issue candles and dust off my ratty metal Chanukiyah. I have never been able to connect to this holiday; my relationship to most festivals is through texts, but Chanukah lacks a megillah, at least not one that is part of our canon. Although I learned not long ago the chapter of the Talmud that deals with Chanukah, perek Bameh Madlikin of Shabbat, I cannot say that I found the halakhot of candlelighting particularly meaningful or illuminating. Chanukah candles are supposed to be lit only until the last person returns home from the marketplace, but in Jerusalem it is customary to light at nightfall, usually before 5pm. When in the past was I ever home before 5pm to light candles? I identified with the Talmud’s description of Rabbi Zeyra, who would spend the days of Chanukah in an inn and simply add a few coins to a communal pot so that he could be included when the innkeeper lit. This year, though, everything has changed. I pick up Matan at Gan at 4pm every day, and so we are almost always home before 5pm. This seems like the perfect time to light candles, and I can already anticipate how much Matan the pyromaniac (who begs us to do Havdalah every night of the week) will enjoy this mitzvah.

In a sense, my new associations with Chanukah have perhaps re-dedicated this holiday for me, and I hope for my husband as well. Last year Chanukah was a time of darkness and grief, in which we spent more time thinking about a flame—a Nishmat Adam—that had been snuffed out before its time than about the miracle of a small jug of oil that lasted longer than anyone expected. Chanukah, I am reminded, is about how things can last longer than one ever dreamed possible – not just burning oil, but also the memories of those we love who are no longer with us. As we stand watching the candles by the window in the winter chill, I hope that God will indeed convert mourning into rejoicing, and that the flames that once seemed to be flickering will be dancing instead.

The Divine Ultrasound: Getting a Kick out of Parshat Toldot

2012-11-11T23:10:00.000+02:00

We don’t know how pregnant Rivka was at the beginning of this week’s parsha, but judging from how I’ve been feeling, I would guess she was at least five months along. Just a few weeks ago I started feeling the babies kicking for the first time, and this week, I was able to detect two distinctive patterns of fetal movement. The doctor has told me that one baby is on top and one on the bottom, and I am beginning to get to know them both. The one on top gives sudden, jolting kicks just to the right of my navel, as if leveling a blow at an imaginary opponent; when this baby moves, my whole stomach protrudes and the motion is visible even through my clothing. The baby on the bottom doesn’t so much kick as undulate, fluttering around just above my pelvic bone in a gentle, rhythmic dance. I wouldn’t say that the two wombmates are struggling with one another, but much like Rivka, I find myself preoccupied with my own interiority and wondering, “What is this self I have become?”

As Avivah Zornberg points out, Rivka’s name is an anagram of Kirbah, that interior space where the babies struggled: “And the babies struggled inside her (b’kirbah).” When pregnant with twins, Rivka’s very identity was jumbled inside her, to the extent that she could no longer recognize herself: “If so, why I?” she asks in a moment of existential doubt. Unlike me, Rivka did not have the advantage of modern ultrasound technology, nor did she have an entire shelf of books to tell her what to expect when she was expecting. She didn’t receive weekly emails from BabyCenter comparing her baby’s size to various fruits and vegetables and informing her of the various stages of development: Week One: Your baby is the size of a lentil! Week Two: Your baby now has heels! Week Three: Your baby is covered in a soft coating of hair! Instead, God had to serve as her ultrasound and her sounding board, illuminating the reason for her distress and discomfort: “Two nations are in your womb. Two separate people shall issue from your body.” And indeed, as we are told in the very next verse, so it came to pass.

Rivka is not the only woman in our tradition to suffer during a twin pregnancy. The Talmud (Yevamot 65b) relates that Yehudit, the wife of Rabbi Hiya, gave birth to twin sons born two months apart; the first one came out at 32 weeks! Poor Yehudit went into labor twice, and had to spend her eighth and ninth month of pregnancy caring for a newborn, presumably while on bedrest. Traumatized by the experience, she tried to prevent herself from ever becoming pregnant again. She disguised herself and came before her husband, a story reminiscent of Jacob disguising himself as Esau as per Rivka’s instructions. “Is a woman obligated in the mitzvah of procreation,” she asked him. Her husband responded no. She then drank a drug to make her barren, an act we might interpret as stealing the birthright, or at least as stealing the right to give birth. Rabbi Hiya then got wind of the matter and cried forth in great distress upon realizing that he had been tricked. If his wife was to birth him no more sons, what blessing could possibly be left for him? “I wish you would give birth to another bellyful,” he blessed his wife, and so she did – although this time, they were girls. Thus Hiya and Yehudit were the parents of two sets of twins: First Yehuda and Hizkiya, and then Pazi and Tavi.

I, for one, shall be more than happy if this one set of twins comes out safely and healthily, and hopefully not months apart from one another. I’m not sure if the one on top or the one on the bottom will make its way out first, especially since I am due on Purim, the holiday of v’nahafoch hu, in which everything is turned upside down. My goal is just to make it as close to 40 weeks (and as close to the end of Masekhet Shabbat) as possible, hopefully while remaining ambulatory. This in itself would be a miracle, as the Talmud teaches:”Come and see that the attributes of the Holy One are not like the attributes of man. A man puts an object in a container with the opening facing downward, and it may or may not be preserved inside the container. But God shapes the fetus in the womb of an open woman, with the opening facing down, and the fetus is preserved” (Niddah 31a). I hope the babies are comfortable in their upper and lower berths, folded up like writing tablets with candles burning atop their heads as they peer from one end of the world to the other (Niddah 30b) and as they study Masekhet Shabbat with me each morning. We still have 110 pages left, so while the twins are free to keep kicking, I hope that neither one has any intention of emerging any time soon.

Parshat Hayey Sarah: Revisiting Machpelah

2012-11-07T22:22:00.003+02:00

This week’s parsha, Hayey Sarah, begins with the death and burial of Sarah, and concludes with the death and burial of Abraham. Both are buried in the cave of Machpelah, a site which has a rich and colorful history in the Talmud and midrash. According to the Talmud in Eruvin (53a), four couples are buried in this cave: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. For the most part, these dead are left undisturbed, until Rabbi Banaa comes along in the third century and knocks on the door of the dead.

Rabbi Banaa, as we are told in the Talmud (Bava Batra 58a), used to mark the burial caves of the dead. (Until medieval times, Jews generally placed their dead in caves rather than burying them underground.) Presumably he did so in order to prevent people from accidentally contracting impurity as a result of contact with a corpse. As Rashi explains, Rabbi Banaa would enter burial caves, measure their dimensions, and then outline with lime the corresponding surface above the ground so as to ward off anyone who might otherwise walk right over them unaware. At some point in his grave markings, he came to the cave of Machpelah, as the Talmud relates:

"When Rabbi Banaa reached the cave of Abraham, he found Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, standing in front of the entrance. He said to him: What is Abraham doing? He said to him: He is lying in the arms of Sarah, and she is peering at his head. He said to him: Go and tell him that Banaa is standing at the entrance. Abraham said to him: Let him enter. It is well known that there is no physical desire in this world."

Rabbi Banaa finds himself at the threshold of Abraham’s grave. Abraham, as we know from last week’s parsha, was famous for his hospitality, and so of course he instructed his servant Eliezer, who was guarding the door, to let Banaa inside. Even though Abraham and Sarah were engaged in a moment of intimacy—he was lying in her arms, and she was peering at his head or perhaps picking out the lice from his hair—Banaa was invited to enter. “There is no physical desire [yetzer] in this world,” Abraham explains cryptically from the crypt. Does he mean that he and Sarah’s behavior is entirely innocent, since after all they are already dead? Or does he mean that Rabbi Banaa, having entered the world of the dead, is in another realm where such voyeurism would not be titillating? Why is Banaa permitted to observe this intimacy?

In fact, intimacy and voyeurism are themes central to this sugya and to the opening chapters of tractate Bava Batra, where this story appears. The first chapter deals with Hezek Reiya, visual trespass, the notion that observing another’s activities is tantamount to trespassing on his domain. Banaa, who ostensibly wishes to prevent others from inadvertently trespassing over dead bodies and contracting impurity, instead “visually trespasses” over the private domestic space of Abraham and Sarah. He observes them in a moment of intimacy, much like the laundering women who are described in the halakhic sugya that immediately precedes this story, which deals with the question of Hazaka, that is, the duration of time that property must be owned and uncontested in order to establish the legal presumption of ownership. The Mishnah on 57a considers which uses of property indicate that the user has acquired rights to use the property in this manner from the property’s owner. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Banaa, who states that residents who share a jointly-owned courtyard can prevent each other from engaging in most activities that are disruptive, except for the washing of clothes, “for it is not the practice of Jewish daughters to debase themselves by washing clothes in public.” While washing clothes, a woman had to roll up her sleeves and expose herself in ways that would not be appropriate in a more public setting; therefore, a woman may not be barred from doing laundry in the private space of her own courtyard.

In the continuation of this halakhic sugya, Rabbi Banaa goes on to make other remarks about privacy and intimacy, including the stipulation that a Torah scholar’s tunic must be long enough “so that his flesh should not be visible below the hem.” He also states that the bed of a Torah scholar must have nothing stored beneath it. The Meiri explains that conceivably this could result in a member of the household entering the bedroom at an inopportune time. Immediately after this statement, the Talmud launches into our story of Rabbi Banaa, who “walks in on” Abraham and Sarah lying in each other’s arms.

As the story proceeds, we follow Banaa deeper and deeper into the cave, until a heavenly voice stops him dead in his tracks and forbids him from trespassing any further:

"Rabbi Banaa entered, surveyed [the dimensions of the crypt], and departed. When he reached the crypt of Adam, a heavenly voice came forth and proclaimed: You have gazed at the likeness of My image. Do not gaze at My image itself.

[Rabbi Banaa replied]: But I wish to mark the crypt!
[The heavenly voice said:] As the dimensions of the outer crypt, so are the dimensions of the inner crypt….
Rabbi Banaa said: I glimpsed his two heels and they were like two orbs of the sun."

Rabbi Banaa, after measuring the chamber of the cave where Abraham and Sarah are buried, wishes to go even further and measure the chamber where Adam and Eve lie. But instead of Eliezer, it is God Himself who stands guard at the entrance and warns Banaa that he has seen enough: “You have gazed at the likeness of my image. Do not gaze at My image itself.” This is a strange protest, since presumably Adam—who was created in the image of God—is the likeness of the divine image, and yet Banaa has not yet gazed at Adam. This confusion is resolved in the heavenly voice’s next declaration: “As the dimensions of the outer crypt, so are the dimensions of the inner crypt.” The outer crypt where Abraham is buried resembles the inner crypt where Adam is buried. By gazing upon Abraham, Banaa has effectively gazed upon Adam, who is God’s likeness. Were he to proceed to gaze upon Adam, he would effectively be gazing upon God Himself, which no human being is permitted to do. But Banaa, ever the voyeur, proves unstoppable. He insists on exposing publicly the intimacy he witnesses when he peeks in at Adam’s grave, where it seems Adam is lying on the ground with his feet facing Rabbi Banaa. “I glimpsed his two heels,” he cannot resist gushing exultantly, “and they were like the two orbs of the sun!” Ostensibly on a mission to notify others about the location of burial caves, Banaa’s true purpose seems to be to document what he sees inside them.

At this point, the story comes to a close, and the Talmud goes on to enumerate two genealogies of beauty, one consisting of Biblical figures and one linking rabbinic figures to their Biblical forbears:

1. "The radiance of any person’s countenance in comparison to that of Sarah is like that of a monkey in comparison to a human being. Sarah in comparison to Eve is like a monkey in comparison to a human being. Eve in comparison to Adam is like a monkey in comparison to a human being. Adam in comparison to the divine presence is like a monkey in comparison to a human being.

2. The beauty of Rav Kahana was a semblance of the beauty of Rav. The beauty of Rav was a semblance of the beauty of Rabbi Abahu. The beauty of Rabbi Abahu was a semblance of the beauty of Jacob. The beauty of Jacob was a semblance of the beauty of Adam."

The first genealogy reads like a sort of reverse evolution, in which we are not descended from monkeys, but rather our beautiful human ancestors degenerate into ugly monkeys. The starting point is Sarah, whom Banaa has just glimpsed in our story. We know from the Torah that Abraham regarded his wife as beautiful, to such an extent that he insisted on two occasions that she present herself as his sister. But even Sarah paled in comparison to Eve, the first woman. And Eve could not hold a candle to Adam, a reading that presumably accords with Genesis 2 rather than Genesis1, in which Eve is not created simultaneously with Adam but is rather fashioned from his rib. Finally, Adam, who was created in the image of God, was still just a monkey when compared to God. Each generation thus degenerates into monkeys when compared with its more aesthetically pleasing forbears.

Likewise, in the second genealogy, each subsequent rabbinic generation represents only a fraction of the beauty of preceding generations, and the leap from rabbinic to Biblical figures is accomplished without remark: Rabbi Abahu resembles Jacob. This sugya thus establishes continuity between the sages like Banaa who mark burial caves, and the Biblical characters buried therein. And the story of Banaa, the only aggada (until the very last page) buried in a Talmudic chapter that deals with matters of property ownership, is set in the cave of Machpelah, which was the first piece of land ever purchased by a Jew -- thus establishing the Jewish people’s connection to the land of Israel. Though Ephron the Hittite offered to give Abraham the cave for free, Abraham insisted on paying full price for it, a fact that the Torah emphasizes both at the beginning and end of the parsha lest the matter be contested. There he buried his beautiful wife Sarah, in whose arms he lies to this day, waiting for us to read the story of Banaa and to knock on the door once again.

Book Review: Rav Hisda's Daughter

2012-10-28T18:42:00.003+02:00

Published in Lilith Magazine, Fall 2012 (vol. 37, no. 3)

Towards the end of Rav Hisda’s Daughter (Plume, $16), Maggie Anton’s eponymous heroine returns to her home in Babylon after four long years in the land of Israel and is greeted by her father with the words, “Blessed are You, Adonai…. Who revives the dead.” Anton has made quite a career out of reviving the dead, first with her trilogy of novels bringing to life Rashi’s three daughters, and now with her imaginative tale of the daughter of the third-century Talmudic sage Rav Hisda.

The novel’s opening scene is closely based on the Talmudic story in which Rav Hisda’s young daughter sits on her father’s lap while his two leading students stand before him. Rav Hisda asks his daughter which one of them she would like to marry, and she greedily responds, “both of them.” One of the students—arguably the more quick-witted—immediately pipes up, “I’ll go second!” This story sets the stage for Anton’s tale, in which Hisdadukh—Anton invents her name, which is Persian for “Daughter of Hisda”—is betrothed first to Rami bar Chama, the love of her youth and the father of her two children. Following Rami’s tragic and sudden death after just five years of marriage, Hisda is betrothed to the other student, the harsh and hardened Rava. The novel follows Hisdadukh not just from one husband to another, but also from her home in the Babylonia, where she is one of two daughters and seven sons in an illustrious rabbinic family, to the Galilee, where she mingles with amulet scribes, early Christians, and the great scholars of Tiberias, Caesaria, and Sepphoris. It is in Sepphoris that Anton imagines that Hisdadukh serves as the model for the iconic “Mona Lisa of Galilee,” a floor mosaic that remains a popular archeological attraction in Israel today.

Many of the conversations and characters in this novel are lifted straight of the pages of the Talmud. But as the Talmud is not a work of history—Anton may be the first to call it “historical fiction”—even these elements of the novel may raise eyebrows: “Everyone knew that the Evil Eye was responsible for a great deal of misery in the world. Rav, Father’s teacher, once went to a cemetery and cast a spell that let him talk to the dead. Ninety-nine told him they’d died from the Evil Eye and only one from bad air.” We must be as skeptical of the historicity of Anton’s account as we are of the Talmud’s narration of this incident in tractate Bava Metzia. And so in terms of authenticity, perhaps Rav Hisda’s Daughter has an advantage over Rashi’s Daughters, since there is no pretense that the former is based on historical sources. When Anton succeeds best, she brings Talmudic debates to life by showing the very human personalities and passions behind the various legal positions. And so when Rami and Rava debate the laws of inheritance, Anton suggests that they are in fact really fighting over Hisdadukh; thus their battle of wits is also a sort of romantic duel.

Anton’s novel is rooted not just in the soil of the Talmudic text but also in the field of academic Talmud study today, which is apparent even without glancing at her impressive bibliography or the list of illustrious international scholars she acknowledges. Hisdadukh is a student of Torah arguably modeled on her Palestinian counterpart Beruria, but she is also an enchantress who makes magical incantation bowls of the sort discovered by archeologists in the area that is now Iraq and Iran. The discussions that come alive in this book are Talmudic as well as academic, which may explain why this novel will have so much appeal for readers like myself who are steeped in the Talmudic text and the scholarship about its context. For readers who do not experience the pleasure of the familiar in its fictionalized form, Anton’s novel celebrates our rich and colorful textual heritage and reminds us that feminist history is often a return to the material and the real – to the beer the scholars drank, the springs in which they bathed, the cycle of blood that dictated their most intimate relationships, and the rooms in which they studied texts that occasionally refer to wives and daughters whose lives we can at best imagine.

Twenty Days of Shabbat: Reflections on Perek Aleph

2012-10-18T23:27:00.000+03:00

I regard Daf Yomi as others regard their horoscopes, as both a predictor and a reflection of whatever is happening in my life on that particular day. Take the first chapter of Masekhet Shabbat, which I started learning while on pregnancy bedrest after an amniocentisis. I was stuck there lying on the couch, legs propped up on three pillows, holding up my heavy Gemara over my head as I learned about transferring objects in and out of houses on Shabbat (2a-8b). I found myself eyeing the door longingly, wishing that I could go out of the apartment even once, even empty-handed. “Every person should sit in his place and not go out on the seventh day” (Exodus 17:29), the Torah instructs, but for me, every day felt like Shabbat. The only advantage of being supine under coercion for seven days was that I finally read Hilary Mantel’s WOLF HALL, just in time for her to win the Booker a second time for the sequel…..

A few days after my bedrest concluded, my 17-month-old son learned how to open our apartment door and let himself out. I discovered this one day when I was taking out his dirty diaper (which, if left in Reshut HaRabim, might not actually be considered part of Reshut HaRabim since surely everyone would walk around it, as per 7a). I left him playing in the kitchen and found him three minutes later in the building stairwell, holding on to the banister and saying, “down! down!” as he made his way down half a flight of stairs. Since when could he reach the doorknob? Terrifying! Anyway, Matan seemed to think that letting himself in and out was an exciting new game. He would take his new favorite toy—the ten-shekel flashlight that came as a “free gift” with the big toy car we bought him, which he never rides because he’s too busy playing with his flashlight—and carry it in and out of the house, practicing his “in” and “out.” Since he would pick up the flashlight while inside and put it down while outside, he was doing both Akira (uprooting) and Hanacha (depositing), so presumably such an activity would indeed constitute M’lacha on Shabbat.

It just so happens that it was this same week that Daniel’s mother bought us a toaster oven, an appliance that we have never owned. (I put everything in the oven, even the pita I toast for lunch every morning. It never occurred to me to do otherwise.) The new toaster was a simple model, but it still took me a few trial-and-error rubbery pitas before I figured out how to make toast properly. Hint: You don’t stick the bread to the wall of the oven. Not that I tried that method, but apparently it’s how they did it in Talmudic times (3b). If you stick the bread to the side of the oven on Shabbat, can you take it down (a rabbinic prohibition) so as to avoid the Biblical prohibition of cooking the bread? If you need to think about this one for too long, you might as well go eat a pile of salt, as Rav Nahman quite rudely told Rava (4a). Matan did in fact eat a pile of salt recently, now that I think about it. He loves playing with our salt shaker. One day I went to the bathroom and returned to find him doing just this.

Needless to say, I go to the bathroom quite frequently these days, seeing as I have two babies (yes, twins!) sitting on top of my bladder, Godwilling due around Purim. I also find that my waist gets thicker with each passing day. Thank goodness I don’t try to wear belts anymore; if I did, I’d have to loosen the belt each time I sat down to a meal, as was the custom in Bavel. We learn that in Israel, a meal was considered to have officially started once everyone washed their hands; but in Bavel, a meal began when all the guests loosened their belts before eating (9b). Sometimes, when I wake up nauseous, the prospect of eating seems so repulsive that I put off breakfast for a few hours. I wouldn’t want to eat as soon as I wake up; only circus acrobats do that (10a). Nor would I eat two hours after awakening, which is what robbers do. Rich people eat after three hours; workers after four; and Torah scholars after five hours. There is no mention in the Talmud of when pregnant ladies ought to eat, so I’m still experimenting with various schedules. Matan, of course, gets breakfast right before Gan; and if I give a piece of bread to any of his friends, I make sure to tell their mothers that I am doing so (10b).

Breakfast is not the only time that Matan and I spend in the kitchen together. The kitchen is in fact one of his favorite places to play. He loves opening and closing the cabinets, pulling out the various bowls and bottles and spatulas, and banging everything together while shouting “A-boom” (his favorite word). My goal is to try to get him to play with metal rather than glass vessels. According to the rabbis, glass vessels contract Tumah because they are made of sand, and therefore they are regarded as similar in status to clay vessels, which are made from the earth (15b). Metal vessles contract Tumah whether they are flat (like the spatula Matan loves bashing) or whether they contain a receptacle (like his favorite soup ladle) (16a). If they break, they are automatically purified – which may be why Matan is so intent on smashing all our cookware. Perhaps he’s just trying to purify our kitchen!

As you’ve probably gathered from this post, Matan is an active child who likes keeping busy, even on Shabbat. He bashes dishes on Shabbat too – no concept of שביתת כלים for him, thank you very much. Every time we leave the house, he insists on turning on the light in our apartment stairwell. He knows the words “light” and “on,” and will scream “On, light! On, light!” until I finally let him press the button. One Shabbat I decided to teach him about muktza. “Muktza, muktza,” I told him, hurrying down the stairs and trying to distract him. I wanted him to know that the light switch is as muktza as the oil of the olive press owners and the mats they use to press the oil (19b). But to my consternation, on Sunday morning he started pointing to the light switch and saying “muktza,” as if this were a new word for light. And so creation had to begin all over again on Sunday, as Matan and I spoke light into being.

Hadran Alach Perek Aleph, and Shabbat shalom.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Berakhot (chapters 1-3)

2012-10-16T09:57:00.001+03:00

PEREK ALEPH:

(2a)
When may we say Shma at night?
From the time the priests take their first bite
‘Til the first nightly shift
Or ‘til midnight comes swift?
Rabban Gamliel says: ‘Til first light.

(2a)
Rabban Gamliel’s sons came home late
From a party. They said, “It was great!
But I fear we forgot
To say Shema. We cannot
Do it now, can we?” “Yes! And don’t wait.”

(3a)
Rabbi Yossi set out on his way
When he stopped in a ruin to pray
There Elijah was sitting
He said, “It’s not fitting
Your long prayer. We don’t have all day!”

(3b)
King David would wake with the trill
Of his harp, which would sound with the chill
Of the midnight north wind
But he wasn’t chagrined
He’d jump up and learn Torah – God’s will.

(4b)
Midnight’s the deadline to say
Ma’ariv. After that, you can’t pray.
So the sages ruled, lest
One come home, craving rest,
And be snatched by sleep ‘til the next day.

(5a)
If you say Shema in your bed
Then the demons will not rear their heads.
If you pray to the Lord
Then a sharp two-edged sword
Will protect you (or so it is said).

(6b)
If you know that your friend will say hi
You should greet him right when you espy
Him. If first he greets you
And you don’t greet him too
You’re a thief (also not a nice guy).

(7a)
God gets mad for but seconds. The hen
Has the sign that will tell you just when:
Its comb turns pale white
And it trembles in fright
You should curse all your enemies then.

(8b)
An Aramean said, “Please sit down
On my bed.” Papa heard this and frowned:
“First turn over that bed”
Yikes! A baby was dead
Underneath. Papa fled from their town.

(9b)
When to say Shema? At first light?
From the time you can tell blue from white.
Others say: Blue from green
(Guess their eyesight is keen)
All agree: ‘Til the sunrise burns bright.

(10a)
Young King David would nurse at the breast
Of his mom. (Even then, breast was best!)
He would break off and sing
Of this marvelous thing:
“Praise the Lord who put these on her chest!”

(10a)
Beruria said to her spouse: “It is sin
And not sinners that we want done in.
So I pray, as one should,
For the bums in our ‘hood
Meir said: “With my wife, I can’t win.”

(10a)
Hannah said, “There is no rock like God.”
But the midrash says, “This is a nod
To the Artist Divine
Who, with brushstrokes and lines,
Shapes a babe, like a pea in a pod.”

(11a)
If you marry a virgin, no need
To say Shema, our religion’s great creed.
For a widow, you must
You can wait with your lust,
Pause to pray, and then go do the deed.

(12b)
Balak’s blessing, intended as curse,
Is not part of the Shema. For averse
Were the sages to add
Not because he was bad
But because he was, well, not quite terse.

PEREK BET:

(13a)
One was reading the Torah and got
To the point with the Shema. Was it not
His intention to pray
From the scroll on that day
It depends on his plan and his plot.

(13b)
If you start the Shema, then fall asleep
Do we wake you, or make not a peep?
If you said the first line,
But no more, it is fine.
Others say: Shema sure beats counting sheep.

(14a)
Don’t take care of your needs ere you pray
Prayer should mark off the start of your day.
Don’t say hi to your friend
Or set off down the bend
On a trip. We allow no delay.

(15a)
If you say Shema with earplugs – ok?
But you can’t even hear what you say.
Rabbi Yossi says: No!
But the sages say: Go
On. It’s God who must hear what we pray.

(15b)
The womb is like hell. Both admit
Things that come, stay a while, and sit,
Then go out. But the womb
Is a most quiet room;
Hell absorbs you with loud screaming fits.

(16a)
Workers say Shma on top of a tree
Or on stones where they happen to be
In the middle of work.
It’s a small builders’ perk
To help them pray more conveniently.

(17b)
On the ninth of Av, most take a break
From their work – it’s a fast, for God’s sake.
If others don’t work
Then you should also shirk
Your job. Humility is at stake!

PEREK GIMEL:

(17b)
If before you, spread out on a bed,
Is a man who is lying there dead
Then you need not fulfill
Any mitzvot, until
Burial. Shema, too, need not be said.

(18a)
In a cemet’ry no one sits chilling
But if you are there, don’t wear tefillin
It is rude to the dead
Who can’t wear on their head
That same mitzvah that you are fulfillin’.

(18a)
Rav Hisda’s sons sadly forgot
All the Torah they learned. This was not
Something good. They said, “Woe,
Does our dead father know?
Is he conscious, or is he just rot?”

(19b)
A man on a way to a bris
Finds a dead man unburied: “What’s this?
What do sages advise:
Bury or circumsize?
With man’s honor, we can’t be remiss.

(20a)
Rav Gidel would sit and observe
Naked women in mikvah. A perv?
“No,” said Gidel, “To me
They’re like geese, I just see
Skin like feathers.” (And what of their curves?)

(21b)
If you walk into shul and you’re late
(Who would do that? That’s never my fate.)
Do you try to return
To the start? Well, we learn
For Kedusha you always must wait.

(22b)
If you’re praying, and find you’re near poop
This could throw Kavana for a loop.
Walk four cubits away
Only then can you pray
Better yet: Pray in shul with a group.

(23a)
My Tefillin were stolen! Oh dear!
By a whore who just snatched them, I fear.
Then she claimed I had paid
Her for getting me laid.
I must jump off the roof, disappear.

(24b)
Please, no spitting or sneezing in shul
These are things they should teach you in school:
It is no doubt a sign
That you’re most unrefined
Would you spit with a king there, you fool?

(25b)
You cannot pray near someone who’s nude
What, you think that the sages were prudes?
It would surely distract
It would therefore impact
How you daven. Besides, it’s quite lewd.

(26a)
The Persians have toilets, we’ve stated,
Which were five stars, and also first-rated.
Though the person would squat
And make poop, there would not
Be a trace of it. Sophisticated!

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Niddah, Prakim Bet and Gimel

2012-09-27T10:34:00.000+03:00

PEREK BET:

(13a)

The hand reaches in to explore –
A woman should do this much more
For she will not squeal
Unlike him, she can’t feel
And it’s worth it for her to be sure.

(13a)

Do not urinate holding your hand
Yes, it’s messy, we do understand.
It could bring on a flood
Which would make you say “Crud,
Will we ever go back to dry land?”

(13a)

Yehuda said, “Geez, I must pee.”
It was night on a rooftop, you see.
From on top of the shul
Shmuel told him: Stay cool
You can hold on and pee fearfully.”

(13b)
Your evil side steers you astray.
It says”Do this, and do that today.”
Then tomorrow: “Go bow
To the gods you’v avowed
You would never go near.” You fall prey.

(14a)
Do you ride on a donkey? Oh well.
We ought to say, “Don’t ass, don’t tell.”
It depends how you straddle
Or ride with a saddle
The point is that nothing should swell.

(15a)
A husband comes home from a trip
He says to his wife, “Dear, let’s strip.”
But can he assume
He can go in her room?
It depends if her time’s come to drip.

(15b)
A Kohen leans over a well
Where a miscarried fetus once fell
Is the Kohen impure?
But a rat came, for sure,
Thus the Kohen has not heard his knell.

(16b)

The Pregnancy Angel, named Night
Takes a drop of their seed to the height
Of the one on Most High
And says, “God, will this guy
Be weak, strong, wise or dumb, tall or slight?”

(17a)

Having sex? Don’t let anyone pounce
Thus your sex act should first be announced
Ring the bells on the bed
Wave the flies off instead
(Why not make sure the bed makes a bounce?)

(17a)

In a graveyard a man should not lie
Nor eat garlic or onion peeled dry.
Nor cast fingernails
Over public handrails
Or have sex after bloodletting. Why?

(17a)
Daytime sex can be good if your spouse

Spends a lot of time outside the house,
Is too tired at night
When you turn off the light—
(Just be quiet. But soft! Like a mouse.)

(18b)

A baby has dough on its hands
Must all of the batter be banned?
All babies, I fear,
Like to touch what is near
Tell them “No,” but they don’t understand.

(20a)

In Pumbedita, Ulla chanced to meet
An Arab dressed in black from head to feet.
“Eureka!” said he
“That’s the color we see
In her blood. For a swatch I entreat.”

(20a)

Yannai said to his sons, “When I head
To the land of those already dead
Do not dress me in white,
Nor in black like the night,
Lest I stand out wherever I’m led.”

(20b)

Elazar deemed a woman’s blood due
To her love for her spouse – it proved true!
When Rav Ami inquired
She said she desired
Her husband. So Elazar knew!

(20b)

Ifra Hurmiz sent Rava a sample
Of blood. He ruled right. She sent ample
Selections. He tested.
The last was infested
From lice. “Comb your nits ‘til they’re trampled.”

(20b)

Yalta gave of her blood to a sage.
When he ruled, Yalta said, “I’m outraged.”
I resist your dominion!
Need second opinion!
She got it, and then was assuaged.

PEREK GIMEL:

(21a)

If a woman miscarries and births
A clump made of flesh and of earth
If it’s bloody and red
Like a baby now dead
She’s impure. (And she’ll soon lose her girth.)

(22b)

A woman miscarried red hair
A big ball of it. No baby there.
The sages said: Go
Ask the doctors. They’ll know.
They said: Drown it and see how it fares.

(24a)

A miscarried babe with two backs
And two spines (there are parts that it lacks).
If it’s born to a beast
You can slice it and feast
So says Shmuel. Says Rav: You’re too lax!

(24b)

A demon came out of my womb
Shaped like Lilith! A sure sign of doom!
It’s a baby, except
It has wings, which are kept
At its sides. It can fly through the room.

(24b)

A woman miscarried a snake
Hanina said: “Impure.” “Mistake!”
Gamliel cried, enraged:
Summon to me that sage
‘Til they realized just what was at stake.

(24b)

My job was to bury the dead
There was one time I stood at the head
Of a wide open cave
Which had nobody save
Avshalom. In his eye I had tread.

(25b)

If a woman sheds seed ere her mate
She’ll give birth to a boy. If she’s late
Such that he sheds his first
It’s a girl (is that worse?).
Men can hold off, and thus affect fate.

(26a)

A placenta was found in a house
‘Twas unearthed by a dog or a mouse.
The house is impure
We can say this for sure
Though no baby was found (and no spouse).

(27a)

Rabbi Chiya had twins. Not together
They weren’t two birds of a feather
One decided to wait
He was born three months late.
Such a labor his wife had to weather!

(28a)

An androgyne has an emission
We assume ‘twas not of his volition.
If he sets foot inside
The great Temple, don’t chide
Him. This isn’t a sin of commission.

(29b)

A woman left home with a bump
Then came back, clearly over the hump.
She’s says, “Oops, I forgot
Did I give birth, or not?”
Said the sages: “I fear we are stumped.”

(30a)

It’s a full forty days ‘til the seed
That’s implanted will get what it needs
To grow fingers and eyes
And attain enough size
That it’s human, the sages decreed.

(30b)

Alexandria’s queen’s female slave
Was sentenced to death. Who would save
Her? Nobody! Instead
She was cut up once dead
‘Twas a baby that made her concave.

(31a)

God is much greater than man.
There are things we can’t do but God can.
Like preserve something dropped
In a jar with no top
Like a fetus in mom. What a plan!

(31a)

Two planned to set out in the morn,
To do business. One sat on a thorn.
He was forced to stay home
While his friend, free to roam,
Drowned at sea. Then he felt less forlorn.

(31b)

A woman must bring sacrifice
When she gives birth because of this vice:
In the heat of her pain
She swears, “Never again!”
But does one child ever suffice?

(31b)

Why must a woman endure
Seven days when her body’s impure?
So that on mikvah night
She can bring him delight
Like a bride – innocent and demure.

(31b)

Why is it lads who must court
Lasses. Couldn’t instead she cavort?
It’s the person who lost
Who must find what was tossed
From his rib. Thus men do this for sport.

(31b)
Rav Ketina said, “I’m great in bed,
For I say to my wife: Go ahead.
And since first she enjoys
All our children are boys
We’d have girls if I went first instead.

My Heart Exults in God: Hannah’s Exemplary Prayer (Berakhot 30b-33a)

2012-09-10T23:01:00.000+03:00

INTRODUCTION

“I am a very unhappy woman. I am not drunk, but I have been pouring my heart out to God. Do not mistake me for someone worthless. I am praying out of my great anguish and distress.” These words, spoken by Hannah to Eli the priest, are part of the haftarah that we will read tomorrow, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Hannah, who is one of the two wives of a Jewish man named Elkana, longs desperately for a child. Every year, when Elkana brings the family to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to God, Hannah is cruelly taunted by her husband’s more fecund wife Penina. Distraught, Hannah weeps and prays and refuses to eat. One year her prayer is overheard by Eli the priest, who mistakenly thinks she is drunk. But it is not just Eli who hears Hannah’s prayer; the rabbis of the Talmud, too, listen closely to Hannah’s words and to the Bible’s description of her prayer. In the fifth chapter of the tractate Berakhot, the rabbis look to Hannah as an ideal model of how to pray. I’d like to study this passage with you this evening in the hope of coming to a better understanding of what is so remarkable about Hannah’s prayer. After all, we’re all going to be spending a lot of hours praying over the course of this holiday season; and if Hannah is indeed the rabbis’ model for how to pray, then perhaps she can teach us something as well.

20 MINUTES CHEVRUTA – SOURCESHEETS WITH DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (SEE BELOW)

COME TOGETHER

I want to start by asking a question: What is the relationship between the Mishna that appears at the top of your page, and the Talmudic sugya that follows? Does the extended discussion in the Talmud illustrate the principle articulated in the Mishna, as we might expect?

[brief discussion]

The Mishna seems to articulate two major principles: First, the person who is engaged in prayer should be in a reverent frame of mind. And second, this person should countenance no interruption of his or her prayer. And yet surprisingly, Hannah, who is cited as a model of ideal prayer by the rabbis, satisfies neither of these criteria. She does not seem particularly reverent. On the contrary, she speaks to God with the utmost chutzpah: She tells God that He is like a stingy king who refuses to share one morsel from His lavish banquet with his poor servant. Then she threatens God to make herself into a Sotah so that God will have no choice but to grant her wish for a child. And finally, she rebukes God for giving her breasts but no child to suckle. This hardly seems like reverent, pious behavior! Likewise, Hannah fails to live up to the rabbinic dictum to pray without interruption. In the middle of her prayer, Eli interrupts to ask if she is drunk. Hannah, still standing before God, defends herself to Eli before continuing her prayer. She allows herself to be interrupted, and she remains nonetheless the rabbis’ model of ideal prayer. Why?

I want to suggest that there is something remarkable about Hannah’s prayer nonetheless. Hannah describes herself as אשה קשת רוח, an unhappy woman; literally a woman of tough spirit. She has been hardened by her pain; her spirit itself has been hardened by the agony of her years of childlessness. Year after year she has endured the taunts of her rival Penina, and the carrion comfort of her husband, whose insistence that he is more devoted to her than ten sons strikes Hannah as unfeeling if not downright patronizing. Hannah’s grief has made her מרת נפש, “bitter of heart,” as Rabbi Elazar quotes in the Talmud’s opening words. Yet the very same Biblical verse that describes her bitterness also tells us about how she cried to God: “Hannah was bitter of heart, and she prayed to God, weeping all the while” (10). In spite of her bitterness, Hannah has not become hardened past the point of tears. She does not break off all communication with God. She does not insist that she wants no relationship with a God who can cause her so much pain. Nor does she (anachronistically) deny the existence of any God who could create a world with so much suffering. Rather, she continues to live her life in dialogue with God. Even if all she can do is rebuke, threaten, and yell at God, she continues to engage Him. The alternative for Hannah would be to allow the gates of prayer to swing shut, and to close herself off completely from all contact with the divine. Perhaps Hannah knows, as the rabbis go on to say later in this same sugya in Berakhot, that even when the gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears remain open. We might say that tears oil the hinges of the gates of prayer, causing them to open for the broken-hearted. And while they may open just a very tiny bit, miraculously that proves to be enough: God opens Hannah’s womb and she conceives and bears a son.

Hannah’s prayer is also remarkable because it consists of not just the verses we have discussed thus far. When the Talmud discusses Hannah’s prayer, it refers exclusively to her words in chapter one of I Samuel, where she prays to God to give her a child. While this prayer may be impassioned, it is nonetheless prosaic; it is only in chapter two, once Hannah is granted her beloved son, that her spirit bursts forth in poetry. Hannah’s petitionary prayers are far outmatched by her prayers of thanksgiving. In fact, when we think of תפילת חנה, it is generally not her bitter wailing in chapter one that comes to mind, but rather her lyrical exultation in chapter two:

עלץ לבי בה' \ רמה קרני בה' \ רחב פי על אוביי \ כי שמחתי בישועתך.

Hannah does not just pray out of sadness and need, but out of joy and gratitude – and it is this latter prayer that is quoted in full, in ten verses of poetic text. Once her heart is no longer hardened, she can compose herself and compose her thoughts in more measured form. Once she is no longer overflowing with tears, she can hold back from line to line, which is what poetry demands of us; poetry is written with line breaks, unlike prose, where one line simply spills into the next. אין צור כאלוהינו, Hannah declares in her poetic prayer – there is no rock like God. For all that she was hardened, she knows that God is the true rock and the true redeemer. In Midrash Shmuel, a collection of midrashim on the book of Samuel, the rabbis read this line as אין צייר כאלוהינו, there is no artist like God. There is no one who can create and craft and shape a human being like God. Only God can create life and give it form. וכל מאמינים שהוא יוצרם בבטן, as we say in the piyut of Musaf. God shapes us while still in the womb, and we are like clay in the hands of the divine potter.

Not all of us can merit to pray like Hannah. Our bitterness may turn us off from prayer, or our pain may prevent us from being able to express ourselves as poetically as we might like. Perhaps the closing words of the sugya we studied above, which are also the closing words of the psalm recited throughout Elul and Tishrei, can serve as a guide and an inspiration as we navigate this season of intense and intensive prayer: Hope in the Lord, be strong and let thy heart take courage; yea, hope in the Lord. May our hearts be strengthened rather than hardened by our pain; and may we follow Hannah’s example and learn, in spite of our sorrow, to continue to engage and to hope in God. Shana tovah.

SOURCESHEET: BERAKHOT 30B-33A, ABRIDGED

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1a. What is a “reverent frame of mind”?

2a. Does the proof text from I Samuel support the Mishnah’s claim? Why do you think this verse is chosen?

3a. Eli, as priest, represents those who worship God through ritual. Hannah, as a petitioner, represents those who worship God through prayer. How might this distinction account for the tension between them?

4a. What are the connotations of the name for God that Hannah is crediting with inventing, “Lord of hosts” (literally: Lord of armies)? Who are the armies who serve God? How is this concept of God different from that of Eli and the other priests?

4b. Hannah’s prayer is not without hutzpah. Is she entitled to speak this way to God, and if so, why?

4c. Why do you think Hannah invokes a parable in her prayer? Does the parable enable her to say anything that she otherwise might not? Are there any problems with this parable?

5a. Why does Hannah threaten to incriminate herself as a Sotah? How would you describe Hannah’s strategy here?

6a. The verse quoted here is spoken by Eli to Hannah, and so it is from Eli that we learn this particular law of prayer. According to Rashi, even though Eli was a very distinguished, elderly priest, he stood rather than sat by Hannah because it is forbidden to sit so close to one who is praying. What might be the problem with sitting next to someone who is engaged in fervent prayer? Have you ever stood next to someone who was praying with tremendous kavana and devotion? How did it affect you?

7a. How does the Talmud interpret the words “spoke in her heart”? Is this a literal reading?

7b. How would you describe Hannah’s argument here?

8a. Are we supposed to expect that our prayers will be answered? If not, why do we bother praying?

8b. Do you ever find yourself praying on Rosh Hashana for the very same things you prayed for the previous year? What would R. Hana son of R. Hanina say about this?

8c. What is the significance of the final verse quoted? Where does it appear in our liturgy, and how does it take on new meaning in the context above?

Ki Tavo: Speaking God's Language

2012-09-03T23:19:00.000+03:00

In this week’s parsha we find the following two verses, which contain a pair of words that appear nowhere else in the Torah, and whose meaning is not entirely clear:

את ה' האמרת היום להיות לך לאלהים וללכת בדרכיו ולשמור חקיו ומצותיו ומשפטיו ולשמוע בקולו.

וה' האמירך היום להיות לו לעם סגולה כאשר דבר לך ולשמור כל מצותיו.

You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God, that you will walk in His ways, that you will observe His laws and commandments and rules, and that you will obey Him. And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as He promised you, His treasured people…. (Deuteronomy 26:17-18)

The repetition of the words האמרת and האמירךseems to suggest a reciprocity between God and Israel in which we affirm God and God affirms us, though it’s unclear how exactly this mutual affirmation takes place. The classical commentators offer a range of interpretations: Rashi argues that these terms refer to setting aside and consecrating; Ramban claims it refers to magnifying and elevating in status; Rashbam states that this term reflects the fact that each party caused the other to enter into a covenant. But it is also worthy of note that the root of this term is אמר, to say, which seems to suggest that we and God are somehow speaking the same language.

I came to a deeper understanding of what this might mean while reviewing Musaf for Rosh Hashana this past week. The bulk of Rosh Hashana musaf consists of collections of verses relating to three central themes: God’s kingship, God’s perfect memory, and God’s revelation at Sinai amidst the sound of the Shofar. We recite verses that span most of the Bible, from Noah to Abraham to Sinai to Isaiah. And so in our davening on Rosh Hashana, we speak to God using the language of the Bible, which is the language with which God spoke to Israel. In other words (so to speak), we speak to God using the very same words with which God spoke to us. Perhaps this is another way to understand what it means for us to affirm God.

את ה' האמרת היום –

On Rosh Hashana, we affirm God by invoking God’s words to us. After all, how else could we coronate God, or speak to a being of infallible memory, or recall the transcendence of revelation? Surely our own language is insufficient, which is why we plead in our piyutim for God to open our lips in prayer and give voice to our supplications. When our own language fails us, we speak God’s language, כאשר דבר לך – as God spoke to us.

As we prepare to open our Mahzorim on Rosh Hashana, we hope that the echoes of divine speech will permeate our prayers to God and our exchanges with one another throughout the coming year.

Translation of a poem by Yehuda Amichai

2012-07-04T23:28:00.001+03:00

The precision of pain and the haze of joy. I think
About the precision with which people describe what hurts in doctors' offices.
Even those who never learned to read and write can pinpoint their pain:
Here it pinches, here it's sharp, here it's blunt. It hurts here. Right here.
Yes. Joy blurs everything. I have heard it said,
After wild nights of making love and merry: It was great, amazing,
I felt like I was flying. Even the astronaut hovering
In space can only say: Amazing! Awesome! I'm speechless!
The precision of pain and the haze of joy.
I want to describe the blur of ecstasy and rapture
With the precision of a sharp pang.
I've learned to speak from those in pain.

(Translated for SWR, 4.7.12)

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Niddah, Perek Aleph

2012-06-19T15:43:00.000+03:00

(2a)
“You must start from the time you see blood.”
Said Hillel: “That date is a dud.”
With a regular check
(Quite a pain in the neck)
You can measure. Or my name is mud.

(2b)
This mikvah is no longer full
But when was it kosher until?
And that pot that you dunked
Better if it had sunk?
Said both Hillel and Shammai: “That’s bull!”

(3a)
In an alley a lizard was found
There should not be such creatures around!
Shall we say it’s the same
As the blood in a dame
But it’s natural that such blood abounds!

(3b)
Shammai says “Retroactive? No need
To forsake procreation.” Indeed.
And to Hillel he said
“Israel’s daughters, once wed
Should be often—quite often—with seed.”

(5a)
Just before and just after the sex
The couple performs body checks.
It is never in vain
There could yet be a stain
Says one rabbi. Ketina objects.

(5b)
When dressed in a cloak one could touch
A lizard, a snake, or some such.
We know that for sure
This would make you impure
But what of the cloak that you clutch?

(6b)
Rabban Gamliel’s servant would break
After each loaf of Truma she baked
To check for a stain
Such an act would detain
Her. But she understood what’s at stake.

(6b)
Rabban Gamliel’s servant would steal
A few moments each time she would seal
A bottle of wine
To check if ‘twas time.
This made winemaking quite an ordeal!

(7b)
Eliezer is right. But decide
Not as he does, and don’t take his side.
And why not? He’s a groupie
Of Shammai, who’s loopy.
Rule like him just after he’s died.

(8b)
There are three kinds of virgins: A lass
Who has never had sex. (This will pass.)
And a land that’s untilled
And a sycamore still
Not permitted to eat from, alas.

(9a)
An old woman starts from the time
That she sees blood. She’s not in her prime.
What constitutes old?
If her friends are so bold
As to “Wow, she is old” freely chime.

(11a)
If you menstruate each time you jump,
That is many a big bloody thump
We can know in advance
We can tell you: Don’t prance
It is better to sit on your rump.

(12b)
Rabbi Meir says if you don’t bleed
On a regular basis, we need
To divorce you forthwith
Says Hanina: A myth!
Though it’s bad for her husband indeed.

The Mystery of the Miscarried Snake (Niddah 24b)

2012-06-12T21:14:00.000+03:00

Today’s daf considers the various forms that a miscarried fetus may assume. We learn of a woman who miscarried a baby with mashed fingers and toes, or a baby resembling a date tree, or a baby with two skeletons and two backs. In each case, the Talmud asks if the miscarried creature is sufficiently human that the woman is regarded as having given birth. If so, then she contracts the impurity of one who has just undergone childbirth. If not, then she remains pure in spite of her ordeal. Perhaps the most fascinating and suggestive case is that of the woman who miscarries the form of a snake. Here the Talmud breaks from its litany of halakhot to regale us with a brief story about the reptilian ruling, which proves to be a woefully miscarried tale:

Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: If a woman miscarried the form of Lilith, she has the impurity of a woman who has given birth. It is a child, but with wings.
What about a woman who miscarried the form of a snake? Hanina the nephew of Rabbi Joshua ruled that she has the impurity of a woman who has given birth.
Rabbi Yosef related this ruling to Rabban Gamliel. Upon hearing it, Rabban Gamliel sent a message to Rabbi Yehoshua to bring Hanina to him immediately.
While they were walking, Hanina’s daughter-in-law came to greet Rabbi Joshua. She asked about a woman who miscarries the form of a snake.
Rabbi Joshua said: The mother is regarded as pure.
She said to him: But didn’t I hear from my mother-in-law that you said she is regarded as impure because the snake has round eyes like a human?
When he heard her say this, Rabbi Joshua remembered that indeed he had ruled this way. He sent a message to Rabban Gamliel: Hanina actually learned this from me!
Abayey said: We learn from this that a Torah scholar who quotes something must always give a reason, so that when he is reminded, he will remember what he said.

This story, with its halakhic questions about Lilith and the snake, unfolds as a patterned echo of the Garden of Eden story. Rabban Gamliel, the patriarch and presiding elder, is distressed when he learns of Rabbi Hanina’s ruling about the snake, just as God is distressed to learn that Adam listened to the snake in the garden. God summons Adam with Ayeka, “Where are you,” just as Rabban Gamliel insists that Rabbi Hanina appear before him. But when questioned, Adam reveals that it was in fact Eve who handed him the forbidden fruit; just as Hanina received his erroneous teaching from Rabbi Joshua. Of course, Rabbi Joshua realizes this only after Rabbi Hanina’s daughter-in-law, who functions as the snake, opens his eyes to the fact that he is responsible for this ruling. Like Adam and Eve whose eyes are opened (ותפקחנה עיני שניהם) after they listen to the snake, Rabbi Joshua’s eyes are opened after he is reminded of his ruling about the snake. Incidentally, the ruling itself is about eyes: As the daughter-in-law reminds him, Rabbi Joshua ruled that the woman who miscarries the form of a snake is considered to have given birth because a snake has similar eyes to a human being.

As I imagine this scene, I wonder about the craftiness of the daughter-in-law who knew just when to ask her question so as to exonerate Hanina. Were Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Hanina meant to believe that this was a pressing issue for the daughter-in-law? If so, wasn’t this embarrassing for her? Perhaps she said, “Um, I have this friend of mine who just miscarried this baby that looks a lot like a snake, and she wants to go back to sleeping with her husband. Can she do that? I mean, I’m asking for a friend, of course.” One has to wonder.

And finally, it is worth noting that the mention of Lilith serves as a fitting prelude to the story of the snake. According to the midrash, Lilith was the first woman created by God to serve as a partner to Adam. But she was unwilling to be subservient to Adam, and so she deserted him, becoming an evil demon. In some texts she is synonymous with the snake, much like Hanina’s daughter-in-law, who is conflated with the Edenic snake as per this mapping:

Gamliel / God
Hanina / Adam
Joshua / Eve
Hanina’s daughter-in-law/ Snake

We might view this whole story as a tale of a miscarried rabbinic ruling, one that is inaccurately transmitted by the forgetful Rabbi Joshua. In a tradition that traces its legal rulings back to the Torah given on Sinai, such an error of transmission – a halakhic miscarriage – is a grave offense indeed.

Niddah Palette

2012-06-06T09:22:00.000+03:00

It is not red, she has read,
But wine mixed crimson in a goblet
Or the radiance of saffron
Or the midnight black of ink.

And if red, then red
Like the pricked finger of an unwed lad
Pointing at the one he desires.
As she slaps at her lice-ridden hair.

A solemn merchant in black gabardine
Frowns upon his choice.
He stands before a slaughtered ox
And speaks of olives, ravens, pitch.

They say that blood is born of brute desire.
She weeps in an orchard of pomegranates
Redolent of autumn -- and defeat.
Their leaf-fringed legend haunts about her shape.

As I Was Going to St. Ives (Keritut 15a)

2012-04-01T00:44:00.002+03:00

Today’s daf asks a question that I hope is merely theoretical: What is the maximum number of sins you can commit by sleeping with just one woman? The sugya begins with the Mishna’s case of a man who sleeps with one woman and must bring six sin offerings. In this case the woman he married was (1) his daughter, (2) his sister (she could be both his daughter and his sister because she is the child born when he slept with his mother), (3) his sister-in-law (since she went on to marry his brother), (4) his uncle’s wife (because when his brother died, this woman married his uncle), (5) a married woman (since he is sleeping with her while she is still married to his uncle) and (6) in Nidah (the cherry on top). The Mishna goes on to outdo that case by proposing that a man can actually be liable for seven sin offerings if the woman is also his mother-in-law. We can imagine the beit midrash discussions that resulted in these mishnayot: the various sages sat around the table like it was a chess board, each trying to come up with a more sophisticated move than the next. Or perhaps it was a game of rabbinic machismo: Instead of boasting of their conquests (“I slept with six women last night”), the rabbis boasted of how many sins they could imagine a person committing in a single sex act (“Oh yeah? You think six is a lot? I can get to seven.”) In this game of besting one another, each rabbi sought more bang for his buck -- or more accurately, more buck for his bang.

We are not told when and where these conversations take place. We know which rabbis proposed which incestuous situations, but not where they were when these discussions took place. There is one notable exception, which I shall quote in full:

Rabbi Akiva said: I asked Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua in the meat market of Emmaus, where they had gone to buy an animal for the wedding feast of Rabban Gamliel’s son: He who has sexual relations with his sister, with his father’s sister, and with his mother’s sister in one spell of inadvertence – what is the rule? Is he liable once for all of them, or once for each and every action? (Mishna, Keritut 3:7)

Here we are told that this particular conversation took place in a meat market, which seems like an appropriate site for discussions of these kinds of illicit sexual relations. After all, it does begin to feel like a bit of a meat market when one is sleeping with one’s daughter who is also one’s sister (among other prohibitions). Moreover, we are told that Rabbi Akiva asks this question of his teacher Rabban Gamliel on the eve of Rabban Gamliel’s son’s wedding, which is a strange time to ask questions about forbidden sexual relations with family members. It’s kind of like asking someone about their favorite bagel store on erev Pesach; there’s nothing wrong with the question, but it’s somewhat awkwardly timed. Ah, well. Another reason to hope the conversation was merely theoretical.

The Women’s Section

2012-03-30T12:11:00.001+03:00

Last week I found myself in the paradoxical position of reading Elana Maryles Sztokman’s The Men’s Section, a sociological study about why some Orthodox men choose to daven in egalitarian minyanim, while sitting in the women’s section of an Orthodox shul. Reading in shul is nothing new for me; I have spent many Shabbat mornings buried in a novel that was buried between the pages of my siddur. But reading—or indeed davening—in the women’s section is a first. I have jettisoned neither my feminism nor my loyalty to the movement in which I was raised; it is with deep ambivalence and bewilderment that I seek to understand why I am sitting behind a mechitza after a lifetime of leyning, leading davening, and championing the cause of egalitarian prayer.

In the past I was willing to daven only in egalitarian minyanim. It was important to me to read Torah, lead services, offer divrei Torah, and participate fully in the life of the community. Often I was one of the leaders of the minyan, which meant that during shul I was thinking about whether there were enough chairs, or whether the person reading the Haftara had arrived yet, or whether kiddish should be held inside or out. Only rarely could I concentrate on the words in the siddur, but this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since concentrating on prayer is difficult and exhausting. It seemed easier to worry about creating a space for others to pray than to channel my own aspirations and worries through the language of the siddur. And so I spent shul being outwardly rather than inwardly focused, and feeling none the worse for it.

Something changed for me in the past year. Perhaps it was the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, which sensitized me more deeply than ever before to how much of our lives are in God’s hands. When davening for the health of my unborn child or for the safety and welfare of the little boy we had brought into the world, I found myself craving the privacy and the solitude to open not just my lips but also my heart. Or perhaps it was the fact that the Jerusalem minyan in which I had been davening has been shrinking and declining, such that nearly everyone in the room needs to arrive on time and participate in the service because the numbers are so tight. Whereas reading Torah had once been an honor and privilege, it now became more of a chore. Or perhaps it was my growing awareness that prayer is an embodied activity, and the physical space in which I daven affects the quality of my tefillot. I no longer wanted to daven on folding chairs in a dirty classroom; I wanted to place my siddur on a proper shtender so my hands could hang freely at my sides and all my bones could be free to proclaim: My God, who is like You?

Was it the need for privacy and focus, or the desire to daven without standing at the Amud, or the wish to daven in a more beautiful tent O Jacob? I am not sure why I have spent the past few Shabbat mornings speaking to God from behind the women’s section. But I am certain that the conversation has been richer and more intentional. For me, davening is about reading the words of the siddur in light of my hopes and fears and aspirations. It is about finding my own personal meaning in the “choral symphony the covenantal people has sung to God across forty centuries” (R. Jonathan Sacks). This is not always an easy task; it requires first figuring out what I am praying for (“Prayer is less about getting what we want than about learning what to want,” writes Rabbi Sacks), then thinking about possible meanings of the words of the siddur, and then connecting between the two. This is harder to do when I am running the minyan or (even worse) feeling responsible for how it is run by others.

Perhaps my search for a new davening space is related to a newfound understanding of prayer as a spiritual discipline. I once tried to take a yoga class but I gave up after one session; I decided that if I were going to devote time to an embodied spiritual practice, it might as well be davening. Like yoga, davening requires being fully present in my body so that I can stand still with my legs close together, raise myself forwards three times on my toes, and sit comfortably with my back and thighs pressed against the weight of my chair. As with a yoga class, it helps to have a leader who sets the pace and keeps everyone synchronized; I cannot daven on my own because I tend to rush through the siddur impatiently, and impatience is anathema to prayer. Prayer likewise requires practice and therefore a regular commitment in order to get better at it. I must daven even when I do not feel inspired, so that when I do feel inspired I will have the words to give those feelings voice. I must be open to the unexpected moment when I find myself able to move—or to be moved—in a new way. And I must make sure that I daven in a space where this can happen.

I would like this space to be an egalitarian minyan, because I remain committed to gender equality in all spheres of my life. I will not be able to go too long without hungering for words of Torah to be on my lips again as they are when I am learning a leyning. And I do not want to abandon the struggling egalitarian minyan I have worked hard to nurture and strengthen over the past seven years just because it is not a place where I can daven with kavana at this point in my life. And so I remain somewhat on the fence—or on the mechitza—when it comes to the question of where to daven. Though I’m almost finished reading The Men’s Section, I’m still not sure why some Orthodox men daven in egalitarian minyanim. But I hope I am coming closer to understanding why this egalitarian woman davens in Orthodox minyanim – and how she can come home again.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masechet Hullin, Prakim 2-3

2012-03-06T23:11:00.004+02:00

PEREK BET:
השוחט

27b
Rabbi Yohanan was interrogated:
Just how were the birdies created?
On land or on sea?
In between them, said he
Citing verses his students debated.

(31a)
A menstruant woman was raped
She was dunked when she made her escape
May she sleep with her spouse
May she eat in his house
Teruma; or must we say: Hold that grape!

(32a)
Shchita is done with one slice
It’s done quickly, and must be precise
Don’t drop the knife
Ere the animal’s life
Has been taken. That will not suffice.

(36a)
You slaughter a beast and the blood
Lands on pumpkins of Teruma – oh crud!
Can the pumpkins now be
Made impure? Woe is me
Hence aim not for the plants but the mud.

(37a)
If an animal’s soon gonna die
And you shecht it; or maybe you try.
You must check it was still
Live and well ere you spilled
Its blood. Do its limbs jerk, all awry?

(39b)
If you inherit a slave -- one or two
But you don’t want slaves, what should you do?
Can you then de-accession
Them from your possession
Say: Dad gave me slaves, but I’m through!

(41b)
Never shecht into the sea
If you’re on a boat, then hopefully
You can shecht off the side
Of the boat as you ride
Let the blood drip down slow, steadily.

PEREK GIMEL:
אלו טרפות

42a
These are the Treyfot: The brain
Has been punctured within the membrane
Or the skeleton broke
Or the windpipe got poked
Or the wolf trampled, leaving it slain.

(44b)
If an animal’s hechshered by you
Can you eat it? It seems wrong to do.
For you might be tempted
To have it exempted
From treyfness although it’s not true.

(44b)
Rabbi Elazar always refused
Any gifts he was sent. And he’d choose
Not to go to a feast
When invited. At least
He’d explain: It’s my life I would lose!

(44b)
Rabbi Zeyra said: I will not take
Any presents. But if my friends bake
And invite me to eat
Their delectable treats
I’ll accept. It’s for my honor’s sake.

(46a)
Roman soldiers came into the town
So two rabbis ran, fleeing the crown.
And while fleeing they taught
Rabbi Zeyra: One ought
Check the place where the liver is bound.

(47b)
Natan HaBavli related:
This poor woman I met – she seemed fated
To lose every son
When Brit Milah was done
So I said: Make your next bris belated.

The Poet and the Gatekeeper (Arachin 11b)

2012-01-23T00:14:00.002+02:00

Today’s daf continues the Talmud’s discussion of the music of the Levites, a combination of vocal and instrumental music that was considered an essential component of sacrificial worship in the Temple. Not all the priests were responsible for Temple music; there seem to have been two categories of Levites. One group, known as the משוררים (poets), was responsible for Temple music. The other group, known as משוערים(gatekeepers), was responsible for locking the doors of the Temple. These categories date back at least to the time of Ezra (2:7), who enumerates the families of poets and gatekeepers in a list that is repeated (with some variations) in Divrei Hayamim (I chapter 9). These two categories had to be kept distinct; a poet could not perform the duties of the gatekeeper, nor vice versa, as cautioned by the following tale from today’s daf:

A story is told of Rabbi Yehoshua bar Hanania who went to help Rabbi Yohanan ben Gudgada with the closing of the gates. Rabbi Yohanan ben Gudgada said to him: My son, turn back! For you are one of the poets and not one of the gatekeepers!

Both of the sages who figure in this story were Levites. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hanania was a poet, though he is more familiar to us as the student of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai who helped smuggle his teacher out of Jerusalem on the eve of the Temple’s destruction. He then became the leader of the Yavneh beit midrash, known for its intellectual creativity. It was he who famously asserted, “There can be no beit midrash without novel teaching!” Rabbi Yohanan ben Gudgada was a gatekeeper, though we also know him as the poor student who was appointed along with Rabbi Elazar Hasma to supervise the students in Rabban Gamliel’s beit midrash. Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Yohanan ben Gudgada were friends; according to one story, Rabbi Yehoshua pleaded with the wealthy patriarch Rabban Gamliel to find a job for Rabbi Yohanan, who was so brilliant that he “could count all the drops in the sea,” yet he was utterly destitute (Horayot 10a). In our story from daf yomi, too, Rabbi Yehoshua rushes to the aid of Rabbi Yohanan, this time offering to help his friend lock the doors of the Temple. But Rabbi Yohanan rebukes him, insisting that he must keep to his own job of poet and not rush to the aid of the gatekeepers.

This story inspires a rather stern Talmudic injunction about the division of labor in the Temple, warning about משורר ששיער ומשוער ששורר
This brilliant conjoining of sound and sense—itself a poetic injunction about gatekeeping (or policing) who may do what-- refers to a poet who guards, and a gatekeeper who composes, both of whom are liable for quite a severe punishment:

A poet who engages in his friend’s gatekeeping duties is put to death, as it is written, “Those who were to camp before the Tabernacle in front…were Moses and Aaron and his sons, attending to the duties of the sanctuary. Any stranger who encroached was to be put to death” (Numbers 3:38). What is a stranger? If you mean a non-Levite, well, we have already been told that once already! Rather, it must mean someone who is estranged from that labor [that he is meant to perform].

Anyone who engages in someone else’s designated task is described as being “estranged” from his true labor to the extent that he is considered a זר, a stranger. This is an appropriate message for Masechet Arachin, which deals with the value of every human being. It is also a sentiment I identify with quite strongly on a personal level. For over seven years I have been working as a gatekeeper. As a foreign rights agent, my job is to secure permission for Israeli publishers to translate into Hebrew books originally written in foreign languages. Each day I receive dozens of manuscripts, which I submit to the appropriate Israeli editors. When multiple editors compete for the rights to translate a single work, I decide who gets the right to publish that book. I am, in short, a gatekeeper for literature.

At night, when I lock the gates of my office and return home, I often dream of becoming one of the poets. I make up rhyming songs that I sing to my baby and compose silly limericks about the Talmud, but rarely do I write anything more serious or sustained. I am so estranged from myself that I am convinced I am a gatekeeper, and well I might be. But that does not explain why my spine tingles at the poetic resonance of the Talmud’s tongue-twisting plays of language, nor why I search every day for that novel insight that keeps the beit midrash alive, nor why I am haunted by Rabbi Yohanan’s rebuke. חזור לאחוריך! Turn back! For you are one of the poets and not one of the gatekeepers!

Parshat Vayishlach: Learning to be Shalem

2011-12-21T00:17:00.002+02:00

Here in Jerusalem I live between two languages, yet I try to speak only one at a time. I cringe when I hear other Americans in Jerusalem peppering their English with select words of Hebrew: “We’re doing a total shiputz with an amazing kablan!” I aspire to access the full range of expression in whatever language I am speaking, without smuggling in words from another tongue. And yet sometimes I find myself guilty of the same shoddy linguistic border patrol, like last week, when I kept borrowing a key word from the parsha: “I’m just not shalem with this decision” or “I wish I could agree with shlemut” or “she’s just such a put-together, shalem person.”

In last week’s parshat Vayishlach it is Yaakov who is described as being shalem: “And Yaakov came shalem to Shechem” (33:18). This verse appears after the parsha’s mounting anticipation about the confrontation with Esav and the surprising anticlimax that follows. Yaakov, terrified of the impending confrontation with his estranged twin, attempts to appease Esav by sending messages of peace and bountiful gifs of he-goats, she-goats, ewes, rams, camels, colts, cowls, and bulls: “If I propitiate him with presents in advance and then face him, perhaps he will show me favor” (32:21). Quaking in his boots, Yaakov prays to God to save him from the dreaded clash with his brother: “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike” (32:13). Worried for the welfare of his wives and children, Yaakov resorts to the desperate measure of dividing his family into two camps in the hope that if Esav were to attack, he would lose only half his numbers.

Although Yaakov is fully prepared—militarily and psychologically—to fight off his brother, Esav surprises him by coming in peace. As David Flatow points out in a d’var Torah on the Drisha Institute website, instead of the expected confrontation with Esav, Yaakov finds himself instead wrestling with a mysterious man who approaches him in the darkness when he waits alone on the far side of the river. Somehow Yaakov succeeds in fighting off this anonymous aggressor, perhaps because he was already prepared for battle (with Esav) at the moment when he met him. Flatow points out that Yaakov is the kind of person who prepares thoroughly for everything that he expects in life, and as a result, when he is confronted by the unexpected, he has the wherewithal and the reserve strength to deal with those challenges as well. According to Flatow, this is the source of the shlemut that we are told about in the first verse after the anticlimactic meeting with Esav: “And Yaakov came shalem to Shechem.” Yaakov, in a state of constant preparedness, had an inner peace and wholeness that enabled him to successfully navigate even those challenges that he least expected.

I aspire to the shlemut of Yaakov even as I recognize how sorely I lack it. I wish to be able to reach that level of ease and inner peace that enables me to confront everyone I meet with a smile and a willingness to take on whatever the situation might require of me. And yet instead I find myself answering the telephone with a sense of dread creeping into my voice: “Who is calling me now, and why are they interrupting me, and what am I going to have to do for them,” instead of “oh how lovely, an opportunity for human encounter!” Yaakov takes the time to put his life in order, and as a result, he is able to deal with anything that comes his way. He accepts that life is not always what you expect, and that sometimes it is the willingness to embrace the unexpected that enables us to glimpse Peniel, the face of God. Moreover, he engages in regular dialogue with God, which instills in him the wholeness and the sense of self-awareness that enables him to be receptive to other human beings. I can learn from this as well; all too often I find myself so caught up in my own turmoil and “issues” that I must unload them on the first person I meet, instead of greeting others with a receptiveness to their needs and concerns. Perhaps if I spent more time emptying myself out to God in prayer, I’d have more room for the needs of the other people in my life.

I still do not have a suitable English translation for shlemut, perhaps because, as David Bellos writes in Is That a Fish in Your Ear, his recently-published book on translation, “It’s an indisputable fact about languages that the sets of words that each possesses divide up the features of the world in slightly and sometimes radically different ways.” Shlemut is a combination of several English phrases: it is the sense of wholeness that allows for the inner peace and that enables us to confront the challenges at hand without being torn apart by whatever we are dreading or anticipating at any given moment. It is also a kind of maturity and a willingness to make room for others, even if we meet them unexpectedly, and even if they surprise us by being pacific rather than aggressive – or vice versa. I am blessed with many models of shlemut in my life: from my husband who never loses his cool regardless of what goes wrong; to my sister-in-law who is so comfortable in her own skin that she is able to devote her entire existence to being there for others; to my baby son who has been lying on our bed content to play with his feet and delay his breakfast for the past twenty minutes so I could type up these thoughts. Perhaps one day I will learn how to put his needs first, but that, I fear, involves a sense of shlemut that I am still working to master.

Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Masekhet Hullin (Perek 1)

2011-11-12T23:23:00.010+02:00

הכל שוחטין
(Perek Aleph)

(2a)
All are permitted to shecht
(So long as they’re part of the sect)
Unless they’re the kind
Who are deaf-mute or blind
Or so short that they can’t reach the neck.

(5a)
Elijah was fed by the crows
Or so the Tanakh’s story goes
But were those crows birds?
What to make of that word?
They were two men named “crow,” we suppose.

(5b)
There are people who act more like beasts
Do we let them bring sacrifice feasts?
Even people who choose
Sin cannot be refused
By the Temple’s officiates, priests.

(6a)
Rabban Gamliel said: Don’t condone
Those Samaritans. Don’t eat their bones.
All they shecht is forbidden
For though it’s kept hidden,
They worship a dove carved in stone.

(6b)
Jewish women should not grind their wheat
With impure commonfolk who might cheat.
Lest the commoner say,
Yum, so tasty today—
You should sample my flour – come eat!

(7a)
If your mother in law can’t be trusted
Then your quantities must be adjusted:
That is, tithes you must take
From whatever she bakes.
She is sly, and won’t ever get busted.

(7a)
Pinchas ben Yair, one fine day,
To redeem captives set on his way.
He said: Stream, you must split!
But the stream had a fit.
Til he threatened, and made it obey.

(7b)
Pinchnas then came to an inn
With his donkey, a beast loath to sin.
They fed oats to the ass
Who refused the repast
“Were your oats tithed?” asked Pinchas, chagrined.

(7b)
Rabi kept most unorthodox pets:
He had white mules (as bad as it gets)
Pinchas knew they kicked hard
Hence he wanted them barred
When invited, he sent his regrets.

(7b)
A woman crawled under the seat
Of Hanina to sweep by his feet
To get dust for dark arts
Said Hanina: Too smart
Is our God. All your charms He’ll defeat.

(9a)
A scholar of Torah must learn
These three subjects, each one in its turn:
How to slaughter, and write,
And to circumcise; quite
A whole lot for a sage to discern.

(12a)
If you chance on a beast that’s been shechted,
Though it looks kosher once you’ve inspected,
You did not watch the slaughter
When blood flowed like water
So don’t eat -- the butcher’s suspected.

(12a)
If you throw a sharp knife towards a wall
And it chances to shecht while mid-fall.
Although not intended
A beast’s life is ended
But not by correct protocol.

(12a)
Does a little kid act with intention
Can he act with full grown-up attention
If he carves out a fruit
To make storage for dirt
Do we render “Tamey” his invention?

(13b)
Goyim abroad don’t know much—
Though idolatrous objects they clutch
It’s more just a fad
For the son acts like dad
Avodah Zara? Well, just a touch.

(13b)
You can shecht in the night or if blind
(Though the right spot might be hard to find.)
You can shecht on a ship,
On a roof (but don’t trip)
Just make sure you have presence of mind.

(16a)
Abraham took up the knife
(Unbeknownst to poor Sarah, his wife)
Must the knife be detached
When the deed is dispatched
Zealous Abe almost took Yitzchak’s life!

(17a)
In the desert the Jews had no rules
They could slaughter whatever they’d choose
When they entered the Land
Matters got out of hand
God said: Do shechita right please, you fools!

(18a)
Bar Hinana said: I can’t trust
This young butcher. I’ll make him go bust.
But the guy must be able
To put food on his table
Please say what I did was unjust!

(19a)
Mugremet is not a good cut
If you shecht that way, you’re in a rut.
Know the right place to slice
For you can’t do it twice
Aim for windpipe, and not for the gut.

(24a)
In five years’ time you learn your trade
After five years you work without aid
If you didn’t quite master
Don’t try working faster
It’s time to give up, I’m afraid.

(24b)
At age 80, Hanina could stand
On one foot, put on shoes with his hand
He was spry for his age
‘Cause his mom at one stage
Used to bathe him in oil. How grand!

(26b)
If yom tov’s on Friday, you asked,
Is havdala said once chag has passed.
To teach: “Now it’s Shabbat
Can you cook? You cannot”--
No havdala. Instead, shofar blast!

Fumbling for the Thumb: Parshat Noach

2011-10-25T00:55:00.003+03:00

In this week’s parsha we read about Noach, though we first learn of his birth at the end of Parshat Breishit. There we are told that his father Lemech calls him Noach because “this one will relieve us (yeNACHamenu) from our work and from the toil (itzavon) of our hands” (5:29). Lemech creates a midrash to explain his son’s name: Noach, whose name means comfort, will provide relief to a humanity that has just been cursed by God with the burden of working the soil with toil (itzavon) all the days of their lives. (Yeats: “It's certain there is no fine thing / Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.”) The midrash relates that Noach provided this comfort because he was the first human being to be created with opposable thumbs, which made it much easier to till the earth or do almost anything with one’s hands.

I thought about this midrash when Matan began sucking his thumb for the first time this week. He has been trying to master this skill for quite some time now: First he noticed the thumb and stared at it for a few days; then he realized that he could put it in his mouth; and then he would chomp on it and gag himself, only to stick the thumb back in and gag again. Yet now he sucks away gleefully. As a result, his parents can sleep better at night – in the past, each time Matan would stir, one of us would have to reach over the side of our bed, feel around for the pacifier strewn somewhere across his crib, and poke our hands around in the dark (like a blind person groping around in broad daylight, to invoke an image from the Tohekha) until we found (oops, that was the wrong side of his head; nope, an eyelid; yeah, there it is!) his mouth and could stick the pacifier back in and then roll over back to sleep. But now Matan knows how to pacify himself: He wakes up, finds his thumb, and sticks it in his mouth with gusto. This one will comfort us indeed! Matan can rest (Nach) more deeply, and this solution finds favor (Chen) in his parents’ eyes much as Noach (in another anagrammatic midrash – chen is Noach backwards) found favor in the eyes of God.

Inevitably, in our lives as parents, I’m sure Matan will be the source of some Itzavon, which Rashi interprets as צער גידול בנים, the pain of raising children. It is not just pregnancy and childbirth that are part of God’s curse to Eve, but also the gap between expectation and reality: Parents invest everything in their children, only to find that thorns and thistles spring up from the soil in which they have planted their hopes and dreams. Itzavon, like Teshuka (desire), is the difference between what we have and what we want. Eve is saddled with Teshuka for her husband and Itzavon for her children, leaving her with little room for satisfaction. And yet until this point, Matan has been only a source of Naches, which of course comes from the Hebrew word Nachat, itself a variant on Noach/comfort. When I peer into the Teyva (ark) of his crib at night and watch him fumble for his thumb, I find myself paraphrasing the most poetic line from this week’s parsha: So long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night; my love for you, Matan, shall never cease.

Note: Like everything I write, this dvar Torah owes much to the insights of Avivah Zornberg. For more on Noach and Itzavon, see “Despondent Intoxication” in The Murmuring Deep.