Reading Eicha for Tisha B’Av

In observance of Tisha B’Av, which is next Tuesday, July 16, TILT will explore Eicha (Lamentations):

• the structure of the five chapters of the book,
• the trope used for chanting it—the most beautiful of all the tropes, in my opinion,
• the rules and customs of fast days and the days before,
• the calamities that have occurred on this day,
• the concluding verse of the Shabbat Torah service,
• and more,
• including the text of Lamentations.

The Temple Israel Library has several copies of the five megillot / scrolls, most with some commentary either before each book or at the bottom of each page.

Check them out!

Receiving Revelation

What happened at Mt. Sinai? Who was there? How does it affect us here today? I find the contrast between the Shavuot Torah reading (Exodus 19 and 20) and Haftarah (Ezekiel 1:1-28, 3:12) revealing. The Torah reading focuses on the Ten Commandments—a short, straightforward list of things to do or not do—while the Haftarah is Ezekiel’s vision of indescribable heavenly creatures. While visions inspire us, we also need guidance about how to live the rest of time. Or, while intense moments are wonderful, we also need a way to connect during ordinary, everyday moments. Do the Ten Commandments provide that for you?

What about the 613 commandments that may have been given at Sinai? Where does that number come from? One nice Midrash explains that it is the sum of the number of days in a year plus the number of bones in a human body; in other words, you should obey the mitzvot / connect to God completely all the time. As to who was there, I like the idea that all Jews of all times—that means me now—were standing at Sinai. In fact, I believe that the Sinai experience is the moment when we become a Jewish people. I want to explain this further on Wednesday. I hope you can make it.

A Midrash on the Akeda

This week’s recommended book is Mordecai Gerstein’s The White Ram: A Story of Abraham and Isaac. It is the winner of the 2007 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner for Younger Children given by the Association of Jewish Libraries. But, although it is a beautifully illustrated, colorful picture book, it deals with an adult topic: How can a just God–the Hebrew of Genesis 22:1 refers to a God of Justice, not of Mercy–ask anyone to kill someone? In particular, how can God ask Abraham to kill Isaac? One answer is that God made arrangements way in advance so that Abraham would not kill his son. Gerstein’s book looks at the Midrash about the ram who was created on the sixth day of Creation to act as Isaac’s replacement. How much more in advance can you get? (The first tongs are said to have been created then as well. After all, if you need tongs to make tongs, then how else could the first ones have been made?)

Some midrashim answer questions that the text raises; the above story shows that God is good, in spite of what the text might seem to say. Sometimes, a midrash uses the text to give meaning to a contemporary problem. We plan to discuss in this week’s TILT (Temple Israel Library Talks) some of the midrashim of the Middle Ages in which Isaac is killed by Abraham and why Jews of that time needed this interpretation. Join us in the library on Wednesday, November 9, at 1:30 pm.

TILT – balancing opposites

I’ve begun a series of discussions on most Wednesdays at 1:30 pm in the library at Temple Israel. They are called TILT, for Temple Israel Library Talks. Their main objectives are to have fun playing with stories, learn from each other, and spark conversation.

We usually look at several versions of folktales, both secular and Jewish, and see how they are different. Especially how the Jewish versions differ from the secular ones, because that tells us something about Judaism. I use picture books a lot because I like them. I enjoy the pictures, which can be beautiful, and the way in which the illustrations tell their own version of the story in the book. Since picture books are short, no preliminary reading is required. As one quickly discovers, many of these books have much more to say to adults than to children.

This week, I’m looking at Lilith and Eve. The Bible has two Creation stories. In the first, God creates man (ha-adam) as male and female. In the second, God creates man, (ha-adam), and then creates woman to complement him. Are these two different descriptions of the same story? Or was there a first woman, say Lilith, and a second woman, whom Adam named Eve? And if the latter, then what happened to Lilith?

Lilith and Eve are traditionally opposites. Lilith is a demonic destroyer of children and Eve a nurturing mother. Or Lilith is the outspoken equal of Adam and Eve is meekly subservient. There are many kinds of opposites.

After a brief explanation of the sources in which Lilith is mentioned, I want to explore stories in which opposites are featured, particularly those in which an Adam chooses (between) a Lilith and an Eve. Jane Eyre comes quickly to mind. A more complex set of relationships occurs with Jacob and Esau and their parents. There’s Vashti and Esther. Cain and Abel. Odile and Odette. Like Ko-Ko in The Mikado, I have a little list, but the task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you. Please join the conversation, either virtually here or really in person.

Some Thoughts on the Adekah (Genesis 22:1-19)

Vayalchu sh’nahem yahdav…. Vayalchu sh’nahem yahdav.

(And they went on, the two of them, together…. And they went on, the two of them, together.)

These three words, redundant by themselves, bracket the verse in which Isaac asks where the burnt offering is and Abraham answers,” G-d will see to a lamb for an offering, my son.” So why the double redundancy?

Vayalchu would suffice: They went on. It does not require sh’nahem [the two of them]. No one else is around, only the two of them. And then, why yahdav [together]? Of course they are together: Abraham has already said that he is taking the boy up the mountain with him.

Maybe the two of them are acting as one; after all, yahdav and ehad (one) have the same root. There is a movement from the general to the particular, from many-the verb is plural-to two people to a unity. (And vayalchu and halacha have the same root; we could do a nice d’rash about Jewish law as a unifying force. But that’s not what I want to talk about.)

Okay, Abraham and Isaac are together. But why repeat this immediately after the next verse? What has changed to require this repetition? Isaac now knows what is about to be done to him! He has figured out Abraham’s word play: he, Isaac, is the lamb that will be provided. Whatever the two of them together meant before Isaac learns the meaning of his trip, it now must mean much more.

How does Isaac react? By staying with Abraham. Why? He could have run away. He could have laughed or screamed; his name suggests laughter and shouting. He could have tried to kill Abraham before Abraham tried to kill him. Perhaps he does these things. Maybe the fire mentioned at the beginning of the trip and not later was put out in the struggle.

All that the text tells us is that finally he remains with his father. To argue his case? To submit willingly? Tradition says he submitted eagerly. I prefer to think he stayed, hoping to persuade Abraham that all of this was terribly wrong and to give Abraham the chance to not do it.

What is the final outcome? Abraham does not alter his course. He fails the test. G-d never talks to Abraham again. Abraham does not bless his son; G-d must do it. Abraham’s descendants do not become a Jewish people until Sinai, when a multitude becomes one by accepting Halacha (but I said I wasn’t going to talk about that).

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My Fractals Theory of the Bible

Fractals, which were all the rage several years ago, are geometric objects that are self-similar at all orders of magnitude. Sort of like broccoli, or trees, or coastlines. One way to get a fractal is to start with an equilateral triangle. Divide each edge in three and replace the middle third with a triangle to get a Jewish star. Repeat with the new shape. Continue doing this ad infinitum. At any given spot on the border, you have a line divided in thirds with a point sticking out of the middle. Some of the jagged triangles that make up the border of this shape are bigger than others, but they all look similar to each other.

Anyway, my theory is that the Bible is about leaving one place for a new one. The Torah is, at one order of magnitude, about the Jewish people leaving Egypt to wander in the wilderness. On a smaller scale, the first book of the Torah and Bible, Genesis, or B’reishit in Hebrew, is, in large part, about Abraham and his family going from his homeland to wander in Egypt and settle in Israel. The first Torah portion of B’reishit, also called B’reishit, deals, on an even smaller scale, with two individuals, Adam and Eve, who are banished from Eden. On the other hand, the very first sentence, which starts with the word, B’reishit, on as big a scale as is possible, tells of the creation of the heavens and the earth. The mystics say that Creation cannot happen until God withdraws himself from a space to leave room for the world. The reasons and the terms may vary–Yitziat Mitzrayim, Lech Lecha, Vayeshalchehu, tzimtzum, but they are all about withdrawing from where one is.

In our own lives, we are also always on the move. Babies move from the Eden-like comfort of a world that exists only for them into one in which they are no longer the center of the universe. Children leave home to go to school, adults move from known relationships to new ones. The trick is to work to make the new place in your life into an Eden, to recognize that we will always move on, and that we need to allow space for others to make their own way in the world.*

* This insight on tzimtum is from Rabbi Michael Mellon, a Reform rabbi at YouthCon 2011, which I recently attended.

The Whole Megillah

 Last week’s recommended book is the Book of Esther, also known as Megillat Esther  or the Scroll of Esther or the Megillah (even though there are four other Biblical scrolls). It can be found in several books in our library, such as The Five Scrolls (1984), edited by Herbert Bronstein, illustrated by Leonard Baskin, and available in normal size for borrowing and extra large for perusing. Or, to see Esther alongside everything else in the Bible, sit in a comfy chair  and read from the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh: The Traditional Hebrew Text and the New JPS Translation (1999) in the Reference Section of the library.

I grew up using a booklet  for the Purim evening service with the Megillah in Hebrew and what I thought was the entire English translation. In fact, pictures 

Esther Chapter 9

 replace some of the words. Clearly, the editors were really uncomfortable with what the text really says. 

Why? Is it the violence? The fact that Jews are responsible for it? Does it interfere with the image we want the world to see? The image we want to have of ourselves? Is it to protect the children? Why do we change so many Jewish observances and stories to make them suitable for children and, in so doing, diminish their power and meaning for adults?

Purim is about living in a secular world with people who want to kill us and celebrating our killing lots of them instead. It also celebrates our being saved from being killed. As I learned at a National Havurah Institute course on the Purim-Tisha B’Av axis, Purim is a troubling holiday because nothing changes. Mordechai becomes Haman: he not only takes over Haman’s job and estate, but also his desire to kill enemies. We remain in exile and the Temple is still destroyed. There is no real redemption. We need to take back this holiday from our children and discuss the nature of evil, political power, women’s rights, sex trafficking [1], national and community leadership, see what should be celebrated and what should be rethought and then get drunk. I hope you had a happy Purim.

[And another thing:

[And another thing or two:

• I learned from Sam Steinberg of the Midrasha Institute in West Caldwell, NJ, that someone suggested to him that the story of Esther was originally a play. This explains why the king rushes out when he hears the dreadful news that his trusted advisor is planning on having his new queen killed—it’s so that he can rush in to find Haman falling on Esther as he pleads with her for his life. Another reason: The king can’t sleep and wants to honor Mordecai; Haman can’t sleep and shows up at exactly the right time to suggest how to honor someone. Coincidence?

o        I’ve quoted my source here because in Pirke Avot 6:6, an unattributed(!!!) source says that quoting your sources brings deliverance to the world and the prooftext, “And Esther said … in the name of Mordecai,” is from Esther 2:22.

·          It’s not just Esther’s beauty that gets her to be queen. Her behavior impresses the government servants around her; I always figured they liked her enough to help her become queen.

·          And what happens to the losers of the contest? It seemed to me that these young women are locked away for the rest of their lives.

]