Once Upon a Time, I Was Going to be Something

Eleven years ago, I was poised to be a Judaic studies scholar. It was my dream, and I was willing to do just about anything to make it happen. After graduating with my bachelor of journalism, I went to The Washington Post for an internship after which I got hired on as a full-time employee. I was miserable in DC, and I started working on chasing my real dream: a master's in Judaic studies followed by a PhD followed by a prolific career as an academic, professor, and writer.

Instead, I ended up moving to Chicago, living with a guy I thought was my forever, working for a Nobel-prize-winning economist, and only a year later heading to graduate school. Just a few years after that I was married, divorced, and quitting a program at NYU where I was attempting a second and third master's degree.

Now? Well, life is different now. I don't have time for books or papers or pursuing all those fascinating topics that were going to keep me happy and sane and on the chase. So what did my dreams look like? This. And, I'll point out, I was going to be the scholar to blow up the Ulysses S. Grant history, not Jonathan Sarna. When I interviewed at Brandeis in 2009/10, I mentioned the fascinating issue to Professor Sarna. Then, in 2012 he released his book.

Coulda been me. Here's a letter I sent with my application to the University of Chicago. Maybe, someday, I'll get back on this track.

Does the world really need another Jewish studies scholar? There are truckloads of academics in pursuit of answers from the Holocaust or the perplexing makeup of American Jewry and the Diaspora. But what about the uncharted grounds of Jewish history and thought? What about, for example, Ulysses S. Grant and his expulsion of the Jews in 1862? A piece of U.S. history you won’t likely find in most history books, this is just one of the complicated, uncultivated avenues on which I plan to tread in pursuit of a career in Jewish studies. 

During my junior year, while pursuing a journalism degree and minor in Judaic studies, I took an ethnopolitical conflict class – nicknamed the “genocide class” – which I was told by those who had taken the course that it would either break me down or change my course of study. The class, taught by Prof. Patrice McMahon, was centered on a single ethnic conflict research paper written in three parts throughout the semester. I knew instantly that I would research Grant’s infamous action, which I had heard about from a rabbi visiting my synagogue as part of the celebration of 350 years of Judaism in America. Unfortunately, the rabbi couldn’t tell me much about the event, thus piquing my interest. 

I spent weeks in the library scouring the school’s collection of Civil War, Grant and Jewish histories. It turned out that few people had heard about the incident and even fewer had written extensively on the topic. It was clear that I had my work cut out for me, which only wrapped me up more in the research. My research focused on what motivated Grant to issue the order, including the effects of war, economics and other generals on his decision. My research turned up a rabbi and professor, both of whom had detailed accounts and assessments of the incident. My shock of the unexplored event turned into excitement. Could I chart a new path or cover new ground on an anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic act sanctioned by the U.S. government? I set out to advance the study of General Order No. 11. 

The result of my semester-long effort was a comprehensive look at what led Grant to issue the antiSemitic order in a paper, “Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews: A Mighty Order and a Blemish on U.S. history.” At the end of the semester, in presenting the research to classmates, the expression of surprise on the faces of the 30 or so students was the most rewarding aspect of the venture. When detailing this seemingly veiled incident with others, friends were hesitant to believe and fellow scholars were shocked to know they were unaware of such a significant instance of antiSemitism in U.S. history. It was then that I staked my claim as a scholar, researcher and educator. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Passion … is a powerful spring.”

I hope to expand my undergraduate research on Grant to explore aspects of the incident beyond the motive. Few have focused on the lasting effects of the order or how Grant managed to carry the Jewish vote in both of his bids for president. Additionally, I would like to explore how such a significant event has managed to go unmentioned in textbooks and whether similar orders were issued during the Civil War or during other U.S.-inclusive wars. In a way, Grant has helped me find my raison d’etre.
But my interests reach much further than Grant and U.S. Jewry. My passion for Jewish studies spans American-Jewish fiction and authors such as Tova Mirvis, Jonathan Safran Foer and Cynthia Ozick; biblical Judaism; Jewish printing of the Middle Ages; and Jewish, Christian and Muslim relations. I hope to explore Rashi, his daughters, and whether his encouragement of their Talmud study was widely explored or purely rejected. I’m also fascinated with Emma Lazarus, whose outward effort to connect to the Jewish people seems hypocritical and insincere; I’m drawn to her understanding of Jewishness. Perhaps the most interesting avenue of research I’ve pursued and hope to look at further involves Jewish television and the rise of the sitcom, which spanned “Brooklyn Bridge” and “Bonanza.” 

My passion for Jewish languages has made me desperate to learn Ladino in order to study the Jews of Salonika, which I know so little about and yet am constantly reading about. My knowledge of Hebrew is limited, having taken only one semester of biblical Hebrew with Prof. Stephen Burnett late in my undergrad. Although my undergraduate university lacked regular Hebrew courses, my liturgical Hebrew is strong, and I am constantly working toward a fluent understanding of Modern Hebrew, in addition to biblical Hebrew.

I have to stress that this field of study is as much an academic endeavor as it is personal. The pursuit of a master’s degree will serve as another spring on a path to teaching, writing and researching, whether through a PhD and professoring or, as my rabbi has suggested, through rabbinical school. My work with Grant and the Jews proved to me that there are a bounty of uncultivated avenues in Jewish studies begging to be examined and shared by curious, burgeoning scholars such as myself.

The University of Chicago has a history and reputation of excellence, brought forth by the presence of passionate scholars – both students and professors – who are searching for answers to some of history’s and society’s most significant puzzles. While researching the scholars of the Committee on Jewish Studies, I found professors who I know will be beneficial to work and study with. I only hope that my passion for Judaic studies is apparent and that I can continue my studies and work toward a career in teaching Jewish history, religion and philosophy with the help of the Jewish Studies department at the University of Chicago.

Oh Academics, You Slay Me!

I'm busying struggling to catch up on reading and preparations for two papers and comp exams. After all, I have merely 6.5 weeks until my semester is up, and part of that will be eaten up by Pesach, so yeah. Madness is what we're looking at. I've got a binder full of about 215 pages worth of documents that cover basically all of the great academics of their subject and period (from ancient to modern and social Jewish studies) and how they felt about what, as well as another binder full of texts about Medieval versions of Tobit and a few texts on Herman the Jew (still developing this idea, concerned it's going nowhere), not to mention a binder in progress on am ha'aretz, which, let's be honest, I haven't really started on.

Heaping spoonful of sigh.



The upside is that there are lots of little amusing morsels of academic wisdom (or ridiculousness) that I get to share with my interested readership. You see, academics are hilarious. They're sarcastic and snotty and snarky at every turn, and it makes me giggle. I get it. I get the jabs, and I get the sneaky scripted way they present them. The over-arching statements that poke at revisionists or classicists ... they're beautiful. Here's a gem, from William Dever, from "The Crisis in Historiography" from John Collins The Bible After Babel.

But what if ancient Israel was "invented by Jews living much later, and the biblical literature is therefore nothing but pious propaganda? If that is the case, as some revisionist historians now loudly proclaim, then there was no ancient Israel. ... The story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible would have to be considered a monstrous literary hoax, one that has cruelly deceived countless millions of people until its recent exposure by a few courageous scholars. And now, at last, thanks to these social revolutionaries, we sophisticated modern secularists can be "liberated" from the biblical myths, free to venture into a Brave New World unencumbered by the biblical baggage with which we grew up. (p. 40-41)

Oh that was good. Do you feel the knives and jagged edges in those words? Look out revisionists, you just got your tush handed to you on a platter by Dever.

And then there's this, which is less sarcastic than it is a brilliant approach to this question of historiography. This comes from the mouths of Iain Provan, V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III, again in Collins "The Crisis in Historiography."

"Why," they ask, "should verification be a prerequisite for our acceptance of a tradition as valuable in respect of historical reality? Why should not ancient historical texts rather be given the benefit of the doubt in regard to their statements about the past unless good reasons exist to consider them unreliable in these statements? ... Why should we adopt a verification instead of a falsification principle? 

I tend to agree with these guys when it comes to the idea of revisionists that it's all a bunch of ballyhoo. I also am a big fan of the benefit of the doubt theory, because more often than not academics assume that absence automatically suggests non-existence. This, of course, is ridiculous. However, I think their statement fails in one way, because who is to say what a "good" reason really is when it comes to deciding what is reliable and what isn't.

Anyhow, those are my gems for now. Eat them up, swallow 'em down, and get your brain all juicy with smart-stuff goodness.

I'll Take the Tanker of Coffee Now, Please

I give you, the tanker truck of coffee, spotted on I-84 near Hartford.

I must apologize to my readers, friends, lurkers, and other blogging types for my lack of presence over the past week, especially when it comes to reading your blogs and responding with appropriately Chaviva-esque comments. What have I been up to? A lot. A whole lot.

Aside from my regular coursework -- which includes (for one class) reading a book or so a week plus various primary sources, in addition to (for a second class) lots of reading and more reading and some more reading of yummy things about the Samaritans and the Ptolemies, and, of course, Hebrew work and general office work of book inventorying -- I've been thrown the setup for our graduate exam, which is in and of itself wretched. Now, being an academic I'm secretly thrilled about the work and reading; I'm merely in shock and distress about the volume of it. Typically, students will receive the corpus of reading in their first semester, not their fourth. So I'm in "holy crap" mode right now. Pardon the ever-present kvetching.

Superbowl

Additionally, Tuvia and I decided it would be a most outstanding idea to invite over a ton of people for a Super Bowl viewing. Last year we had four or five friends over, and it was quiet and cozy and I really didn't pull out all my Jewish mother stops to feed the masses with thirty different types of chips and dips. This year, however, I went all out. After all, we were inviting over upwards of 20 people and expecting at least 14 to 16 to show up. So what did I do? Well, I made a big batch of pasta and threw it into the crock, I made a spicy veggie chili, I made a giant red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting with my new cake pan, I made a delicious batch of Chocolate Cheerio Marshmallow Bites, and then we bought a bunch of dips, sliced a bunch of cheese, put out gobs of veggies and fruit, and filled bowls full of a half-dozen varying types of chips. Yes, it was a ROYAL spread, fit for a Superbowl King. It just took a long time to put together and perfect -- I am, after all, a perfectionist OCD-aholic. I'll admit, it was loads of fun. Having all of our closest friends over to partake in food and a good game was honestly one of the best things we've done in a long time. I really felt like it gave us a chance to pay back the community, in the best way we know how, for the kindness they've shown us with food, lodging, and friendship. We seriously have the best friends on the planet.

Wedding Dresses

Oh, and then there was the pre-kickoff wedding dress viewing that actually ate up most of the first two quarters. I didn't realize we were upstairs that long, and the game truly was flying by. But this was the wedding dress that I purchased online. Yes, I bought a wedding dress ONLINE. I never saw it in person, I didn't know it's dimensions exactly, I had no idea how it would look or feel beyond the photo of the girl on the website, who, by the way, was about 50 sizes smaller than me. But I had an instinct. It was the first gown I found online when I started looking, and after perusing many other gowns, I was still stuck on this first one. I emailed my two best buddies up in the Great White North, and they agreed it was stunning. So I bought it. Then it came, about three days later (talk about quick shipping -- most wedding gown sites make you wait upwards of 20-40 days for the dress), and I had approximately three additional days to figure out whether it was right. Yes, the online wedding dress business is cut-throat, and they keep their claws in you as long as they can. So the Superbowl Sunday party was perfect as far as timing goes. We all crawled up the stairs, I stripped, and the dress was on and zipped in seconds. The reaction? Completely positive. And then? The "tuck this here!" and "tuck that there!" comments came. I am lucky to say that I am blessed, absolutely blessed, with seamstress-minded lady friends. These women, after expressing their love of the dress, were all ready to point me in the direction of a seamstress/tailor and get the job done -- there was no way I was returning this gown. I expressed my concerns to them -- Tzniut? Length? Fit? The answers were that the tzniut was perfectly modest, the length could be fixed (the dress was MADE to be tailored like a charm), and the fit was perfect for my figure.

So it's decided. I, Chaviva Edwards, purchased a wedding gown online, from a store out West where nary a Jew probably lives, and I am keeping it with utter and absolute pleasure. Yes, I am an online dress purchasing success story! You, too, can buy a wedding dress online and be satisfied!

My only beef? I returned a slip that I bought but definitely don't need (for poof's sake), and it cost me a whopping $30+ to ship back. Is that worth it? Probably not. I'll get back, in the end, about $30 for my troubles. My advice? Don't buy a slip online until you absolutely know that you'll need it.

So I'm pleased. I had a million friends over, fed them successfully, decided on a dress that I absolutely love, finished a bunch of editing that leaves me with only two more weeks of such editing, and I just submitted an application for a fellowship assuming I get into NYU or UMD for further studies. It has been a truly, truly productive three days. Oh! I also cleaned out my inbox. Thank heavens. I was about to lose my mind.

I guess, my point, then, is that everything is doable. It takes time management, sleeping about four hours a night, and a passion to have things just how you want them right when you want them. I'll take my little successes when I can get them. I couldn't ask for anything more. And when all else fails, there's always that tanker truck of coffee!

(For what it's worth, that tanker truck actually said "PILOT" on the side. It was a clever ploy by the popular roadside gas station chain! From a distance, it looks like it just says "COFFEE." Upclose, however, it mentioned something about them having the best roadside coffee. Clever!)

Woe is me, no more!

If there were a word to describe how I feel right now, it would be RELIEVED.

Yes, there is still a week and a half left till the end of the semester. This week and a half includes, but is not limited to:

• Two and a half chapters of Hebrew homework. Due this Wednesday.
• A Hebrew final exam next week (comprehensive, what joy!)
• A 15+ page paper on Ima Shalom (cringes). Due next Tuesday.
• A 10-ish page paper on cultic images in Babylonia + what the architecture of Babylon was meant to represent outside of physical enormity. Due Friday.
• A 5-7 page paper on my thoughts of the Talmud class and problems with seeking history from texts used in class (Josephus, Bavli, Yerushalmi, etc.). Due next Wednesday.

Now, this list looks much more begrudging than it feels to me right now. Ask me in a week how I feel, and we'll see. Essentially I have to be done with all of these things by Wednesday. I've split up the next week and a half so that I can successfully allot my time, since I seem to have a problem with that. Yes, I've waited until the last minute to write everything, but that is the Chavi way. I have thoughts and genius swirling in my brain and at the last minute I sit down for a 7-hour writing marathon to complete a single paper. It's how I roll, and it works. It won't always work, but for now, this semester, it will have to work. 

But the relief is birthed from having attended and presented at my first Academic Conference. This time around, it was the Society of Biblical Literature, and although it wasn't as exciting and thrilling as I had expected or hoped for, it was a good entrance for someone like me into the conference circuit. I saw what kind of feedback and questions were iterated, and I got a chance to check out the competition at schools like Boston and Yale and Harvard. As I read my paper on the Golden Calf, I saw holes in my argument, missing tidbits of information that I know in my head but somehow didn't end up in the paper (how'd I miss that?!), and I now know that I have some editing to do. I'm presenting the topic to an undergraduate ancient Near East class on Wednesday, and I'm hoping that it's not so much me talking at them as with them -- I seek a dialogue of epic proportions where some nerdy undergrad suggests something or queries something I had yet to consider, perhaps resulting in some massive dissertation someday. 

But overall? I was relieved to get that talk over with. And suddenly everything else just doesn't seem that bad. I put way, way too much pressure on myself. I'm one of those golden children of the differentiated and excelled tracts. I was dissecting frogs and writing computer programs in the fourth grade, and I spent much of my sixth grade year coasting through school with a bunch of other braniacs going for donuts and discussing taxidermy. The difference between me and a lot of these people now, though, is that I really had to and have to work to keep it all up. I'm not a genius, by any means. I did brain teasers well, excelled at my times tables, was an expert at Origami at the age of 10, and graduated fifth in a class a high school class of 525 students. I spend a lot of time wondering if this was the right route, if this whole academic devotion was really what I was meant to do and then when I'm sitting in a car reading about Babylonian cultic objects and telling Tuvia about it and explaining the finer details of kings shipping their idols to avoid plunder, well, it's those moments that I know this really is the right path. I just have to remember who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going. 

So, relief in mind, I'll start in on my papers and Hebrew homework. I have more to write about the Senegalese food we had for Shabbat, meeting a Jewish woman from Norway, and Tuvia's sister's baby shower. But this will all come hopefully after at least one paper is written. Maybe sooner. Either way? I'm feeling confident and good. With the help of friends, loved ones, and the end being near, I'm prepared for just about anything.

As a quick quip, though, there is no Hebrew word for "baby shower." I always knew that baby showers aren't very Jewish things, as it pushes the hand of G-d and beckons the evil eye. But I thought maybe there'd be a word for it! Alas, there isn't. 

Kashruth Stress! And an A.

The struggle to decipher the politics of kashruth stresses me out. The "plain K" heckscher is legitimate on Kellogg's products (and I read somewhere that it's really the OU who oversees those products, but no clue why they wouldn't use an OU), but on Yoplait yogurt, which lists "kosher gelatin" as an ingredient, where the "plain K" appears, it's NOT okay. No sir, no way, no how, no consumption! I am, however, stocked about how many things do bear a kosher logo, and I know that my life will be a lot easier than it might have been to keep kosher in 1909.

In unrelated news, for those keeping up on the blog, I redid my craptastic paper over a seven-hour stretch yesterday in the library and I got the letter grade on it already this evening. A sparkling "A" paper, says the professor! That has me stoked, and if I can keep up my work pace and not fall behind again, then maybe I won't freak out like I have over the past week. My anxiety level is in the red and as Pesach approaches I realize that the semester is nearing an end in not very long. I have a huge term paper to write, and the topic I was writing on got switched recently so I've started over with research and am quite behind in that department. But, I know I'm capable and I just have to remind myself of that.

I am a Writer, Am I a Writer?

For the first time in my A-student, excellency-first life, I handed in a crap paper. It was nine pages of writing that I knew wasn't up to Chavi Quality Standards (CQS), but I handed it in anyway. In the past, I've done this, but it was only that "I rushed, it probably isn't so great, but I'll do well" sentiment, and I always managed to fly by with As on such papers. But this paper? I knew when I was writing it that it was disjointed, unfocused, miserable in form, idea, and execution. And when I gave it to the professor, I said about 30 times "please let me know if this isn't what you're looking for."

I knew it wasn't. I knew it was crap. And I handed it in anyway.

So I wasn't surprised when I got the email this morning. My alarm went off, I grabbed my Blackberry, I opened GMail, and there it was, the first email sitting in my inbox. Let's meet, it said. What a horrible way to start an otherwise (might-have-been) good day. So now, my long day -- where I go from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. without room to breathe -- is clouded by this meeting I have in an hour, where surely I will be told "you're really bright, but ..." And I know I deserve every criticism.

I'm a good writer. At least, that's what people tell me and I need to prove to myself that I am a good writer. As a copy editor, I know what good writing is meant to look like. I know how the words should flow, how even in academic papers the prose and flow is important. Words should not feel harsh or disconnected; they should have a rhythm and be fluid. I read too many academic papers that read like math textbooks, and I refuse to be one of those academics. I want to be a writer. A good writer. An amazing writer who people read and say "Damn, I wish I could write that well!" But most importantly, I need to feel like I am a good writer. Being a good writer in other people's eyes is worthless when you can't love your own stuff.

This blog, this entire ridiculous volume of ether that I have spewed for nearly three years, is my baby. It's what made me feel good about my writing. It's what said, you aren't just an editor, you're a writer! Go for it! And so here I am, writing, again, venting, stressing, wishing I could crawl into a whole and delete that damn paper. It was a literature review, papers on the validity of the Bible, scholars who say it's a Hellenistic composition, the historicity of the stories of the Bible and how it all isn't just novel-y crap. And that's fascinating to me. It's important and big and special. It's my area of study. And I just pushed out nine pages of crap.

So maybe this is what I needed. I've felt completely out of time, out of focus this semester. I feel like I'm not doing enough, but always doing too much. So maybe I needed to be knocked off the confidence pedestal. I found out earlier this month that I had two papers accepted to a conference in April, and I found out this week that I was accepted to the Middlebury Language School's Hebrew summer Ulpan-style program. These are two massive, important achievements, and I've been riding on their high for a while now. Now? I'm deflated. Disappointed. Wondering if I'm really cut out for all of this. So maybe this is what I needed to really put it all in perspective.

Note to self: You start too many sentences with "So..."

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!

Stressed. Out. Hardcore style.

I'm a walking, talking, fully functioning stress ball. I've been missing a few Friday classes here and there because of logistics and needing to be in West Hartford to meet with the rabbi, and between not having a car and Tuvia having a full-time job, things are complicated. So, being back on campus Sunday afternoon for the first time since Wednesday night, having classes canceled today, and knowing that I won't be here this Friday because of my Chicago adventure ... well ... that's a lot of missed class, a lot of stress-inducing moments of lost instruction.

I'm trying to make a mental list of all the things I need to do before Thursday, when Tuvia and I trek off to Chicago. Spring Break is next week, so the first real week of education I'll have in a long while is in two weeks. Then in a month we have Pesach and, well, my time feels chopped up into tiny little pieces and there just aren't enough of them.

So I have a headache and there's a tiny bump on my chin -- the ultimate sign that Chavi is stressed -- and I'm attempting to stay calm but every few seconds I remember something else I needed to do. Something I promised someone, something I was supposed to send, someone I was suppose to call, an email I was supposed to send, something I should know or study but just can't seem to grasp.

I suppose this is the pre-Spring Sinking that graduate students feel?

Delicious, Nutritious Brain Food!

I've spent the better part of the past six hours in the UConn library studying Hebrew, reading up on incredibly amusing and varying accounts of the "historical" life of Hillel, and reading over some things I'd read on Shabbos and wanted to make note of while the texts were still (sort of) fresh in my mind. So, as always, I have to share some interesting reads with the audience since, well, it's what I do. I have a running list of things that are blowing my mind that I will -- well, probably better hope -- to research and write on. So among this note-taking, I've come across some amusing and thought-provoking things.

This first excerpt is from "The Bible and the Ancient Near East" by Gordon and Rendsburg. I read this on Shabbos and immediately was laughing out loud. I read the passage to Tuvia, who found it equally amusing. It seems that so very little has changed in the past 3,000+ years. From Chapter 8, The Patriarchal Age, we read about a series of texts found in the town of Nuzu in northeastern Mesopotamia, dating from the 15th and 14th centuries BCE.

Among the Nuzu texts is a series of tablets recording the lawsuit filed by the citizens against the mayor, who was guilty of complicity with a kidnaping [sic] ring, of accepting bribes, and stealing wood and misappropriating workers from public projects for his own purposes, and of shady dealings with a woman of the community.

I can think of at least a half-dozen ongoing cases that this sounds like. It is amazing how people never change, and everything we do is a copy of something that has happened before. And we're not talking about Rome or something here, we're talking about the Ancient Near East. Thousands of years ago!

The second little bit is not so much funny as it is interesting, and it comes from the same chapter.

The Patriarchs represent a microcosm of Israel. Gd's intervention in their personal lives is akin to the role He plays in the life of Israel. Moreover, Israel is not a powerful nation like Egypt or Babylonia; instead it is a "barren" country, and a "younger son" among the nations of the world. Gd has made Israel prolific and He has made it His firstborn (Exodus 4:22), ideas reflected in the Patriarchal narratives.

This, of course, is referring to the common theme in the Hebrew bible of the younger son outdoing the older son -- Isaac/Ishmael, Jacob/Esau, Joseph/his brothers. It's an interesting motif that characterizes just what Israel is.

I've become curious about the role/idea of "Titans" in the Ancient Near East and perhaps, though I'm guessing there's nothing on it, in Judaism. I have found a book by someone who suggests that the Greeks borrowed for their Titans myth from the Ancient Near East, but I have yet to leave my little office to go scavenge for the book. The only reason I find myself intrigued about this is because in "Stories from Ancient Canaan" by Coogan, there is a passage about the Canaanite gods being "larger than life. They travel by giant strides -- 'a thousand fields, ten thousand acres at each step' -- and their control over human destiny is absolute." I read that and immediately thought "the Titans of Greek myths!"

It's funny how, the more I study the ancient texts of Judaism and the Ancient Near East, words simply pop out lyrically as echoes of one another. For example, when reading the Akkadian Atrahasis (a photo of which is to the right) the words describing a terrorizing storm echo the words in the Hebrew bible in reference to the plague of darkness (of the parshah just a few weeks ago!) -- the Atrahasis epic states that "One person did not see another, They could not recognize each other in the catastrophe" (iii, 13-14) and from Exodus 10:23: "People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was."

The similarities between the texts of the Ancient Near East are endless and offer a wealth of information about just WHO we the Israelites were and are. I find it all really fascinating ... and I guess I sort of hope my readers do, too!

Rolling on Shabbos.

*Tap, Tap* Anyone out there? I've been mute for many days now, for a variety of reasons but mostly that I have been quite busy and engrossed in readings for class and worksheets for Hebrew. I've also had some time to reflect on this past Shabbos, which, to be honest, was the most disappointing in recent memory.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Really? Disappointing? Get over it! It's just Shabbos! But the thing of it is, without a proper or near-proper Shabbos, my week doesn't begin or end, it just is, and this causes great stress for me. I had hoped to stay on campus for a Mexican-themed Shabbat dinner, but because of Tuvia's schedule and a desire to spend Shabbos with him, it didn't work out. He rushed out after work, picked me up, and we rushed home to beat the Sabbath clock. Already upset that we weren't able to make it to shul, we entered his house, which, I immediately  noticed, was freezing. The thermostat was set to hit 68, but it was at a mere 52 degrees. Thus, I davened Kabbalat Shabbat. Tuvia set off to check the heater, and, as it turned out, the motor was broken. He had to call a repairman, and had to run off to help his theater group set up a screen because he's the youngest and most agile of the group. I stayed home, lamenting the loss of the day already. I sat and read, which turned out to be fruitful after I came upon an article by Isaac Gottlieb in the AJS Journal on "The Politics of Pronunciation," a text workup about the halakhic arguments regarding Ashkenazim and Sephardim and how they approach prayers and pronunciation. But still, the day was lost already. The man came and fixed the heater, but it took nearly three hours. We played a game, and went to sleep, knowing that in the morning there were other reasons that would create cause to leave home, breaking Shabbos further. The morning arrived, the day went along, and havdalah approached. I'll admit to feeling relieved with havdalah, feeling a brisk touch of the end of Shabbos, but the reality of the week approaching. How disappointing, how lacking, how disappointed I was in myself.

Perhaps sensing my frustration, by some stroke of luck, Tuvia and I have been invited to a bulk of Shabbos and Jewishly oriented activities over the next few weeks. Tu B'Shevat will be spent at the Orthodox shul, as we were invited to a dinner there, and the next Friday we'll be at the home of a friend in West Hartford for services at the other Orthodox shul, followed by a dinner with friends, and a lunch the next day in honor of the birth of one of the Chabad rabbi's new baby girls. It is without possibility that the next few weeks will be lacking.

But it's such a basic commandment -- Zakhor et yom ha-Shabbat l'kad'sho (Exodus 20:8). That is, remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. I was telling Tuvia that I wish, absolutely wish that it were attainable for him or me or us to live in West Hartford, in a religious community, so that it is easier, more feasible, more doable to keep the Sabbath. You don't have to drive to shul, you walk, you make it there. You have Sabbath dinner with each other, or with friends. You go to services in the morning, you take your Sabbath walk in the eruv, you take a nap, you have havdalah, you go about your way. I understand entirely why communities cling to one another, why Jewish communities thrive within themselves. It just makes sense. It's logical! This is why, when planning our trip to Chicago for early March, I insisted on finding a hotel within walking distance to the shul I used to go to there. I want to have a Shabbos, darn't. I want to make a traveling Shabbos happen!

I can't help it, but I seek perfection. I know there is no such thing, but I crave it. I want it the Lebowski way -- I don't roll on Shabbos!

On a lighter (more unfortunate) note, in an effort to live entirely out of my dorm room, I managed to set off the fire alarm for the complex this morning while toasting some bread in my toaster oven. I burned my knuckle quite horribly while pulling the burned pieces out of the oven, throwing them into the trash and thrusting open the windows to air the room out. My fear? I'll be reprimanded and told that I can't have the toaster oven. Of course, there is another Jew in the complex who supposedly has an entire kitchen in his room, so why not me?

Is it Friday yet?

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.

We Apologize, But ...

Due to unforeseen events involving chaos, madness, and general academic ballyhoo, there will be no d'var Torah today. Stay tuned for a hopeful d'var on Sunday for this week's parshah, Va'eira. Everyone loves the plagues, so you can wait it out. Here's a preview of what's to come (I hope), thanks to BrickTestament.com.

Until then, shabbat shalom!

Back in the Saddle: Midrash!

I'm back to it. School starts tomorrow, and my first class is Wednesday morning. So, a pile of books at my side, I'm reading up on Talmud and Midrash and Hellenism and ... lots of relevant stuff. I've come across a few things and, being me, decided to share because I find them absolutely interesting. I hope you feel the same. Just as a note, midrash is sort of an explication on a verse or idea. If you think about it, gemara, the elaboration on the mishnah (Oral Torah) is a type of midrash, right? Right.

+ The moment we got to Israel last month on Birthright, exhausted from an 11-hour plane trip, we were bused to a nature preserve to plant trees. I'd forgotten the reason for doing this, the necessity for planting trees and the biblical explanation for why Israel is so big on the creation of forests and the growth of the tree population, until just now when I was reading in "Back to the Sources " a Midrashic explanation behind Leviticus 19:23, "...when you enter the land, you shall plant all manner of trees." Aha! There's the reason. The midrash, in turn, says that the reason for doing this first upon entering the land is to mimic or reenact G-d's work in the creation of the world. Brilliant! And here's my effort, I did as the Torah said (even if begrudgingly with exhaustion, bad hair, etc., heh).

Note the Barack'N in the Free World tee from KosherHam.com!

+ The second thing in this specific chapter on midrash that struck me discusses the people turning to the rabbis after terrible destruction, seeking guidance, and out of this being born midrashic texts, including Lamentations Rabbah. The following is an example from that text, where the "rabbis use the common comparison of the Torah to a marriage contract (ketubah in Hebrew as a means of offering hope to a people in despair."

"This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope." -- Lam. 3.21

R. Abba b. Kahana said: This may be likened to a king who married a lady and wrote her a large ketubah: "so many state-apartments I am preparing for you, so many jewels I am preparing for you, and so much silver and gold I give you."

The king left her and went to a distant land for many years. Her neighbors used to vex her saying, "Your husband has deserted you. Come and be married to another man." She wept and signed, but whenever she went into her room and read her ketubah she would be consoled. After many years the king returned and said to her, "I am astonished that you waited for me all these years." She replied, "My lord king, if it had not been for the generous ketubah you wrote me then surely my neighbors would have won me over."

So the nations of the world taunt Israel and say, "Your God has no need of you; He has deserted you and removed His Presence from you. Come to us and we shall appoint commanders and leaders of every sort for you." Israel enters synagogues and houses of study and reads in the Torah, "I will look with favor upon you ... and I will not spurn you" (Lev. 26.9-11), and they are consoled.

In the future the Holy One blessed be He will say to Israel, "I am astonished that you waited for me all these years." And they will reply, "If it had not been for the Torah which you gave us ... the nations of the world would have led us astray." ... Therefore it is stated, "This do I recall and therefore I have hope." (Lam. 3.21)

Wow. Brilliant, no? And appropriate for the current state of things. If ever one wonders if we've been abandoned, we merely return to this -- and to the Torah/covenant -- and know that it isn't so!

Pardon me while I step away to lose my sanity.

Our Bible class professors finally gave us our review sheet for Thursday's test. Yes, that's this Thursday, as in two days from now, and yes, today is Tuesday, and yes I'm a little irked that they waited until the last minute to issue it to us. A few of the grad students are all fancy and free -- "It's review! It'll be easy!" -- while I, the ultimate worry wart, am poised for a long two days of preparing and typing up notes with which to study, as I did with all of my Judaic studies courses in my undergrad. I collect, I type, I study, I quiz myself. But this time, I only have, well, less than two days really, to prepare. Yes it's all Documentary Hypothesis and the importance of the Bible stories chucked in with the legends/myths of antiquity, but a girl will worry. Throw a Hebrew test onto that for Friday and the rest of my week is going to be quite dismal. Of course, I still don't have my plans mapped out for the weekend, either. Maybe I won't go to New York. Or Boston. I could take a friend up on her offer to go to a local fair, but it just isn't striking me as the thing to do this weekend. I want to be city-bound for drinks and perusing busy streets. But we don't always get what we want, do we?

So you'll find me the next two days, in Babbidge Library, hunched over a computer, a pile of books, pages of notes, and probably a coffee or two or three.

Maybe I'll hang up a do not disturb sign.

Until I return from my couple-day stressed out study frenzy, please gather solace and amusement with this fun video that Tamara shared via Twitter last night. It makes me smile with delight!


EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

Graduate School MADNESS. Sigh.

Okay folks. Do you want to start donating to the "Chavi Needs to Go to Grad School" fund now? Or later?

I got an e-mail today informing me a postal letter is on its way from BRANDEIS ... with a big, fat acceptance! Eeeeeeeeep! Accepted at BRANDEIS! The Jewish ivy league, folks. I could meet my besheirt! I mean, the odds would, indeed, be in my favor. So that means Michigan, Brandeis and UConn are in the bag. The problem? Money.

It's always about money.

UConn has promised me an assistantship, with tuition remission, and a stipend, among other things. Michigan has said there will be no financial aid, nothing, nada, niet. And Brandeis? Well, I haven't gotten the official letter, so I can't say whether there is any type of funding aid, but from what I've heard the school is infamous for not offering any funding to its masters students.

The latter is having an open house day on March 7 for accepted students, and I want to go more than anything on the planet, but the late notice means flights that exceed $300. Even to drive, well, as it turns out it would be way too expensive and would require too much time off of work. So what to do? Sigh.

I think I've ruled Michigan out, actually, simply because there's no aid and the PhD program is not through the Judaic studies department, but requires applying to the department of focus (religious studies, history, etc.). I have yet to hear from Boston U, but I'm not necessarily leaning toward that. So I'm trying to figure out what is more important to me -- a no-cost Master's degree at an institution w/o a PhD program that is a decent school, but that has a very young program and professors with a focus on literature OR an expensive, loan-filled Master's degree at an institution that is incredibly Jewish, with a PhD program and is a well-known and profound school with more professors in the areas that I intend to focus on.

Prestige vs. Free.

An incredibly Jewish campus vs. a normal, Northeastern campus.

I know that I shouldn't be bitching about this, but come on. This is seriously a very *AGH* kind of moment. Do I want to take on more loans than any human should for a master's? But I feel like if I had the chance to visit Brandeis I could sit down with the faculty and with the financial people and see what they think -- should I stick it out for a master's at Brandeis? Should I go to UConn for the cheap degree? Should I just reapply to Brandeis for a PhD in a year?

AGH. I want to cry.

Grad SCHOOL!

Ahem ... this is two schools down folks ... now begins the negotiations ;)

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