cellio | Entries tagged with torah

One day last week on my way out of the office, I encountered a pair of college-age women who looked a little lost. One politely asked if they could ask me something, so I said sure. (Cue ominous music.)

Her question: did I know where in the bible it says that God is female?

I said that no, it doesn't say that, or at least not the Hebrew Bible -- what any other books might claim is neither known nor interesting to me -- and that God doesn't have gender; grammar does. She then took a weird turn, talking about how the word "Elohim" (one of the words for God) is plural. I never did learn, during the conversation, where she was going with that. I told her that while the word has the appearance of being plural it is usually singular; for example, I said, in the very first verse of Genesis, we see that noun paired with a singular verb (and that continues through the rest of the creation narrative). I taught her as much Hebrew grammar as I could explain while standing on one foot.

She then said something like "but Genesis says 'male and female he created them, in his image, in his likeness' -- so God must be female too". I happen to know the Rashi on that and responded that God, master of the universe, is surely not limited by physical form, so "in his image" and "in his likeness" must mean something else, and gave Rashi's answer.

Soon after the conversation started to go in circles. She pulled out her phone to show me the verse in English (might have been King James; not sure); I pulled out my phone and said "let's look at that in the Hebrew, shall we?". The other person spoke for the first time around this point, saying something like "oh, are you Jewish? We have great respect for the Jews", which is usually a Christian lead-in for "but they've missed an important message", so I said that yes I am, sorry but I do have to get home, and good luck in their quest for knowledge and do check out the Rashi I mentioned.

I suspect that the one was tutoring the other in missionary work. It looks like they both need some more practice. Meanwhile, while I did a decent job in the counter-missionary role, I clearly didn't convince them that they were mistaken in the five minutes or so that I was willing to give this.

That was Wednesday, I think. Then tonight I came across this question on Mi Yodeya, which asks about the word "Elohim" being female, and that question links to a Christian video making an argument that uses these elements (arguing that there must be two gods, and the male one made Adam and the female one made Chava, err, Eve), so I see the connection they were failing to make now. It's still utter nonsense, but at least now I know the nature of the utter nonsense.

A comment on the Mi Yodeya post says the group behind this idea is actually a doomsday cult, but I'm not curious enough to actually research that.

I work in a usually-staid office building -- not a place I expect this kind of encounter.

This weekend I attended a celebration of Mi Yodeya's fifth birthday, hosted by the site's patriarch and his family, who had the decency to move this summer to within driving distance of my house. So I got to go. I had a great time!

Isaac and his family (names and details elided because he hasn't shared those online AFAIK) are wonderful people and kind hosts. I felt welcome from the moment I walked through their door on Friday afternoon. Friday night after Shabbat dinner we visited another Yodeyan family -- they'd just had a baby girl a few days earlier so they invited folks over to celebrate. I was a little disappointed, but ultimately relieved, that he did not give his daughter a polysyllabic Klingon name after all (and I'll just leave the ambiguity in that sentence hanging :-) ).

Saturday afternoon was the main event. We were joined by about half a dozen other Yodeyans and their families, all local (or approximately so) except for me. Some demurred about sharing their user names, so I still don't know who everybody is "on site", but that's fine. One printed out his "gravatar", the default, uniquely-generated image that's assigned to a user who doesn't upload something else. Another also found a way to display his user icon. I wish I'd thought of that -- but people knew who I was anyway, because (a) I use the image I'm posting this entry under and they could match it up, and (b) I was probably the only person none of them knew otherwise (so clearly I wasn't local).

Lunch was festive and included divrei torah (words of torah) from, I think, all the Yodeyans. Mine went ok -- several others were clearly more erudite, but some of those people are rabbis so I don't feel bad about that. :-) I've been woefully negligent about posting my divrei torah here lately, but I'll try to get this one (and the one I gave in my minyan the week before) posted here.

Shabbat morning at services we heard an excellent d'var torah on the themes of Chanukah and education. One key take-away for me was that in Jewish education we repeat topics all the time; we read the torah in an annual cycle, there's a seven-year cycle of studying the talmud, and students will visit some topics over and over. In secular education, on the other hand, this doesn't happen -- why would you ever repeat algebra or chemistry or freshman English, unless you'd had trouble getting it the first time around? (Sure, you may go more in-depth later, but that's different.) And while it might not make sense to revisit secular topics such as these over and over, there is much to be gained in revisiting torah and talmud and halacha and ethics and the rest. (This was part of a much longer discussion of educational values, not the whole talk.)

This matches my experience on Mi Yodeya, too. Any question that I could ask has been asked before, probably many times, by people way more learned than I -- yet there is value in me asking it anew, and value in others engaging with it instead of just saying "go read this textbook". And similarly, any answer that I could give to someone else's question would pale in comparison to what others have said on that topic in the past, yet I and others get something out of my offering those answers anyway. (Most of the time, anyway -- I've had some clunkers, as have we all.) Jewish topics are not just things to be learned, or looked up once, in books; that we engage with questions, turning the torah and turning it again and again to reveal its 70 faces, is important. And I get to be part of it.

Isaac had a really thoughtful gift¹ for each of us: for each of us he found an answer (or question in some cases, I think) of ours that stood out, and that also fit the format, and printed it in a nice "certificate" format suitable for framing. I love that! And I like the answer of mine that he picked, which I'd kind of forgotten about (but now that I'm reminded of it, it was well-received). Very cool idea!

¹ Technically not, as it was on Shabbat. It, um, involved a kinyan and, I think, his wife acting as agent for all of us. I don't quite know how that works, but I know a place I could ask. :-)

On Shabbat we had a visitor from Kibbutz Lotan (in the Negev desert in Israel). Their focus is on environmental issues -- sustainable development etc. I was there several years ago as part of a tour and they're doing some pretty cool stuff with agriculture, building construction, and even composting toilets (which I'd not heard of before then). After morning services he led a text study on the first two chapters of Genesis (naturally, focusing on the theme of sustainability).

There are lots of differences between the two tellings of the creation story -- chapter one is more "macro", the orders of some events are different, how Chava (Eve) gets created is very different, and more. Those weren't the focus. Here are some things I noticed (in no particular order and certainly not complete, as I wasn't taking notes).

In the first chapter Adam (who is "male and female", so both of them) is told to rule or dominate the earth. The verb here is radah; this is different from kingship (malakh). Radah seems to be a stern sort of rule (see here for more). In the second chapter, on the other hand, Adam is told to work (sometimes translated "tend") and keep (or "guard") the garden, which sounds way more custodial. The word translated "work" is 'avad (like in "avodah"), and the second word is the familiar shamor (like guarding Shabbat).

This might not be what our environmentalist visitor intended, but it seems to me that radah could be used to justify an attitude of "the world is here for us to use as we see fit". The language used in the second chapter, however, suggests an actual duty to the earth. Both approaches are supported in Genesis. (I've heard people make the chapter-2 argument, but I've not heard the chapter-1 one on the other side. Nor am I myself arguing that either is superior; I'm just observing.)

One of our high-school students made an observation that surprised many people in the room: she pointed out that the latter instructions apply to the garden. It doesn't say to work and guard the earth. So, she asked, did this apply only in Gan Eden, and once they were kicked out it's not in play any more? I wonder if there's rabbinic commentary on this, but I haven't looked yet. (Certainly sometimes the rabbis understand a specific directive to be more general; what I'd like to know is whether this is one such case.)

I noticed something I hadn't picked up on before in the second chapter: there is absolutely no utilitarian purpose in play. Adam and Chava have access to the Tree of Life; they don't need to do anything to the garden in order to be able to eat. So the command is a command for its own sake, not a "work and guard it so you can eat". Once they're expelled, on the other hand, they're told they'll have to work the land if they want to eat.

Overall, it was an interesting discussion. He was originally going to talk about his kibbutz and so I wasn't going to go (I've heard a lot of that already), so I'm glad he changed topics.

Those of you who enjoy the religion-related posts here might be interested in this new blog (see intro post) for questions and answers about the bible, particularly the Hebrew bible (Tanakh). There's a link there for question submissions, and there are a bunch of posts there so you can get a sense of what to expect.

And while I'm plugging sites, I'd be remiss in not mentioning Mi Yodeya for all your Jewish Q&A needs. And I'd say that even if I weren't a moderator there; I'm a moderator there in part because it was already an excellent site when I found it, so I stuck around and tried to help.

I've been accumulating browser tabs for a while, so here's a "misc" dump. (Aside: this new LJ "choose your icon by browsing pictures, and by the way we won't put them in alphabetical order or anything nice like that" interface really stinks. Grr.)

siderea posted The Music Theory Song: Intervals (YouTube). For anyone who's trying to work on ear training to hear intervals, and for those of you who already grok that, this video's for you. Really.

12 letters that didn't make the (English) alphabet. I forget where this link came from.

thnidu over on Dreamwidth posted a link to "Earth as Art", which looks to be a nifty photo collection. The link isn't currently working for me, so I'm linking his entry instead of there for now.

More beautiful photography, from a locked post. Warning: gravity alert -- it wouldn't be hard to get sucked in.

Some time back I noticed that one of the regulars in the Mi Yodeya weekly parsha chat drew a lot on Abarbanel and that it sounded interesting. I asked him if he knew of an English translation and at the time he didn't, but more recently someone else who remembered my question pointed me at this adaptation (not translation). This sounds like something I should check out. (And it's kind of cool that, months later, somebody remembered my asking and followed up.)

When atheism is good: a chassidic story, linked by thnidu on DW again.

From XKCD: an exploration of wise men, stars, and paths. What would the trip look like, depending on what star you were following when? I can't confirm the math, but I found it an interesting read. (I don't know why he has the journey starting in Jerusalem, though.)

A map of every grocery store ever. Interestingly, my regular "big shopping trip" store (as opposed to the "grab a few things on the way home from work" store) recently remodelled and deviated from the norms. Now I can't find anything without effort.

And a funny cartoon from gnomi:( Read more... )

I don't think I've ever seen mammatus clouds before. They sure are pretty.

This information visualization on population per land area surprised me at the extremes (Bangladesh and UAE).

Avram's letter to his parents on leaving home, an interesting little d'var torah for Lech L'cha (starts with Genesis 12).

A few weeks ago I played Quack in the Box for the first time. It's a fun, cynical little game about health care, and now that I've linked it here, with luck I won't forget its name. :-)

Not a link, but is anybody else suddenly seeing a lot of LJ spam?

This week was my congregation's annual shabbaton. We take over a cabin in the "suburbs" of Zelienople and have a grand time. This year was the largest I've seen at 42 people, and all of them seemed to be engaged in it. It was great.

When nobody feels pressure (got to get upstairs to the bar mitzvah, got to beat the lunch guests home, whatever), we can relax and just take our time with services. I don't get that very often and I treasure it. We had kabbalat shabbat out on the porch in the fading sun (plus there were porch lights). Saturday morning after the service we had an energetic discussion of part of the parsha (Tazria [1]), interrupted only by our need to walk up to the main building for lunch (but it continued later in smaller pockets).

Speaking of which: ( Read more... )

Friday night we had a study session around the second chapter of Pirke Avot (teachings of the fathers, where a lot of the sayings we "all know" come from). We broke into pairs or trios to study for a while and then each group shared something it learned. We've used this study method before and I find it works well; it's harder to do in-depth study with 42 people all together, but by doing it this way I learned things both from my group and the larger group.

Saturday afternoon we tried something new. My rabbi asked a few of us to prepare chugim, short sessions to run concurrently, so people could learn what they want. I taught (well, lead a study of) a section of talmud -- how various rabbis concluded their individual prayer at the end of the t'filah. (B'rachot 16b-17a, for anyone following along at home.) I approached this from the prayer context, not the talmud context -- we have this fixed text that we say every service and then we're supposed to say our own prayer, but maybe not everybody is comfortable doing that. The idea was to present a range of things that are recorded in our tradition; maybe people would get some new ideas.

I had not realized, and did not think to ask at the beginning, that no one there other than me had actually studied any talmud before -- maybe they'd seen material that came from the talmud, but they'd never looked at a page of talmud before. I, not knowing this, gave only the scantest of introductions to talmud itself (here's what the full page looks like, here's where we are, here's an interlinear translation to follow 'cause nobody here including me is going to read the Aramaic straight from the page). When I learned at the end that this was new to everybody, part of me wondered if I should have given more of an intro -- but I think not, on reflection. I helped a group of people just dive in to something that many consider intimidating; I think that probably left them all feeling better, and more confident, than a "talmud 101 using this text as an example" class would have been. I am becoming a big fan of the "just do it" school of teaching.

( footnote )

The Shabbat before last there was a beit midrash (study session) after morning services, but I had to be somewhere so I couldn't stay. But I always take study materials if they're available, so I picked up a packet. The topic was one line from the passage about Moshe at the burning bush. The materials included a page of commentary -- a few lines of the Hebrew torah passage near the top center, translation beside that, and passages from several of the "big names" filling the page (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, Ramban, etc).

Seasoned torah students will recognize this: it's called Miqra'ot Gedolot, a standard compilation of Hebrew-language commentaries. It's an established tool of the trade, and I have been hoping that someday I would maybe build up enough fluency in Hebrew to be able to start using it. Which will take a while, but such is my linguistic lot in life.

This was in English (aside from the torah passage itself). It was this, published by JPS.

I have never seen a Miqra'ot Gedolot in English. I had no idea such a thing existed. Today when studying with one of our rabbis I asked "was that what I think it was?", wondering if it were just excerpts, and he said it's real. (I see that one of the Amazon reviewers says it's abridged, though.)

This is fairly new as these things go and so far only three of the five volumes have been published (2005, 2009, 2011). But hey, three is better than zero! Even if abridged -- by the time I can understand the original the investment in abridged translations will have long since been paid off.

Our torah-study group has been talking about the akeidah (binding of Yitzchak) for a few months (just finished). One opinion that some people expressed is that, in addition to the individual and family tragedy that would result if Avraham had not been stopped, this was a national threat: if Yitzchak died then that would end the whole Jewish enterprise. So (the reasoning goes) Avraham would be killing his own legacy and the Jewish people along with Yitzchak.

I find this position problematic because, really, is anything too great for God? Not only could Avraham have more sons (the promise to Avraham didn't mention Sarah), but after Sarah died he did. If Yitzchak had died, that would not automatically mean the end of the Jewish proposition as spelled out in God's promises to Avraham. It would, of course, have been a terrible thing for the people involved, but we're talking about a proto-national issue here, not a personal one.

After the study I remembered another case where this kind of reasoning comes up, and this time it's embedded in our liturgy. I've always been a little bothered by the part of the Pesach seder that says that if God hadn't taken us out of Egypt we would still be slaves there today. Really? God couldn't have decided that the next generation was worthy if the time wasn't yet right? Doesn't this claim show something of a lack of faith?

I decided to ask this seder question on Judaism.StackExchange to see what the folks there have to say. There are some interesting answers so far. Take a look if this interests you.

Disclosure and plug: the site is currently trying to increase traffic and is running a contest with a nominal prize (small gift certificate to a Jewish bookstore). If you click on that link you'll help me a little. That's not why I posted this entry (it started out as just the akeidah and morphed), but as long as I was talking about it anyway...

And on the subject of this contest, here is an interesting question about the use of e-readers that is somewhat related to a question about the use of a Kindle on Shabbat. There's good discussion here about the nature of e-ink and writing and kindling light. I'd like to see answers to all the questions I've linked here; maybe you can help. (Contest page with links to all entries is here.)

On Shabbat we had a discussion about one part of the week's portion, where Miriam and Aharon speak critically about Moshe and Miriam (alone) is punished with tzara'at ("leprosy"). I found that translation hinders rather than helps understanding in this case.

JPS translates Num. 12:1 thus: Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married. "He married a Cushite woman!"

All the fluent Hebrew readers objected to this translation, pretty much at the same time, for not making use of the "ki" in the second sentence (among other objections). Further, there is no punctuation in the original torah text, so this is a matter of interpretation, and this particular rendering attributes a motive for the complaint that contradicts midrash. Granted that midrashim often disagree, but we found nothing to really support the idea that their objection is Moshe marrying a foreigner. (The midrash suggests that Miriam was coming to his wife's defense, so "because of" is better rendered as "on account of".)

The translation in the Sapperstein Rashi edition, which is also basically the one used by Nechama Leibowitz, punctuates it differently: And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.

There's still a problem, though. The Hebrew uses the feminine singular verb for "spoke", so if Miriam and Aharon both spoke then the grammar is wrong. They do both speak in the next sentence where they challenge Moshe's sole access to God, and the plural is used there, but not here. I'm not willing to call "editorial error" without first looking for a consistent interpretation.

So all this led me to wonder if we're reading it wrong. I humbly offer the following alternative translation of the Hebrew: [And] Miriam spoke, and Aharon was against Moshe on account of the Cushite woman he had taken [as wife], for he had taken a Cushite woman.

Miriam spoke, and in so doing incited Aharon. Both then went on to criticize Moshe, but Miriam as the instigator bears the punishment. That makes the account make more sense to me, but of course that doesn't mean this is a correct interpretation. Rashi says that Miriam spoke first, but he doesn't explain that further so I can't tell if he interprets it this way. I can, in fact, find no support for my interpretation anywhere in the sources I have to hand -- but nor can I find a problem with it. So I would very much welcome arguments either for or against.

Edit: I posted a question about this on Judaism.StackExchange and got some interesting answers there.

Two times in the book of B'reishit Avraham represents his wife Sarah as his sister because he fears that the people around him will kill him to get her if he tells the truth. [1] Both times, a foreign king takes her as a wife (because, after all, she's not claimed!) and difficulties ensue. The torah doesn't endorse this behavior, but neither does it condemn it, and someone in our torah study yesterday pointed out that both times Avraham ends up richer as a result. (Of course, that's reward in this world, and the rabbis have things to say about rewards in this world versus the next. But I digress.)

That Avraham would so easily hand his wife over in either case is a problem. But the second incident is especially problematic for a few reasons. First, he's been down this path before, so the first incident didn't cause him to rethink the approach. Second, we are to believe that a man who rescued Lot from his captors, who was victorious in war, and who has found favor with God (not that he should rely on miracles) cannot protect his own wife? Third, he could have avoided the problem entirely; unlike in the first case where he had a specific reason to go to Egypt, in this case nothing in particular directed him to Avimelech's land; he could have gone anywhere in Cana'an. And, fourth and most important to me, this was clearly pre-meditated; the torah tells us that he told Sarah to agree to the ruse before they entered Avimelech's territory.

Someone at torah study argued that you do what you must to survive if it's not a violation of the "big three" (you can't commit murder, idolatry, or sexual immorality to save your life). But we are not talking about the case of bandits setting upon you from out of the blue and demanding your wife or they'll kill you, and you have to react in the moment without thinking things through. Against the possibility (not certainty) of this happening, Avraham plans a deception to give up his wife up front. I would have expected some of the commentaries to call him out on this.

Of course the torah shows us the patriarchs and other leaders as real people who make mistakes and don't always behave well. It's one of the things I like about the torah; we don't claim that everybody is a saint. So maybe the act is so obviously wrong that the commentaries don't feel the need to mention it -- we can learn the negative lesson without help? On the other hand, commentaries sometimes latch onto some pretty minor points. And it's not obvious to at least one person who was at torah study yesterday... hmm.

[1] Yes yes, I'm aware of his claim that she's actually his half-sister so that's not really a lie. Clearly his intent is to mislead and he is omitting a pretty important fact.

The torah calls for a daily meal-offering to be prepared by the high priest. The mishna on today's daf refers to this as griddle-cakes. The g'mara asks how they were cooked. R. Chiya b. Abba said in the name of R. Yochanan: they were baked in an oven first and then fried in oil. R. Assi said in the name of R. Chanina: they were first fried and then baked. Both men cite the same proof-text but disagree on its meaning. R. Dosa, apparently seeking a compromise, says they should be baked several times -- bake, then fry, then bake again. We also learn in today's g'mara that the dough was kneaded, shaped, baked, and fried daily, even overriding the restrictions of Shabbat. (50b)

(This offering was then completely burned (see Lev 6:12-15), so culinary experimentation to determine what would be most palatable to humans is of only tangential interest.)

A torah question: in this week's parsha God speaks to the whole congregation of Israel, rather than the more-usual case of speaking to Moshe (and optionally Aharon) and having them talk to the congregation. (Edit: no he doesn't; I mis-heard the torah reader. But he does say to speak to "kol eidat yisrael", all the congregation of Isreal, instead of the usual "b'nei yisrael" (children of Israel), so the distinction is still interesting.) Where else in torah does this happen? I'd appreciate answers or search-refinement clues ("congregation" in torah being rather noisy for this search). Thanks.

The Shabbat morning torah-study group has reached the part about S'dom and 'Amorah. I had brief access this week to the commentary by Nechama Leibowitz (must get myself a copy of that), which included a comment on Avraham's plea/challenge to God. He first asks "will you kill the righteous alongside the wicked?" and then asks God if He will really destroy the cities if (50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10) righteous people are found therein. I had not read these as two separate questions until Leibowitz pointed it out.

Ten righteous people are not found and the cities are destroyed, but Lot and his family are spared. (We don't know, because they aren't the POV characters in the story, if anybody else was spared from either city.) Mind, we're dealing with a pretty loose definition of "righteous" (more on that in a bit), but nonetheless God does not destroy the righteous alongside the wicked, even if there are not enough righteous to provide a safety net for the whole area. Read this way it seems clear that the judge of all does do justice (as Avraham challenged); sparing the cities entirely might be closer to mercy than strict justice.

I can't say anything about Lot's wife and daughters (about whom we learn almost nothing), but Lot seems to have some problems with righteous behavior. Perhaps it is the corrupting influence of the city he chose to live in; surely he had the opportunity to learn better while in Avraham's company, but he didn't learn enough to stay out of bad neighborhoods. Despite that he starts out well enough, escorting the visitors to his house and offering them food and shelter (though one person in our study group noted that he, unlike Avraham, was ready to push them out the next morning). When the mob arrives at his house he steps outside and closes the door behind him to protect those inside. So far, so good, but we all know what happens next -- he protect the visitors at the expense of his own family. Bzzt. A truly righteous person takes on risk himself rather than using others as a shield.

And yet, despite the reprehensible crime he committed against his daughters, Lot was allowed to escape. The things he got right were enough for the divine judge to allow him to survive this destruction, apparently. The world is not so black and white as we would sometimes like it to be.

This past shabbat's parsha, Vayakheil, describes the collection of materials that went into building the mishkan (the portable sanctuary). An appeal went out -- we need gold and silver and linen and "red and purple and blue" (dyes? wools?) and so on, and the people answered the call. Voluminously. Enough that Moshe had to call it off -- they had enough for what they needed now. (Where they got all this stuff is a different question.)

I've heard lots of comments (usually from synagogue treasurers and the like) about how this was the first successful fundraising campaign and would that we could be so fortunate when we need to raise money. I was thinking about this during the torah reading yesterday and found myself thinking that modern fund-raising would do well to follow the guidelines laid out in the parsha. Specifically:

1. There was a clear connection between the donations being requested and the goal that was being pursued. Everybody would be able to look at the product (the mishkan) and see how the donated materials were put to use. That's easier with goods than when everything is mediated through bank accounts, but I think many organizations can do better on this nonetheless -- starting by disclosing the costs of the fundraising (i.e. how much of my donation never makes it to its intended purpose?). In my own experience, when my congregation had a campaign several years ago toward building renovations, the board was very up-front about the planned renovations and the budget, and also that any excess would be placed in such-and-such fund for such-and-such purpose. Very open and up-front, and the donations came.

2. They asked for contributions at various levels. Not everybody can afford to give gold but some of them can give linen. They didn't say "ok, if all you can send is linen that's ok"; they asked for linen. The person making the donation could feel like a first-class donor. How many times has your donation to some charity been met with "can you do any more?" outweighing the "thank you so much for helping"? Great way to make donors feel valued, eh?

3. When they had enough they said so. This idea seems ludicrous to many fund-raisers I've spoken with -- they ask "why would you cut off donations if they're still giving?". I don't think you necessarily need to cut them off but you do need to be clear that you've met your goal. I experienced a blatant case of this problem some years ago: I was part of a group that was taking pledge calls, and when we were done and somebody asked about some discrepancies, they admitted that we had received more money in pledges than what they announced on-air as progress toward their goal (by quite a bit). They said they did this to keep the pressure on. I said that was dishonest and that was the last time I helped them.

Fund-raising is always going to be with us, and some of it will work well and some badly. The parsha urges us toward clear goals, valuing the donor no matter his contribution, and transparency to help it go well.

This morning we read about the birth of our greatest prophet, who miraculously survived at a time when an evil king had ordered newborn children killed, and who grew up to become a great leader after many trials.

Yes, today was parshat Sh'mot, the first five chapters of the book of Exodus.

Friday night we had a service to honor our congregation's veterans. It was very moving, including some memories from as far back as WWII. I was surprised to learn how many veterans we have, and those just the ones who responded to a request to self-identify. Seeing a good number of them there, some in uniform (or at least parts thereof), felt indescribably special.

* * *

Thought from the beit midrash (study session) after morning services: "sh'ma yisrael..." (ending "God is one") is a core tenet of Judaism and prominent in liturgy. We say this all the time. And toward the end of every service we say Aleinu, which says of the messianic era: on that day God will be one. I've wondered about the contradiction for a while and still have no answer after this discussion. Understanding this as "on that day everybody will finally agree that God is one" doesn't feel quite right to me. Does this bother anybody else?

* * *

I heard an excellent d'var torah from a fellow congregant Saturday that I've been meaning to write about, but this short note will have to do for now. The torah tells us that Yaakov loved Rachel pretty much right away, enough that he was willing to work an extra seven years to marry her after Lavan pulled a switch under the wedding canopy and slipped Leah in in Rachel's place. But the torah never actually gives us any reason to believe that she loved him. Did she? If she didn't love him, she might have been willing to help in that switch. The midrash says that she taught Leah the secret signs that she was supposed to make so that Yaakov would know it was here; the midrash's explanation of this is that Rachel was sparing Leah's honor, but another explanation might be possible as well. Interesting idea that had not occurred to me before.

If any of you have relevant knowledge or opinions, please chime in.

This week's portion is Sh'lach L'cha, which starts with the twelve men scouting out the land. In the end ten of them say this is a bad idea and the people believe them, which leads to that generation spending 40 years in the wilderness. The other two, Caleb and Yehoshua, say it's a good land and we should go, so they get to live to enter the land, but the rest of their generation won't make it.

At the beginning of the portion the twelve men are named with their tribes. In general these names follow the pattern "from the tribe of [tribe], [somebody] ben [somebody]", with (generally) the same trope (cantillation). There is one exception to the text pattern, and since tradition takes the precise wording of torah pretty seriously (and holds that there are no unnecessary words in torah), I wonder what it means.

The twelve tribes include the two "half-tribes" descended from Yosef. (Yaakov had 12 sons, but one is Levi who doesn't count in the 12, but another is Yosef whose portion split between his two sons, Efrayim and Manasheh, so 12 but not the original 12.) The text for the first is "from the tribe of Efrayim, Hoshea bin Nun" (he doesn't get renamed for a few more verses). The text for the second is "from the tribe of Yosef from the tribe of Manasheh, Gadi ben Susi". So why does Yosef get mentioned explicitly for one of them but not for the other? Is it just that Hoshea (Yehoshua) is a big name and everyone knows who he is? But this is about the tribe, not the individual...

By the way, these are the two who get non-standard trope, too. In the latter case there are extra words to be covered so the pattern used for the rest wouldn't work, but that's not true for Yehoshua. He gets different trope anyway. One might think it's foreshadowing of the outcome, except that Caleb doesn't get any special trope. (Poor Caleb; he's just as meritorious as Yehoshua, but Yehoshua gets most of the glory.)

This week was my congregation's annual shabbaton. I want more shabbatot like that. :-)

( Friday night )

( some Saturday activities )

( Pirke Avot and a question about Rabbi Akiva )

What I really love about the shabbaton is that it preserves the sense of Shabbat past the end of the schmoozing after the morning service. It's a full Shabbat, which I rarely get. Except in the winter I often find Shabbat afternoons hard; in the summer Shabbat doesn't end until 9 or 9:30 (or later, a couple times), but my community pretty much disbands by noon and we haven't really gotten the "lunch and songs and torah discussion for a few hours in someone's home" meme going. (I invite people occasionally and need to do more, but I'm not critical mass. And a couple people, including my rabbi, are allergic to cats, sigh.) So Shabbat afternoon usually feels pretty isolated and restrictive for me; I'm not finding that joy I'm supposed to, many weeks.

I've discussed this with my rabbi in the context of his desire to start summer Shabbat services (on Friday) even earlier for the sake of families; if Shabbat already drags for me when why would I want to add an hour or two to it? During a break at the shabbaton we talked some about this and I asked if he thought we could have the occasional gathering in the synagogue after morning services -- either brown-bag or someone organizes food in advance. He seems open to the idea (but doesn't want to organize it, which I wasn't asking him to), so I'll see what I can do about that. We could eat and sing and discuss things like Pirke Avot. :-) We do have a monthly beit midrash in that timeslot, but people who aren't interested in the day's topic leave, so I'd like to create something more open and free-form on some of the days when we don't have the beit midrash. We'll see what happens.

Some of us were discussing this week's parsha yesterday morning, specifically the incident where Esav sells Yaakov his birthright in exchange for some stew. The question is: was Yaakov behaving evilly, or was this ok (if un-brotherly)?

( Read more... )

I have book lust that I can't immediately satisfy. Imrei Madrich is a copy of the torah text that shows the root of every word. Because it's not always obvious, and it would be a big help. Google found me someone who wrote about it on a mailing list, but I haven't found anyone who's selling it yet. I guess I'll call the local Jewish bookstore and see what they can do for me. (Do any of you know this book? Should I be looking for it under a different name?)

Apropos of that, I love studying with both of my rabbis. It is so cool that I get to do this. With one (known as "my rabbi") I'm studying talmud (and occasional other stuff), and with the other I'm reading midrash in Hebrew and not completely sucking at translation. :-) (Though I still have a long way to go.)

Speaking of my congregation (sort of), we are having a talent show in January, and the song I'm writing/arranging for it seems to be going well. kayre rocks for giving me some really great feedback on the piano part. I was also trying to get a quartet together for a Salamone Rossi piece (the organizer encouraged me even though I'm doing the other thing), but altos (among congregants) seem to be particularly elusive at the moment, so that might not work out.

Also speaking of my congregation, we sell Giant Eagle gift cards at face value and get a cut. (I know other congregations do this too.) If you're local and inclined to help us out in this, and we see each other frequently enough for it to work out, I would be happy to turn your check made out to the congregation into gift cards. Just ask.

Speaking not at all about my congregation now, a question for the "Stargate: SG-1" fans out there: do we eventually get an explanation for why almost everyone on various distant worlds speaks English, or am I supposed to just ignore that? The conceit is that many of these folks are humans who were taken from Earth, but that was thousands of years ago. Just wondering, since this show doesn't bother with the conceit of a universal translator. (Which is fine, since the show that did didn't always use it correctly. :-) )

My rabbi is currently in Jerusalem, so I was asked to lead the torah study before the morning service. (That day's torah reader led the whole service, which worked well.) We're currently in the second chapter of Genesis (the group progresses a few verses a week; last time it took 20 years to get through and that's fine with us), so this week we talked about the special trees in Gan Eden.

I hadn't realized in advance that our primary chumash, Plaut, translates the one as "the tree of knowledge of everything". That seems pretty loose to me; the conventional translation is "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (or sometimes you see "bad"). There was a footnote: the translator understood "good and bad" as describing a spectrum, not binary choices. Interesting, but not really the focus of our conversation.

We talked some about how eating from the tree of life was permitted so long as they didn't eat from the other one, and that man (or Adam and Chava; not clear to me) could have been immortal but ignorant. I asked the group if there were things that it would be better we didn't know; is ignorance desirable? No one took up that argument; everyone was on board with chowing down on knowledge. (I am too, for the record, with the exception that there are things about individual people or communities I don't need/want to know. But I don't think that's what this is about.)

So what exactly is this "knowledge", anyway? Is it a moral knowledge, the identification that some things are "good" and some "bad" (and we should use that knowledge to moderate our behavior)? That is, is this the tree of ethics? Several people supported that view. Someone brought the Rambam (Maimonides) that it gave (if I understood this correctly) the will to set aside the best outcome for a desirable one. If I've got this right, the Rambam says that pre-fruit we were logical, taking the actions that were best for us, but eating from the tree brought free will into it (so this knowledge could only make things worse). So, according to the Rambam and to use a light example, it was only after eating the fruit that it was possible to say "I know this bowl of chocolate ice cream is bad for me but I'm going to eat it anyway"; previously, we wouldn't have eaten the ice cream.

The Ramban (Nachmanides) says that the "knowledge" is our inclinations; this is (again, if I understand correctly) where the yetizer tov (good inclination) and yetzer ra (bad inclination) come from. Before that, he says, the base state was for people to be good. I didn't get to push the conversation in that direction; that the base state is good rather than neutral seems controversial to me. Another time. (I won't be there next week, but I can send the suggestion along, maybe.)

Aside: the rabbis have quite a bit to say about the desirability of having the yeitzer ra in the world. We need it to be there but we're supposed to dominate it. (There's a midrash where people imprison and are going to kill the yeitzer ra, but there are bad consequences so they don't.)

You know what Rashi has to say about this tree? Absolutely nothing. That surprised me.

Other interesting things were said, but I haven't managed to retain them. Overall, I think the session went well. It was also a slightly larger group than normal, which is doubly surprising because when it's known my rabbi won't be there attendance usually drops off.

Apropos of nothing, I learned yesterday morning that another congregant is going to the kallah, so instead of driving myself I now have a ride. Nice! (I knew that her daughter's family was going; the husband is in the ALEPH rabbinic program so he pretty much has to. But that means he's staying another week after the kallah, so I didn't try to hook up with them. Turns out the whole gang is going, everyone but him is coming back after the kallah, and he's finding his own way back a week later.)

Last Thursday after morning services the rabbi was telling me about a d'var torah on parshat Kedoshim, which begins "you shall be holy". The d'var (which I found online after he emailed me a copy of it) talks about the concept of the "naval birshut ha-torah", the one who is (essentially) a rogue within the domain of the torah. That is, you can fulfill the letter of the law and still be doing bad things; "kedoshim tih'yu" (you shall be holy) calls on us to do more than what's strictly required.

(Which, ok, raises the question that if it's the torah telling us this, then isn't that really within the scope of the black-letter law to begin with? But I digress.)

Anyway, the reason we were having this conversation is that the author of the d'var torah, Rabbi Artson at the Ziegler School, talks a lot about a guy named Naval who wasn't a nice person. The phrase "naval birshut ha-torah" originally comes from the Ramban (Nachmanides), who probably didn't use capitalization (Hebrew doesn't), and (according to the rabbi with whom I was speaking) the word "naval" has the more general meaning of a rogue or cheat or the like. So the question arose: was the Ramban talking about Naval or a naval? I don't have the correct references available; if someone reading this does, please speak up.

Why does it matter? If the Ramban meant Naval, then it might -- within the letter of the law :-) -- be correct to draw more specific conclusions about behaviors that are not in keeping with "you shall be holy". Anything Naval did would be included, but for other negative behaviors, you would have to make an argument tying them to Naval indirectly somehow. On the other hand, if we're talking about a naval, then broader interpretation is called for from the start.

In one sense it doesn't matter; I strive to go beyond the letter of the law and be a better person than I "have" to be no matter what the Ramban meant. But I'm still curious about what he actually meant and what his context was.

Things noticed in this Shabbat's torah portion:

1. When Israel's leaders go up on the mountain for their group encounter with God, the torah tells us that Aharon's sons Nadav and Avihu are in the group. Aharon has two other sons who are not included. Later on (in parshat Sh'mini) Nadav and Avihu are going to have a fatal problem when they offer "alien fire" (eish zarah) in the mishkan. This leads me to wonder about connections between this encounter and that event. Did the encounter with God make them over-confident, leading them to think that they could innovate in the mishkan? Or is it that someone else doing so wouldn't have generated such a harsh response, but because they had had a direct encounter with God they were changed in some way (or should have known better)? (This also raises the question of just what happened in the mishkan -- was God punishing them, or was their zapping an uncontrolled and unfortunate consequence of "playing with fire"? Either is possible; I personally lean toward the latter.)

2. The rabbi at the Thursday-morning minyan pointed this one out to me (and he doesn't know why either). 21:12 is usually translated "if one person fatally strikes another..." (the killer is put to death). The verb that's translated "fatally strike" is "makeh", which is sometimes translated "smite". A few verses later (21:15) we get another case of "makeh", this time translated "whoever strikes (or injures) his mother or father..." (is put to death). Ok, so why is the former strike fatal and the latter not when it's the same word? And in the Hebrew, isn't the latter case a subset of the former? "Makeh" someone and be put to death, or "makeh" a parent and be put to death -- this is already covered. There is a tradition that there are no unnecessary words in the torah; is that how we end up with the first being fatal and the second not? Did they need to understand the general case as being more severe to differentiate it? (Insert reminder here that every translation is a commentary...)

I chanted torah and gave the d'var torah yesterday. (I'll post the d'var separately.) I read the Akeidah, the binding of Yitzchak, which is a challenging passage.

The text itself is pretty sparse: God decides to test Avraham, telling him to offer up his son Yitzchak as a burnt offering in a land some distance away. Avraham gets up in the morning, gathers what he'll need, and heads off with Yitzchak and two servant-boys. Three days pass and then they arrive. Avraham tells the servants "wait here and we'll return". Avraham and Yitzchak head up together, and Yitzchak asks "err, dad, where's the lamb?" and Avraham dodges. Avraham builds an altar and binds Yitzchak on it, and just as he's about to slaughter his son an angel cries out "stop!". Avraham sees a ram and offers it instead. The angel then tells Avraham that he'll be rewarded through his descendants -- they'll be as numerous as the stars or as grains of sand on the shore, they'll possess the gates of their foes, and everyone will be blessed through them. Avraham then heads back to the servants (Yitzchak is not mentioned) and they leave for Be'er Sheva, where Avraham will live.

It says somewhere in the talmud that a sage who can't find 150 reasons for a beetle to be kosher is no sage at all. I don't have 150 interpretations of the Akeidah, but I can see more than one. Here's the one I brought out in my chanting:

God gives this command. Avraham reluctantly heads off to comply; God gives him three days to stew over it (either to be sure or to bail). Yitzchak questions him and, with tears in his eyes, he says "God's in charge". Once they arrive and things are set in motion, though, Avraham's approach changes: it's like pulling the big sticky bandage off your skin; you can try to do it slowly and make things worse, or you can just grit your teeth and yank. I read it as Avraham gritting his teeth and trying to get it over with, which is why the angel had to rush in (calling from heaven instead of arriving) and had to call Avraham's name twice. After a tense moment, Avraham snaps out of it and says "yes?". For the first time Avraham looks up and sees the ram, which he offers up in place of his son, while Yitzchak sits by, stunned. The angel gives his promise, Yitzchak bolts, and Avraham returns alone, knowing he can't go home to his wife now.

Last time I read it I read it differently, and presumably next time will be different too. Torah is like that.

Even though I made some mistakes and had to be corrected, I think this went pretty well and I got lots of compliments. People appreciated the effort I put into reading it interpretively. (They didn't have the text in front of them, so I gave a summary and some keywords to listen for in advance.) I'd like to be able to share that reading with interested friends, though I'm not sure how to do that usefully for folks not fluent in Hebrew. If I produced an audio file, is there an easy way to turn it into a video with "subtitles" timed to the chanting?

We had a visiting rabbi this morning. (Not known in advance and not official; this was a relative of a member of the minyan.) I noticed that she was very quietly chanting along with me. Alas, she and her family left right after the service, so I didn't get a chance to talk with her. It did strike me that, usually accidentally, the more-knowledgeable-than-most-laypeople visitors tend to show up disproportionately on my weeks. Hmm. (It's not always accidental; there was one time we were having a visiting cantor who declined the offer to chant the portion, and consensus was that I was the congregant least likely to freak.)

The torah uses different names for God in different places, with the most common being Elo[k]im and the tetragramaton (yud - hey - vav - hey). When I've been paying attention they've been distinct -- the first creation story is the E-name, the revelation at Sinai is the Y-name, and so on.

In preparing this week's portion (specifically the binding of Yitzchak) I've noticed something odd. The God who commands Avraham to sacrifice his son is the E-name, and Avraham uses that name when he tells Yitzchak that God will provide the sacrificial animal (there's some nice ambiguity here, but that's a tangent). Then, when the angel intervenes, it's suddenly an angel of the Y-name, and Avraham names the place "awe of Y-name".

Is the mingling of these two names in a single passage common and I haven't been paying enough attention? Is it uncommon but random/not meaningful? Uncommon but meaningful in some way?

Monica

keep the training wheels

Mi Yodeya celebration

environmental themes in Genesis

(religion) blog pointer

link round-up

a few links

shabbaton

how have I not known about this before now?

the binding of Yitzchak, and the redemption from Egypt

Miriam's affliction

Avraham's "sister" Sarah

daf bit: Menachot 50, and a question

S'dom

a torah thought on fundraising

Saturday, December 25

Shabbat short takes

a question on this week's portion

Shabbaton

the lentil-stew incident

random bits

what's that tree in the middle of the garden?

beyond the letter of the law

questions on parshat Mishpatim

interpreting Vayeira

hmm, never noticed that before

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