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Shabbat

You know, I never noticed this detail about the story of Noah before: he doesn't take isolated pairs of anything. He takes seven pairs of each kosher species (which I already knew), and he takes two pairs of each non-kosher species. Not one pair. Somehow I had always read this as "two, one male and one female", but that's not what it says.

Another detail: as a kid I wondered why doves hadn't died out, given that Noah sent one out and it never returned. But, of course, he had backups. Did we just not read very carefully in CCD, I wonder?

Comment from someone Friday: he hadn't been able to really envision anything as big as the mabul (flood) until this week's news from California. I hadn't thought about it in those terms before.

Friday night I somehow managed to walk into services, walk right past someone I know (who was visiting for the first time) without noticing, and sit down. Oops. Didn't notice he was there until the oneg. Fortunately, he had a native guide sitting next to him, and I think he's got decent survival skills for following unfamiliar liturgy anyway, so it all worked out. I would have helped had I noticed.

There were glitches with the morning Torah reading. Apparently the reader did not have a tikkun to practice from, but I thought he said he did, and he hadn't actually been able to practice sans vowels. This makes an enormous difference, and he won't make that mistake again. So he stumbled, but he got through it. And I need to make sure that there is always a designated "corrector", rather than assuming each torah reader will make his own arrangements. (There are only a few of us who are good enough to follow at speed and correct errors. I am not yet one of them, though I can prompt if the reader stops and wants it.)

I'm facing my first scheduling challenge: I'm having trouble finding a torah reader for the first Shabbat in December. I guess by default I get the ones no one else can do, though I'm reading in two weeks and was hoping to not do this more often than about every 6 weeks. I don't want them to get sick of me, and anyway I'm not yet good enough to be able to work on multiple portions simultaneously. So I wouldn't even start that one until after I do the other one. We'll see. I can probably manage.

A few of the members of the morning minyan go, once a month, to a local retirement home (is that the appropriate term these days?) to conduct a Shabbat service for the Jewish residents. (It's not a Jewish facility.) The organizer asked me to go with her this week (she was having trouble getting people and didn't want to go alone). I was just supposed to be another voice; she was supposed to be in charge of deciding what to do. (I knew it would be an abbreviated service, but as I haven't been there I didn't think I should do the abbreviating.)

Then she got sick, but she had recruited two other people, but she wanted me to go anyway because she sees me as more of an expert. Ok... but the other two kept deferring to me even though I didn't want them to. They'd been there before, I said; they should call the shots.

Now I'm pretty comfortable leading services. I can lead a Shabbat-ish service that takes 30 minutes or two hours, and probably anything in between, if I know what the constraints are up front. But the other two turned to me for all decisions, and I didn't know the constraints, and there was much more winging of things than I'm really comfortable with. Like, I would have cut out more of the introductory prayers to allow a complete Amidah, had I known that we were going to be stopped 15 minutes earlier than I thought we were. Stuff like that. Sigh.

This place was also really depressing. The facility is run-down and ugly, and it's obvious that a lot of the staff don't really care about the residents, and some of the residents have picked up on that and are either cranky or withdrawn. Add in a generous dose of residents who can't hear, don't wear hearing aids, and then get mad at you for shouting too quietly, and it's bad.

(I also found myself praying along the lines of "if a place like this is my only choice, please just kill me before it gets to that point". Ugh. Fortunately, I know there are much better places than this out there.)

There were two residents who seemed to care about having a Shabbat service and who were capable of participating. I know we should do what we can for the sake of those two and despite the others, but I don't think I will personally go again. Bikkur cholim (visiting the sick) is important, but I'm just not up for this one. Maybe someday.

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The dove doesn't return because she finds a suitable place to nest. That was Noah's clue that the water had receeded below the trees.

Yes, but the world is a big place, and you still need two doves to make more. :-)

Places like the one you visited are some of the most hopeless feeling on this Earth. I'm sorry it was hard to be there -- I know it was.

I think he's got decent survival skills for following unfamiliar liturgy anyway

...at least when I'm not trying to read Hebrew/Aramaic letters quickly....

Did we just not read very carefully in CCD, I wonder?

I recall it that way as well; it's gotten me wondering if Christian Bibles are really that different, but I don't have one to check --- or maybe it's just glossed over.

Of course, this doesn't take into account any animal births that occurred on the ark. They were in there for close to a year, not just the 40 days of the flood, so who knows how many bunnies came out? I wonder if this is addressed in the talmud somewhere.

Two items from reading the Stone Talmud (YMMV):
There were no births of any kind on the ark. All sexual activity was curtailed during the flood.
From the beginning of the rain, until the Ark opened, was more than one year, and exactly one calendar year (365 days).

Don't ask me to quote the direct sources. This is what I was reading in shul...I don't own a copy of the Stone.

I really understand what you say about going to the retirement home. I've sometimes been asked to come along to play piano/organ for services at hospitals and nursing homes, and I find they are incredibly draining, especially when a large number of those there can't participate in a way that helps me with the service. The one thing that keeps me doing it sometimes (fortunately not that often) is the hope that it does help some of those who appear to be uninvolved.

I know you hear about Parkinson's patients where the mind is still as sharp as ever, but to look at them and hear them, you would think they aren't able to participate. But if the mind is going, I think it must be good for them.

That said, for me, it become a matter of balance...I find it very draining, so I wouldn't want to do it every week or something, but I'll do it every so often, when the opportunity comes up.

Well, remember that the ark was grounded by this point on top of the mountain, so Dove #2 doesn't have to search the whole world.

I've got the Etz Chayim in front of me, which uses the "new" JPS translation for the English. It translates verse 6:19 as "And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female.", 7:2 as "...and of every animal that is not pure, two, a male and its mate;" and 7:9 as "two of each, male and female, came to Noah into the ark" This seems to me to mean two animals - one male and one female. The Etz Chayim's commentary notes that the "clean" animals get 7 pairs; traditionally this is so there are enough for Noah to make a sacrifice later, but modern scholars see this as evidence of two flood stories. (Just checked - Rashi interprets 6:19 as meaning that "[Even] of the least [numerous] among them there were not less than two, one male and the other female." - so Rashi seems to think that there were two, not four, animals.)

Which is not to say that you're wrong -- just that you're taking an interesting look at the text which is not the traditional one.

Ok, I looked at the Hebrew (in Eitz Chayim). During the reading on Shabbat I had somehow gotten the impression that we had parallel construction -- "seven and seven... two and two", but we don't. It's "seven and seven, male and female (each)" but "two, male and female" -- not "two and two" as I had thought. I'm not proficient in Hebrew, but even I can puzzle out what's going on in this case, because I know a few of my numbers. :-)

Ok, so much for that.

I think what happened is that the "old testament" just wasn't as important as the gospels etc, so we didn't read it directly. But simplified bible stories were common for little kids. I did read the entire (Christian) bible cover to cover when I was about 12 or 13, but since it was a large project I surely missed lots of stuff. (And this was on my own, not a part of class.)

No, that shows up in the Christian bible as well, which doesn't "gloss over it" at all. From Genesis 7:2-3 [New International Version]

[2] Take with you seven of each kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, [3] and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.

A translator's footnote for "seven of each kind" in verse 2 reads "Or seven pairs; also in verse 3".

From the Revised Standard Version:

[2] Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate; [3] and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth.

The "two of each" tradition can perhaps partially be traced to the fact that everywhere else it discusses the animals entering "two by two". But in fact this owes more to popular tradition than the text, and ends up being one of those Bible Study trick questions like the "apple" in the garden of Eden, or the "three" wisemen/magi/kings (or the common portrayal of the magi at the nativity, rather than well after), or (for the Roman Catholics in the audience) the question of which conception the doctrine of Immaculate Conception refers to, etc.

On a continuing theme of Noah trivia, regarding the question of reproduction in the Ark, Genesis 8:17 reads (again, from the NIV's translation):

Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you - the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground - so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it.

This could be taken as an implicit statement that the disembarking was a precondition for fruitful multiplying, and therefore it hadn't been going on during the actual flood. That's speculation on my part, but if I was trying to find some scriptural basis for that doctrine, that's the strongest cite I could find quickly.

This could be taken as an implicit statement that the disembarking was a precondition for fruitful multiplying, and therefore it hadn't been going on during the actual flood.

I've already encountered a reference claiming that the Sages used that interpretation, in fact.

This could be taken as an implicit statement that the disembarking was a precondition for fruitful multiplying, and therefore it hadn't been going on during the actual flood.

Makes sense to me. I should have noticed that when I read the portion.

...at least when I'm not trying to read Hebrew/Aramaic letters quickly....

This takes practice. When I began trying to read, I followed along in the Hebrew but only said about every fifth word or so, because it took me too long to sound things out letter by letter. Eventually I knew some words on sight, which gave me spare cycles to try others. Now I can read the standard liturgy at speed, though this is aided by memorization of course. Say the same words every week (or every day, or more often) and you can't help but memorize.

I'm still pretty slow with unfamiliar text. Hand me an arbitrary biblical passage, for example, and I won't be reading at speed...

I admire people who can go into that kind of environment on a regular basis and try to help.

I know you hear about Parkinson's patients where the mind is still as sharp as ever, but to look at them and hear them, you would think they aren't able to participate. But if the mind is going, I think it must be good for them.

Yeah, I think it would be pretty awful to have a fully-intact mind trapped in a thoroughly-broken body. Ugh. Having the mind go is dehumanizing in a lot of ways, but at least the person it's happening to becomes less aware of that fact over time. Of course, the period between when you find out what's happening to you and when it kicks in must be truly horrid.

[This place was also really depressing. The facility is run-down and ugly, and it's obvious that a lot of the staff don't really care about the residents, and some of the residents have picked up on that and are either cranky or withdrawn.]

When I was about 13 my school made everyone do a mandatory day of public service, no doubt to instill in us the joy of helping out in the community. I signed up to volunteer at a home for the elderly. It was a /profoundly/ depressing experience. The facility was in good condition and it looked like the residents were receiving decent care, but the aura of despair was palpable. The heart-rending sound of an old lady sobbing in what seemed like pure emotional agony remains high on my list of the most disturbing things I've ever heard. Eia. I know this kind of service is important precisely because these places can be so depressing, but I couldn't hack it then and even though I have a pretty high tolerance for the disturbing, I'm not even sure I could deal with it well now.

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Shabbat

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when in doubt consult the Hebrew

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