parsha bit: Vaetchanan

(I learned the following midrash from Dr. Jonah Steinberg.)

In this week's parsha Moshe retells the giving of the torah. The midrash says that when God spoke each utterance, it (the utterance itself, personified) would go to each and every Israelite and ask "do you accept me upon you?", describing the restrictions and rewards that came with it. When the Israelite said "yes" the utterance would kiss him and teach him torah. This is what is meant by the verse "lest you forget the things that your eyes saw" -- it refers to seeing the utterance speak. (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:2, which itself takes off from "let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth".)

(Aside: this same midrash records a minority view, that each utterance was carried by an angel to each Israelite and it was the angels who did the asking, based on a different proof-text. In that version, the angel also asks the Israelite to accept God's divinity. Neither version addresses what would have happened in response to a "no".)

short takes

A few days ago I was petting Erik and suddenly noticed he was naked -- his collar was missing. In the 14+ years I've had him he's never before divested himself of his collar, so I'm mystified. A search of his usual hiding spots didn't turn it up, nor did a cursory look around Mary's house (where he spent last week). How weird! I bought a new collar at the grocery store (and even cut the obligatory bell off); since ordering a tag takes time I applied a Sharpie to the back of the newest rabies tag, there being enough room for a phone number. He's never gotten out, but of course it would be my luck that he would while sans tags, so better safe than sorry.

Speaking of cats, I found this story about Oscar the death-sensing cat interesting. I wonder what he's reacting to. (The article doesn't address the question of whether Oscar is the cause rather than the sensor.)

This story about a man whose house was condemned because of his books (link from caryabend) makes me scratch my head. 3000 books isn't that many. What's really going on? A little googling didn't turn up more details.

This photographic evidence of a packrat made me laugh out loud. Fortunately, they don't condemn cars. :-)

not exactly a shiva minyan

My congregation has an evening service on Thursdays. (Long story.) Usually one of the rabbis leads it; if neither is available, usually I get a phone call. Tonight there was no rabbi and no phone call (something must have come up), so at five minutes past the start time the consensus was that I should lead it.

That by itself would not be worthy of a post.

Two of my friends in my congregation are sisters, and their father died while I was out of town. I missed shiva, but they came tonight. We talked a little before the service; they said their dad had had as perfect a death as you can, at the age of 93, surrounded by family, and not in pain. They're feeling the loss, of course, but they said he was at peace and that helped.

It's customary for the leader of this service to give a two-minute d'var torah, generally on the weekly portion. See previous comment about having had no notice. Normally I can wing it; if nothing else, every Thursday morning I find some bit of midrash to tell to the morning minyan, so I can usually use that as a starting point if I need to. And I'm starting to develop a small repertoire of "d'var-lets" that I can spin up without falling on my face.

But it felt wrong. At least half the people there tonight were mourners, including the sisters, and I didn't want to just talk about Moshe preaching to the people or retelling the revelation at Sinai. So I improvised massively: I started by talking about what I studied last week at Hebrew College, used that as a basis for talking about Moshe's achievements through faith and despite adversity (and that they started late in life), and that this kind of leadership is inspirational, and then I talked about how we can all emulate Moshe to some level if we want to and it's inspiring to see parents or grandparents serving as models for us by doing so. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked, though the two sisters both thanked me and said this sounded just like their father, so that's good.

Comforting words do not come naturally to me, so after the fact I feel like I was playing with fire. Hmm. I guess it's good I didn't have time to think about it.