The Other in The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic by Gila Fine: A Lesson for 2025

I haven't posted in nearly a year, which is wild because I used to post every few days or at the very least every week. That's life, I guess, with its seasons and struggles and priorities. 

I pondered posting something on Instagram, because that's where I live these days, but the format just didn't fit the content, so here I am. 

I recently started reading The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud by Gila Fine, and I'm really enjoying not only the content but how it's written. Although I've only finished the introduction and the first chapter, I wanted to share some of what I've read because the introduction presented something so incredibly beautiful that I feel is hyper relevant to the polarized world we're currently living in where everyone is an Other. 

But first, Gila Fine has a footnote as she discusses the difference between what we find in the rabbinic literature. There is halacha, which is Jewish law, and there is aggada, which is the narratives or "stories." Basically, everything you find in the Talmud that isn't halacha is aggada. Fine says (emphasis my own),

"... there is a whole range of aggadic sub-genres: midrash and rabbinic legends and philosophical inquiry and parables and sermons and folktales and epigrams and jokes. But it is not just a multiplicity of form that defines aggada, it is also a multiplicity of content: from the lofty discussions of metaphysics and theology to small, everyday tales of friendship and family, food and money, study and sex. Herein is the profound humanism of the rabbis; nothing is deemed too trivial or mundane to be the subject of a rabbinic story. In aggada, everything is included because everything is important; everything is meaningful, everything carries a lesson to be learned." 

And it's the footnote to this that really hit me. It comes from Rosemary Radford Ruether:

"Classical Judaism produced a literature which looks at first sight like someone's grandmother's attic in which endless quantities of curious things which 'might someday come in handy' have been passed down like so many balls of string lovingly collected over the years and piled on top of each other without apparent concern for distinctions between wieghy and trivial matters ... This apparent jumble of piety and trivia is the medium of the rabbinic message which is the effort to penetrate every corner of ordinary life with God's presence ... "

I've always held to the understanding that everything we need to live our lives is contained in Jewish literature, but that not everything was relevant at the time of composition, but "might someday come in handy" when the time is right and the situation makes sense. It's how we have modern medicine, electrical devices that work on Shabbat, and so much more. I just loved this image of the attic brimming with everything you need at the exact time you need it. 

Okay, now let's roll back to the Other. In referencing how the heroines of the Talmud fit into a specific group (the second one in the following quote), Gila Fine says,

"The relationship with the Other is one of the central themes of rabbinic narrative. Indeed, it's been suggested that the stories of the Talmud all fall into one of two categories: those that show the gap between man and God is smaller than we think, and those that show that the gap between man and man is greater than we imagine."

Wow wow wow. I mean wow. Reread that quote. Do you see it? This is true more now than ever. She goes on to explain how we respond to the Other when they don't see things as we do. Gila Fine is really focusing on what the Talmud has to say and how we react when the Talmud doesn't see things as we do, but I think these responses are ridiculously appropriate for how humans in 2025 view the Other who isn't them. 

I'm going to summarize her take on these responses to the Other here:

• Rejection: We are too different and disagree on too much. This relationship can never be. 
• Accommodation: We're clearly very different, even divergent, but I want this relationship so badly I will change everything about myself to make it work. 
• Subjection: We're different, so if you want this relationship, you have to change everything about yourself. 
• Negotiation: We're very different, and there's a lot we disagree about, but this relationship is something we both want, so I'll come with my opinions and you with yours; we'll figure out a way to make it work. 

Now, she's really relating this to how we read the Talmud. She says some blanketly reject the Talmud, while others (particularly on the right) Accommodate and lose their identity in favor of the text. Still, others (particularly on the left) use Subjection by misreading what's in the Talmud based on contemporary thought. The best approach, she says, is Negotiation: 

"We must give full voice to our beliefs and our biases, and let the Talmud speak its own (for we are no less conditioned by the 21st century than the Talmud is by Antiquity)."

But when I read this ... I saw so much of the way people exist today, in 2025. There is no Negotiation today in our polarized world. 

 

People talk at each other rather than with each other, or avoid the conversation entirely, resulting in complete and utter Rejection of those who are unlike oneself. 

Others have gone out of their way for Accomodation, becoming "politically correct" to the point of embracing the most dangerous and illogical opinions and supporting terror organizations. 

Some have resorted to Subjection to get their way, convincing friends, family, and perfect strangers that the only path forward is to embrace what they believe or else. 

What happened to Negotiation? Our differences are what make the world a beautiful, complex, and fascinating place to exist. Humans aren't a monolith. If HaShem wanted a world of copy/paste humans, he would've done exactly that. We're all created in G-d's image, and if that's the case, then our differences are as godly as HaShem. We should celebrate and cherish those differences, not expect others to change who they are or change ourselves based on agendas that aren't our own. 

At any rate, I really hope this made sense, and I would really, really love to hear what you think in the comments. I can't wait to read the rest of this book, particularly because of how much was held in the introduction and how the chapter on Yalta revealed some fascinating insights that I wouldn't have considered. 

May 5786 be a year of happiness, health, love, and truth!

Ari Fuld, and Living it All on Loan

There is a Midrash on Proverbs 31:10, and it goes like this:

Beruriah was the learned and compassionate wife of Rabbi Meir. While Rabbi Meir was teaching on a Shabbat afternoon, both of his sons died from the plague that was affecting their city. When Rabbi Meir returned home, he asked his wife, “Where are our sons?” She handed him the cup for havdalah and he said the blessing. Again he asked, “Where are our sons?” She brought food for him, and he ate. When he had finished eating, Beruriah said to her husband, “My teacher, I have a question. A while ago, a man came and deposited something precious in my keeping. Now he has come back to claim what he left. Shall I return it to him or not?” Meir responded, “Is not one who holds a deposit required to return it to its owner?” So she took his hand and led him to where their two children lay. He began to weep, crying “My sons, my sons.” She comforted him, “The Lord gave, the Lord took. Y’hei sh’mei rabah mevorach, May the Name of the Lord be blessed…”

I bookmarked the discussion of this particular midrash this past Shabbat as I finished up If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan. It felt so powerful to me, the discussion of how all that we have is merely on loan from HaShem. 

Even further is a discussion in the sixth chapter of Berachot over the blessings over foods. At once it attempts to reconcile the fact that "the heavens are the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the earth and its inhabitants" (Psalms 24:1) and that "the heavens belong to God and the earth was given to men" (Psalms 115:16). While later Rabbi Hanina bar Papa says, "All who benefit from this world without first staying blessing are as if they are stealing from the Holy One Blessed Be He" (35b).

The reconciliation for this, Rabbi Levi explains, is that everything in the world belongs to HaShem, but the moment we make a blessing, it's on loan to us. 

This discussion was so powerful to me, so potent because I struggle intensely with making berachot. One of the things that drew me to Judaism was the level of 100-percent consciousness that is required of the Torah-observant Jew. So I marked this page, it made so real the idea that all that we have is on loan from HaShem, we only need make a bracha, a blessing, in order to take pleasure of it, to enjoy it, to truly be able to cherish something -- or someone. 

And then, this morning, I awoke exhausted after going to bed around 1:30 a.m., turned on my phone, and started looking through my news feed. The first thing I saw? A distant friend, someone who helped me greatly when I made aliyah, someone who was a Lion of Zion, someone who would lay his life down for any person who was on the right side of history ... had been murdered, viciously, by a Palestinian terrorist at the very place I used to go to buy groceries or get a coffee many times every week. My immediate reaction was that I had to be mistaken. Ari, Ari who basically spends 24/7 -- or spent -- at that place in Gush Etzion speaking with soldiers and providing them with chizuk and food and other special gifts from his fundraising -- couldn't have been murdered. He was a soldier. He knew that place inside and out. And yet, there he was. There was the video. The video of him being stabbed by a vicious animal -- not a human, not anyone I would remotely call a human -- and then chasing after him, poised, shooting at the savage, and then collapsing backwards. 

There's something about watching a friend, someone you know, someone who you watch regularly from a distance be murdered ... that just crushes every possible understanding and love you have for life. For Israel. 

And then, as the day went on, and I fought between anger and tears and confusion and the question, "Could I ever take children back to that place?" And then I thought about what I'd bookmarked on Shabbat. About how this life is just on loan from HaShem, and we have to be grateful and send out as many blessings as we can every moment of every day to keep these lives and all that are part of them on loan. For it's all we have. 

Marriage: The Law in the Custom

For the first time in what seems like a long time, I have a lot of blog posts in mind that don't involve pulling from the Ask Chaviva Anything! log of inquiries and curiosities. A lot of this is probably because of pending nuptials (whoa, getting married in just a few days!), but also because I feel like with the move to Neve Daniel I'm in a more curious and settled head space than I have been for a while now. So where do I begin?

On Friday, Mr. T and I bumped into several people over the course of the morning in Neve Daniel, which I'm sure raised some eyebrows. Why?

Traditionally, the week leading up to a religious Jewish couple's wedding the two don't see neither hide nor hair of their betrothed. On the day of the wedding, there traditionally is fasting and more not seeing, even before the actual chuppah itself. The keyword here is "traditionally."

The first time I got married, my ex and I didn't see each other the week before the wedding, which created a lot of entertaining choreography as we were staying in the same city, and pretty much the same house but on different levels. On the day of the wedding, we didn't see each other up until the point of picture taking, at which time we decided that it made sense to see each other.

Although Mr. T and I have decided that the day of the wedding we won't be seeing each other, we concluded -- after some research and investigation into the whole "not seeing each other thing -- that we're going to let minhagim be minhagim (traditions) and not stress out about avoiding each other during the week before the wedding.

I know what you're thinking: Catastrophe! Disaster! Shanda! But hold your horses. What would you do if I told you that the basis for this tradition is not in halakah (Jewish law)? What about the fact that Sephardim don't even observe this custom?

Yes, friends, shocker time. The whole avoidance pre-wedding is a tradition that has some shady and unclear origins, ranging from medieval fears of bad luck to the fact that most religious people just weren't in the same place the week up to the wedding (and in most cases, the months up to the wedding after the engagement).

You can read the entire megillah on this topic over at the OU, but I'll give you the rundown quickly here.

This custom seems to date back to as early as 1228, but in Jerusalem it was introduced in the early 1700s. The main reasons cited by poskim for why a couple shouldn't see each other in the week leading up to the wedding are that forced separation builds excitement and that it decreases the likelihood of premarital relations (seriously?), but also that it can be a tense period of time in which strife could arise and the wedding could be called off as a result of stress, tension, and arguments (“There is no marriage contract that does not contain a quarrel,” Shabbat 130a). After watching a few episodes of Bridezillas, this makes gobs of sense, but it also doesn't explain why in most religious circles this has become the required "law." Where exactly does it all come from?

Let's start with this interesting morsel.

"In a footnote, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (Made in Heaven, [New York, 1983], p. 67) cites two other works that mention the custom, and then states that the source for the custom may be YD 192:1, the section that deals with dam chimud ... [which is the] concern that meeting the chatan [groom] may cause the kallah [bride]to have a discharge that could invalidate the shivah nekiyim (seven clean days before going to the mikvah)."

Both Rabbi Kaplan and Rabbi Binyomin Forst find this tie suspect at best, because the Talmud requires that upon accepting a marriage proposal or setting a wedding date that she might discharge blood as a result of the excitement (talk about a complete lack of understanding about the female body, am I right?). Even if this were to happen, she's still required to observe seven "clean days" prior to the wedding, so unless she's getting engaged and married seven days later, there's no concern here (also, because, you know, women don't bleed when they get excited). 

In Sefer Minhagim: The Book of Chabad-Lubavitch Customs, the footnote simply cites letters from the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the basis for the tradition. However, 

"Nitei Gavriel, a recent, comprehensive source of customs, does not mention this practice, but records that around one hundred years ago, there was a custom in Jerusalem of the bride and groom going together to famous rabbis to get their blessings during the week before the wedding (Hilchot Nisuin, p. 55, in the name of Sdei Chemed, Ma’arechet Chatan Vekallah, 22)."

The reality is that halakah requires that a bride and groom must see each other before the wedding, which makes this custom kind of strange even at its very roots. Even Ravs Moshe Feinstein and Aharon Soloveichik advocated for not letting this custom serve as an inconvenience to couples prior to the wedding. 

So what did you do when getting married, or what do you plan on doing when you get married? Did you realize just how custom-y this was, or have you always assumed it was halakah? 

Parshah Ki Tavo: Are You Listening?

A modern photograph by Roie Golitz | "Shofar"

"Before he began his lesson to the scholars," says the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 30b), "Rabba used to say a joking word, and the scholars were amused. After that, he sat in dread, and began the lesson."

So the rabbis did have a sense of humor. But is something like the following passage humorous, or just ridiculous? I mean, it does include a "Why does the chicken ..." question.

Rabbi Zera encountered Rabbi Yehuda standing by the door of his father-in-law’s house. He observed that Rabbi Yehuda was in a very cheerful mood and understood that if he asked him the secrets of the universe, he would tell him. Rabbi Zera asked: Why do the goats go first at the head of the flock and then the sheep? Rabbi Yehuda replied: It is in accordance with the creation of the world. First there was darkness and then there was light [the goats are dark colored and the sheep are white]. Rabbi Zera asked: Why do the sheep have [thick] tails which cover them, and the goats do not have tails which cover them? He answered: Those with whose material we cover ourselves [i.e., wool of sheep] are themselves covered, while those with whom we do not cover ourselves are themselves not covered. Rabbi Zera asked: Why does a camel have a short tail? He answered: Because the camel eats thorns [and a long tail would get entangled in the thorns]. Rabbi Zera asked: Why does an ox have a long tail? He answered: Because it grazes in the marshland and has to chase away the gnats with its tail. Rabbi Zera asked: Why are the antennae of locust soft [i.e., flexible]? He replied: Because it dwells among willows and if the antenna were hard it would be broken off when it bumped against trees and the locust would go blind. For Shmuel said: If one wishes to blind a locust, let him remove its antennae. Rabbi Zera asked: Why is the chicken’s lower eyelid bent upwards? He answered: Because it lives on the rafters, and if smoke entered its eyes it would go blind. (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 77b)

I spent a lot of time mulling over this week's parshah when I was preparing to offer up learning for my awesome coworkers yesterday. I was torn between the discussion in Torah Studies adapted by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson about why the text specifically mentions Egypt and Laban when discussing the first fruits.

“And you shall speak and say before the L-rd your G-d: ‘An Aramite destroyed my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number … And the L-rd brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand … And he has brought us into this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now behold I have brought the first-fruit of the land which You, O L-rd, have given me ...’ ”

The Aramite being Laban and Egypt being, well, Egypt. The discussion surrounds why these two specific instances are mentioned above all the other tragedies that were befallen by the Israelites. It all comes down to those being to instances where total destruction was a promise, but also moments in which we were "permanently settled" in a land that was not ours. You see, the first fruits offering is meant for when we're dwelling in the land that HaShem gave us. Because during these two narratives we were settled but not in Israel -- compared to the other tragedies that befell us during the wandering -- these two hold a significant place in us needing to remember those times when we were not where we were supposed to be. It's a gnarly concept, and you can read more about it here. 

But for me, I ended up focusing on something incredibly simple that we probably overlook that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks didn't overlook. There is no word in Torah meaning "to obey." Judaism is not a religion of blind obedience, despite what many thing and the way that many profess to live their lives Jewishly. The word in Torah that often is used when HaShem is saying "hey, you, do this or else" is "to hear" or l'shmoah. And what a perfect time of year for this parshah, right? We're commanded in the month of Elul to hear the voice of the shofar, because it is the closest thing we can get these days to truly hearing the "voice of G-d." 

The question is ... If HaShem is not demanding that we obey, but rather that we simply hear, what does that mean for us in the scheme of things? 

We talked for about a half-hour at our staff meeting yesterday about this concept, and the best way for me to approach it is this: We're commanded to listen to HaShem. To hear HaShem. We're invited to be active participants in this world, to really think about the reasons and the words that we're given in the Torah. And when we make that choice to really listen, we see that so many of the 613 mitzvoth are about ethics, values, and morality. They're not as distant and strange as we might think they are -- the problem is that we don't take the time to listen, examine, and explore. 

And, I also pointed out, the problem today is that so many Jews do listen -- but not to Hashem. So many Jews choose to listen, but instead to intermediaries that would wish to send them down the wrong path, a path where the listening comes second-hand. I say this in regards to the Haredi and to the most secular of Jews. 

We are commanded as individuals to listen to HaShem. To process, consider, evaluate, to truly be active in life, in this experience of Judaism. Are you listening? 

Converts: Like a Skin Lesion

If you haven't purchased Bnei Avraham Ahuvecha: Gerim in Chassidic Thought. Do it. Seriously. Stop fiddling and twiddling and get inspired, please? I'm going to highlighting something interesting that I read in this book off and on, and I hope it encourages you to get a copy of your own.

There is a common statement from our Sages that raises a lot of eyebrows. In Tractate Niddah 13b, Rashi attempts to explain this passage, but let's be honest, he doesn't really make things any better.

'Gerim are as difficult for the Jewish people as sapachas' (קשים גרים לישראל כספחת) because [being as they weren't raised as Jews] they are not sufficiently knowledgeable of G-d's commandments, and this lack of meticulousness can bring punishments to the Jewish people -- moreover, they can negatively influence the Jewish population in general.

Well, tell us how you really feel! And in case you're wondering what sapachas is, it's a type of pesky skin lesion. Then, in Tosafot, commenting on Yevamos 47b, it says,

"Gerim are as difficult fo rthe Jewish people as sapachas because they are not knowledgeable in the details of the commandments, and the Jewish people learn from their actions."

Still, not feeling the love here. It's important to understand that there is an idea in Chassidus that after Mashiach comes, there will be no more gerim. Why? The understanding is that only a sincere convert will go through geirus during a time of crisis and persecution. But when things are good for the Jews, people want to take part (just think of the Esther story) in that mazal. Thus, once Mashiach arrives, the doors of conversion are closed for business. I encourage you to jump in while the water is hot and oppressive.

So the question is: Why would Rashi and Tosafot speak so poorly of gerim during the times in which they were living? After all, HaShem demands love and acceptance for the ger, right?

In comes a contradictory explanation from Tosafot in Tractate Kiddushin 70b:

Rabbi Avraham Ger explained that gerim are as difficult for the Jewish people as sapachas because they are fastidious in their observance of the commandments and knowledgeable in the details surrounding them -- which causes G-d to remember the transgressions of those Jewish people who are not performing his will.

If there were a giant "like" button floating over that quote, I'd hope that all of you would smack it until your keyboard-poking finger was bleeding. Although the various renditions of this that I've read in this book don't cite it, I'd have to say that this ties in very closely with what the midrash has to say about Rachav (my favorite convert) and how her actions of identifying HaShem as the one and only, repentance, and geirus were reflected later in the life of her descendent the prophet Jeremiah. In Pesikta de Rav Kahana, Divrei Yirmiyahu 13:5, it says,

“The son of the corrupted one who mended her ways will come and reproach the son of the fit one who had gone astray.” 

Also in Pesikta de Rav Kahana, Divrei Yirmiyahu 13:4 it goes so far as to say that whatever was written in Israel's honor was written in Rahav's praise. Just check out the juxtaposition of these:

It is written of Rahab (Josh. 2:12): “Now, since I have shown loyalty to you, swear to me by the Lord.” And of Israel (Jer. 5:2): “They are sure to be swearing falsely." It is written of Rahab (Josh. 2:13): “that you will spare the lives of my father and mother.” And of Israel (Ezek. 22:7): “Fathers and mothers have been humiliated within you."

Thus, I think that the contradictory statement of the Tosafot is probably running with the right message. If not because of the Rachav connection and what the Rabbis had to say about geirus, then perhaps this approach from Bo M'Ephrosa, Parshas Tazria, Shalosh Seudos 5771 will sparkle your fancy:

A sapachas develops on the flesh in order to awaken one to return to G-d, and if, G-d forbid, the individual does not heed the message, he can bring great suffering on himself. Similarly, gerim are to awaken the Jewish people to serve G-d with fiery enthusiasm and meticulous observance of the Torah's commandments. They cause those born jewish to follow their good example and fulfill the commandments with an uplifted soul and not out of habit or rote. If, G-d forbid, those born Jewish do not take inspiration from their example, this can cause great accusations to be brought against them Above. The Sages taught that because Hillel was poor, a poor man could not use poverty as an excuse for not learning Torah. Rabbi Elzar ben Charsom was rich, so a rich man could use his wealth as an excuse. Joseph was able to control his passions, so even the wicked are obligated to do likewise. In the same manner, gerim obligate those born Jewish to act as they should. 

Loads of heavy responsibility rests on the shoulders of the ger, whether we know it, like it, or want it. Stay tuned for some more beautiful morsels on Gerim in Chassidic Thought -- including birthdays. Yes, birthdays. For gerim, it's a perplexing question of what to celebrate. 

A Zivug or Bashert?

When we go through life looking for that other half, the piece of ourselves that was incomplete at birth (what Kabbalah calls plag nishmasa – half souls), we often say that we're searching for our bashert -- our soul mate. But what about your zivug? 

In search of my bashert, a Yiddish word meaning destiny, I've run into the term zivug quite a bit, and I'll be honest in saying that I was unfamiliar and unaware of the terminology. From what I can muster up online, zivug is your preordained mate or match. In the Talmud (Sotah 2) Rav Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak says in the name of Reish Lakish that a man's zivug is made only according to his deeds. The gemara then challenges Reish Lakish by citing Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav, who says that it's about mazal as forty days before creation of the embryo a bat kol issues forth and pronounces his zivug.

We've all heard this before, right? That before we're even born HaShem has already played the part of shadchan (matchmaker). But the gemara goes on in this deeds versus mazal (luck, aka Rav Yehudah's take) to say that in truth they are both right, because there actually are two matches: zivug rishon is based on mazal and zivug sheni is based on deeds. 


Wait, what? Are we being set up to fail!?

According to Rashi, the reason why the zivug is determined according to one's deeds is that if a person's deeds are meritorious, he is given a better zivug. The thought process is that if you're some crazy tzaddik whose deeds go above and beyond what mazal provided, then chances are there's a better zivug out there for him. So his wife dies, he gets a more meritorious bride, and everyone lives happily ever after. The Mekubalim explain that this second matching only happens if one deserves it because of his good words. If he doesn't merit to receive his intended match, he ends up with another woman.  [Note: This whole concept seems to only apply to widows and widowers! (According to Rabbenu Tam.)]

But it makes me wonder if maybe my first marriage didn't work because some tzaddik out there has merited me as a wife. (Oh geez, seriously Chaviva, come on, really?) Wishful thinking never hurt anyone, right? But there's a lot more weight on that second zivug. After all, it's based on our merits. "Under Pressure" doesn't even begin to describe the heft resting on the shoulders of someone searching for their zivug sheni. 

I guess you could say that because of the idea that man and women are created as one that and that because their neshama is as one, that you can have options with zivug, but that only one of them is your bashert. In a way, it's a contingency plan that HaShem has put into place.

I know, I know. I'm providing a very simplified version of the zivug rishon and sheni issue. Read all of the insights here. There's also a great article here that explains things a little bit further, including some of Rambam's approaches to this issue.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled flashbacks of Chaviva performing as the mother of Mottel in Fiddler on the Roof in 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

From 613 to 3:16: An Interesting Thought

Bonus points if you get why I chose this image!

I've seen the bumper sticker more and more lately, and it simply says: "JOHN 3:16." After all, that's really all you need to know. The verse, the tour de force of Christian theology, says "For G-d so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." I'm not here to argue truth, fact or fiction. No, I'm here to discuss something incredibly interesting.

I was walking through the library yesterday when I saw a book, simply titled "3:16" when it hit me -- 3:16 is the reverse of 613, the number of mitzvoth in Torah. The crux of one flipped on its head to be the crux of another. One, with its 3:16 showing that it was Jesus dying that nullified the need for the 613 mitzvoth to be followed.

So, automatically, I asked myself: Which came first? The Gospel of John? Or the identified tradition of 613 mitzvoth? The Torah, of course, was written long before the Christian canon. But the issue is more complicated than just that.

The identification of 613 mitzvoth comes from the wisdom of a few rabbis. The Talmud notes that the Hebrew gematria (numerical value) for the word Torah is 611. If you combine Moses' 611 commandments to the two received directly from G-d at Sinai, we get 613! This number -- 613 -- is attributed in the Talmud to Rabbi Simlai (early 3rd century CE), but other classical sages held this view, too, including Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai (early 2nd century CE) and Rabbi Eleizer ben Jose (2nd century CE). So we can confidently say that in the early 100s, if not earlier, this idea was evident among the rabbis. There were 613 mitzvoth, and these mitzvoth -- 365 negative, 248 positive -- are the "rules" we as Jews are to live by.

The Gospel of John is a more difficult text to really wrangle. There is already a boatload of suspicion of who he was, where he was writing, whether he even knew Jesus, and most importantly, WHEN he was writing. From what I can conclude from a quick bit of research online, the "general" consensus is that the Gospel of John was written around 100 CE.

So here we have a text and an idea -- John 3:16 and 613 mitzvoth -- both from the early 2nd century. Whether the rabbis had exposure to the Christian text is something that I don't think we can really know, and there are some scholars who argue that the rabbis recording the Oral Torah were completely isolated from the greater world around them (I think this is kind of, well, ridiculous). But what we do have here is an interesting polemic coming from John, whose language was intentionally antagonistic against Jewish traditions and customs.

Thus, where better to write the championing verse for Christianity but in the reverse of the numerical tour de force of Judaism?

I don't know if this is something that anyone's written on this, but I think it's really fascinating and most definitely something worth considering. Maybe I'll spend more time on this during the school year, but I think it would be worth taking a more developed and in-depth look at the most agreed-upon dates of the texts and whether there is any literary evidence to maybe connect the two numbers.

I'm not big into gematria, but I think it's quite fascinating. Even if you're not into gematria, that there are 613 mitzvoth is something all frum Jews cling to and all Jews regardless of creed identify with. At any rate, I hope you all find this as fascinating as I do.

It Really is Quite Punny, Rabbi.

When I was in High School, my "diff" (that means "differentiated" or advanced) English class my junior year I think it was, had to do what we called an I-Search paper. The teachers schlepped us down to the university campus, acclimated us to the university library, helped us to become official prime researchers, and then we all completed a 10, 15, 20 whatever page paper on a topic of our choosing. For me, it was Etymology. Instead of focusing on the origins of words, though, I focused on names and the meanings of names. I was fascinated on the studies that concluded that naming your child with a suffix like John Charles Johns II or Steven Lee Jenkins Jr. would make your kid more susceptible to mental illness, or that giving your kid a name like Sergeant would make him more likely to end up in the military or law enforcement (does anyone actually use that name anymore?).

So, while digging and shuffling through papers in my Talmud class, trying without luck to figure out what my term paper would be on, I happened upon the topic of falsifications, fabrications, and downright unrealistic accounts in the Talmud. I'm not saying it to be blasphemous, for there really ARE cases in the Talmud where a story will be told, presenting a lesson or moral quandary, and at the end of the text the rabbis will say outright that the story is a falsification. Sometimes it's not completely outright, and in other instances it's plainly put. I was reading an article by Louis Jacobs on the topic and he said something that perked my interest even more, relating specifically to names.

"Of importance to our investigation is the peculiar phenomenon, found also in Midrash, of attributing rulings and sayings to teachers whose name is a pun on the subject matter of that particular saying e.g. when R. 'Abba bar Memel explains the meaning of the term memel in the Mishnah" (56-57).

Jacobs goes on to explain the possible reasons for this -- whether it was a name attributed to a rabbi because of the saying, whether the scholars were attracted to discussions where their name was an intended pun, or that it's a literary device in which the names of scholars were appended to the sayings because of the pun.

For someone who has always been obsessed with names, their etymologies and their stories, this is the perfect discussion! The question now is whether there is enough out there written about the topic (the signs point to not really right now), so that the professor will approve my research so I can get started.

Anyone know any other instances of such puns on rabbinical rulings/significant words within the ruling? Intriguing stuff!

Comicly Styling the Talmud

This very well could be the most awesome idea ever: Talmud comics! The great thing is, they aren't cheesy or ridiculous, they're actually quite beautiful and thoughtfully drawn.

Hat tip to Menachem Mendal and Jewschool.

Vespasian and the Western Wall

I've spent the past week and a half stressing out, intensely, about this semester. My stress has largely been in regards to my Talmud class, a subject which I'm well informed on the outer limits of, but of which I have spent little time in the middle. I arrived home today exhausted after spending five hours looking at archives and compiling information on various states and their populations. I ate dinner, and took a nap. I woke up, still tired, stressed out, grumpy, frustrated. I purchased a coffee, came back to my room, and dove in to papers by scholars about reading rabbinics as history, whether the Talmuds contain hardcore, one-place and one-time history, or whether people read them wrong. Perhaps, as it says, the stories tell us more about the people than about the events. Who knows. The papers were sort of dry, sort of uninteresting, very much of the ego-stroking quality. In other words, very dense materials. I decided to put aside some of the academic papers for a packet on Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and the episode involving his interactions with Vespasian (or Titus?) and the inevitable arrival of the rabbi in Yavneh, which became the hotbed of rabbinic activity in a post-Destruction of the Temple period, where the Oral Torah became what we know of it today.

But, I'll blog about the episode -- and the four different accounts from BT Gittin 56b, Lamentations Rabbah 1:31, and two versions from The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan -- at another time, because it's incredibly fascinating the subtle and obvious differences between the accounts and how the rabbi approached Vespasian, how Jerusalem fell, how the rabbi and his followers ended up in Yavneh, and the tales therein. But what I wanted to blog about quickly, before I throw myself into bed, is a take on why the Western Wall still stands to this day. It's pretty interesting. This portion comes from Lamentations Rabbah after Vespasian had subdued the city. At this time, he

assigned the destruction of the four ramparts to the four generals, and the western gate was allotted to Pangar. Now it had been decreed by Heaven that this should never be destroyed because the Shechina abode in the west. The others demolished their sections but he did not demolish his. Vespasian sent for him and asked, "Why did you not destroy your section?" He replied, "By your life, I acted so for the honour of the kingdom; for if I had demolished it, nobody would [in time come] know what it was you destroyed; but when people look [at the western wall], they exclaim, "Perceive the might of Vespasian from what he destroyed!" He said to him, "Enough, you have spoken well, but since you disobeyed my command, you shall ascend to the roof and throw yourself down. If you live, you will live; and if you die, you will die." He ascended, threw himself down and died.

An interesting take on why we still have HaKotel HaMa'aravi today, no? There are a few other morsels worth noting, which you can find at this Kotel website. Oh, and for good measure, the photo credit goes to me!

On that note, I'm heading to bed. Midrash will float about my head as I hopefully fall fast asleep. Tomorrow? I get the chance to delve into the topic in class.

A Stream of Consciousness Post

My coat -- a fluffy, bright pink Lands End piece -- makes me feel like that kid in "A Christmas Story." I walk around, arms stiff, like a penguin, unable to move or rotate my head, but feeling quite warm nonetheless.

I'm not really sure what this revelation has to do with the bigger picture, namely that I'm feeling all out of sorts in a number of ways, but it seemed like a good segue from point A to point B, wherever point A might have been. And suddenly, as I write this, I realize I had no idea how to spell "segue" prior to now (why did I think it was segway?).

I've traded a relatively painless life for a life of uncertainty and difficulty. I went from schluffing around an economics department at one of the country's most prestigious schools, making good money and saving up, but being subjected to emotional and verbal assault on some ocassions, to academia, where I spend every day wondering when my fingers will find their way to the keys so that I might put something down on paper to impress the holy prophets -- that is, the professors. On winter days like this, I'm reminded of sitting for hours on end at the Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska, during my undergraduate years, studying biblical Hebrew and preparing editing marks for the school newspaper (which, it seems, is where most of the excitement I remember about school arose from). I'm also reminded of my time in Washington D.C. when I was working at the Washington Post, when I'd get out of work at midnight and schluff over in the cold to my favorite little coffee shop haunt in Dupont Circle to read the week's parshah and dish out a d'var Torah for the blog. I miss that kind of dedication where I provided the reader of this very blog with something Jewishly substantial as far as the Torah went.

It's something about this time of year makes me want to crawl into coffee shops for days and days, drinking mochas and running into old friends, conversing about tout le monde. Unfortunately, my university is devoid of any coffee shops like what I'm familiar with -- couches, dank corners, intellectuals waxing poetic over a chess board. The coffee shops on campus are all loud and filled with people and aren't really coffee shops at all, they're just places that sell coffee that happen to be inside various campus buildings. The ambiance, which I found so inspiring during my undergrad, just isn't here.

I called my little brother last night, to get peace of mind about how he was coping with the whole dad thing. He managed to brighten me up, like he always does, with his infinite wisdom and interesting outlook on life. When I asked him how he was feeling about things, he aptly responded, in the Edwards way, "There's always something bad happening around here, I'm just used to it." That, folks, is wisdom. 

I've signed up for classes next semester (though the large chunk of graded work for this semester still has yet to be penned), and I'm quite excited about them. I think they'll offer more intellectual stimulation than this semester managed to, though, I think it will be a much more difficult semester. My classes? Of course there will be Hebrew, there will also be a class on Holocaust cinema, but it will be focused on the cinema of the decade at the end and following the Shoah, specifically in Europe and Russia, and I think it'll provide some interesting insight into little-known film. And then, my third class will be Talmudic and Midrashic thought, which is a graduate seminar that should be advanced to the point of forcing me to get really damn good at my Hebrew really damn fast.

To be honest, I'm nervous about writing these two papers. It's sort of going to set the stage for the next three semesters, I think. Will I impress the professors with my Judaic studies prowess and mad writing skills? Will they be wowed with my punctuation and verbage? My choice of words (I'm anti-big words and anti-thesaurus, for what it's worth)? My rhythm and flow? I think, to be sure, that I'm far too worried about what people think of my writing. When I tell people I was a journalism major they always say "Oh, you like writing?" forgetting that there's a whole editing -- not to mention design and photographic -- component to journalism. I was never a writer in the journalistic sense, but I've always been a writer. A poet, anyway. I like to think I have a sense for how something is meant to sound and how the words are supposed to be paired.

But enough about me.

I pose a question for my readers of the academic or religiously curious persuasion: Recently in my Bible course we were discussing the Trinity and Jesus/G-d. Now, I can't seem to get a really straight answer about how Christians reconcile the following things. Assume the following are all accepted as true.

1) G-d is all powerful and cannot suffer

2) Jesus is G-d

3) Jesus is flesh, and thus able to suffer

So how do Christians reconcile the idea that G-d cannot suffer but Jesus does suffer if Jesus is G-d (which he has to be, otherwise it's idolatrous)? I'm asking this seriously, as an academic. It seems to me that all explanations boil down to the following: "We cannot know, for G-d's ways are mysterious to man." And that, unfortunately isn't good enough for me. Sure, there's a lot in Judaism that people throw into the same category, but at least we argue about it!

Anyhow, for this week's parshah, Chayei Sarah, check out G-dcast.com , and have a good Shabbos!

Books! Oh books, how I love thee.

So I finished Rachel Biale's book on women in Jewish law. I can safely say that it is probably one of THE most well-written books I have read to date. This can be summed up simply by saying that she takes often complicated or convoluted text entries (beyond Torah into Talmud) and decipher them in a way that makes the text accessible, but not dumbed down. Her detailed explanations translated and explicated the precise words of sages throughout the centuries. Biale allows the reader to actually understand and feel a part of Talmud! It makes me want to truly throw myself into study, but I know that not all texts are as accessible as Biale has made them.

Perhaps the most touching point of her book came in the epilogue. There were many interesting discussions of abortion, contraception, marriage, the duties of men and women and more ... but in the epilogue Biale discusses the importance of understanding and developing Halakah. Though I don't have the book in front of me, her basic sense is that by leaving and diverging from Halakah, Jews (the secular, reform, etc.) are not *helping* Judaism, but are in fact hurting it. You cannot develop, effect change, explore, and grow Halakah if you merely deny it. Instead, the study of Halakah means room for discussion and the chance for considering an evolutionary process. She emphasizes the importance of understanding Halakah in order to evolve it. Her point is absolutely on point. Jews who deny or speak against Halakah do little to effect change. It's like making a pot of soup and insisting that there is not enough salt, but instead of adding more salt, you merely cast the entire pot aside.

This might make me a hypocrite. I, myself, do not adhere strictly to the Halakah, of course. I identify with Reform Judaism and although I attend shul each week, avoid shellfish, pork and mixing beef with dairy, and do weekly Torah study on my own ... these are but a mere few -- and not even strict adherences -- to Halakah. I do not, however, deny the importance of so many of the mitzvot. Additionally, I think it safe to say that many are uneducated about so much of the Halakah that it's hard to accept or reconcile something you know little about.

Regardless, if anything, Biale's message is pertinent and worth considering. Ignorance is bliss is the popular saying, but that ignorance often results in the loss of something beautiful and worth investigating and developing.

The next book in my hands: Solonica, City of Ghosts: Muslims and Jews 1430-1950 by Mark Mazower.