Thursday and Friday summary

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Again, summary now and more later (I hope):

Thursday morning we looked first at stories of Serach bat Asher, who seems to be another Eliyahu-like figure: she went down to Egypt, she was still alive when Moshe was preparing for the exodus (and told him where to find Yosef's bones), and she was the wise woman in II Samuel 20 during the reign of King David. (I should stress that this is all according to midrash, not black-letter text. This last comes from Kohelet Rabbah 9:2.) The events of II Samuel 20 are interesting in any regard, Serach or no, but her involvement certainly does add interest.

It's important to note that the talmud drops us into the middle of disputes and conversations; it teaches an approach, not a hard-and-fast set of answers. It weaves together different teachings to make its points; when it says that Rav Ploni answered Rav Yehudah, it doesn't actually mean there was a conversation between the two. Rather, you can bring the teachings of one to bear on the other. (I knew this and some of my readers did, but others might not have.) Think of it as a montage of interviews with various sages.

Medieval rabbis grew uncomfortable with the idea that humans are key in developing a theology -- it was ok then but not now, say folks like the Rambam. It's interesting to ask how leadership changes as you go from inviting people into a conversation to handing them articles of faith.

Anyway, back to Serach briefly. She seems to live forever and there's no record of her death; several of us thought that sounded familiar, and the instructor said that, indeed, he knows of people who have a kos shel Serach (Serach's cup) at their Pesach seder with Eliyahu's, and instead of one for Miriam. People like to bring Miriam into the seder to get a woman into the story; Miriam was involved in the exodus so she fits that way, but she died -- if you want to symbolically invite people to the seder, maybe Serach fits better. (Yes, we have another tradition of inviting dead people to things -- the ushpizim in the sukkah. Maybe Miriam fits better there.) Anyway, something to chew on -- I don't have a seder of my own and if I did I wouldn't have a kos shel Miriam, so I don't know if I would have a kos shel Serach. But it's an interesting idea.

Rabbi Art Green, founder of the rabbinic school, taught one session on Thursday. (Mostly lecture, with group discussion.) He talked about the rise of chassidic leadership and the notion of the tzaddik, who is part wise person, part miracle-worker, and part mystic. The Tanakh shows three types of leaders -- kings, prophets, and priests. After the destruction of the temple we had none of those, and the rabbis arose to fill that void. Later, Jewish communities came to be run by the wealthy (not necessarily the learned). Chassidism came along (I grossly summarize here) and said "hey, ordinary people should be able to lead too", and the idea of the tzaddik is how they did that.

Rabbi Green brought readings from a few chassidic sources which showed some of what the tzaddik was supposed to be. They connected tzaddikim to kings (well, Yosef -- close enough), priests, and prophets, and once legitimizing the idea that way, began to look for tzaddikim in their midsts. (There was more, but I'll have to fill it in later.)

In the afternoon we returned to a passage from S'fat Emet about consolation in the face of suffering. The idea seems to be that if you have a deeper vision you can see joy even in suffering -- not so much the silver lining, but that you can be carried by the thrill of the redemption you know is coming. This approach does not tend to sit well with me; it's too close to "it'll all be better when you get to heaven" for my tastes. We talked about questions like whether suffering must preceed redemption -- is it a precondition, or does it serve to motivate you to work harder for redemption (but you could in theory skip the suffering and go straight to redemption)? And is it a communal experience (we all go through exile together and get redeemed together), or do different people travel that path at different rates?

Then we looked at more midrashim about Moshe, focusing on his flight from Egypt and his encounter at the burning bush. (We continued that on Friday.) There's lots of good stuff here, and later I will post some of the midrashim and the thoughts I draw from them.

We spent much of Friday morning on one page of talmud, which our instructor described as the page he would preserve for the next thousand years if he could only preserve one. It's Eiruvim 13b, which weaves together a bunch of thoughts about legal agility, good and bad qualities of people, truth versus what people need to be told, diversity, and dialogue.

Quote from another student: "we're a messy reality". Judaism isn't neat and tidy, and that's not a bad thing. Our instructor likens the talmud to music -- you have themes, consonances and dissonances, places where it resolves, places where it harmonizes and places where it doesn't, and it all comes together to form a symphony.

Citation to chase later: "To be a Jew -- What is it?", essay by Rabbi Heschel, in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity by Suzanna Heschel.

We spent some time talking about priests, specifically the high priest (kohein gadol) and his service on Yom Kippur. We first read the descriptions from the letter of Aristeas (a Greek source) and Ben Sira (who didn't quite make it into biblical canon), both of which sound glorious. (The latter will be familiar to anyone who does the traditional avodah part of the Yom Kippur liturgy.) Then we turned to the nuts and bolts in the mishna to Yoma 1, which paints a different picture of the kohein gadol.

In the afternoon, as I mentioned earlier, we turned to more midrashim about Moshe and his charge as a prophet. This doesn't summarize well, but I enjoyed this and will try to come back to it later.