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.

A brief-style roundup.

This is what we call "a random post."

• I managed to swing a 100 percent on my first quiz on the Hebrew Aleph-Bet, which I was all sorts of anxious about because I thought I completely nose-dived on the oral portion (professor reads, we write). Slap me silly and call me visual. But I managed to do a brilliant job and I feel better about the future of my Hebrew ventures. Phew! Though, while sitting in the library attempting to take on Chapter 4 in the Hebrew from Scratch text (yes, it's Shabbos and, well, no one is perfect), I felt like I was reading hieroglyphics. So, needless to say, I'm going to devote much of my evening and tomorrow to Hebrew study. 
• It's raining here, though not the torrential downpour and hurricane-style winds they were promising. I'm quite disappointed. 
• I'm poised to record a video blog tonight -- after I close out the library at 10 p.m. -- for those out there in the might-convert or curious-about-conversion audience about the whole issue over what to tell people once you convert. The reason I want to do a video on this is someone was recently asking me what I thought about the situation in relation to their significant other (a convert) wanting to tell her running buddy that she was converting and that if she didn't tell her it might be like lying or something. Anyhow, I shall video blog it. 
• Tomorrow: Blogging on Rabbi Marc D. Angel's "The Search Committee," FINALLY. And I might couple it with a brief bit about another book I've been reading and have (nearly) finished that I think might be worthwhile for the greater audience to read (listen, it talks about the popular legends/myths of the Near East and how they most likely helped shape what we now know as Genesis). 

For now? That's all. Coming to you LIVE from Storrs, Connecticut, where I haven't yet built the ark because the meager rain hasn't deemed it necessary. But don't worry, the animals are poised to hop on board.

Shavua tov!

Ever so Busy

I spent today juggling dozens of tasks, among them phone calls with Sara from PopJudaica and Avi from Jews By Choice in addition to my regular at-work work. Of course I was also checking up on Facebook, Twittering, and sending emails to various lucky parties. Oh, did I mention I was also holding down a conversation on Pidgin with my far-away friend Cesar?

But all the while, I managed to make use my office's scanner, since tomorrow is my last day, copying pages I'd taken notes on and flagged in A Heart of Many Rooms: Celebrating the Many Voices within Judaism by David Hartman (a book that Avi had suggested to me, actually). Although I can't say that I read every last page of the book, I did read about seven-eighths of it, and I have to say it was an outstanding read. Of course, I have 26 pages with various notes and comments that -- at some point -- I will collect into one (hopefully) coherent thought. Until, then, though, I wanted to offer a few snippets from the text.

This first one is where the title of the book comes from, and I think the ideas within this block of quoted text essentially define for me what is necessary to be a Jew today:

There is a beautiful metaphor in the Tosefta that describes the kind of religious sensibility the Talmud tried to nurture: "Make yourself a heart of many rooms and bring into it the words of the House of Shammai and the words of the House of Hillel, the words of those who declare unclean and the words of those who declare clean" (Sotah 7:12). In other words, become a person whom different opinions can reside together in the very depths of your soul. Become a religious person who can live with ambiguity, who can feel religious conviction and passion without the need for simplicity and absolute certainty.
         In this type of interpretive tradition, awareness of the validity of contrary positions enhances, rather than diminishes, the vitality and enthusiasm of religious commitment.

All too often we think it's our way or the highway; but these differing positions -- be it on Torah or who is a Jew or on what is Kosher enough -- should enhance the Jewish experience. After all, probably the most quoted line about the Jewish people is the old "two Jews, three opinions" line.

The second little snippet I wanted to share was one of those things I read and smiled and nodded my head in approval:

Let the Torah never be for you an antiquated decree, but rather like a decree freshly issued, no more than two or three days old. ... But Ben Azzai said: Not even as old as a decree issued two or three days ago, but as a decree issued this very day. (Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, piska 12:12)

The thing I love about studying Torah is that every time I read a portion, even though I've read it before (and yes, it is a full year later), it is like reading it for the first time. I notice a strange translation, a peculiar word choice, an interesting repitition, a contradiction, a unique instance of an idea or thought. Though I have only been studying Torah for a few years, and many begin studying from a very early age and continue throughout life, this concept seems so natural to me. You can read a text every day your entire life, and there will be instances of complete realization -- it is inevitable that you will discover something you missed before. The verbage, the choice of punctuation, the tone of the text, the scenery.

I sometimes read back through my own work and will often think "I wrote that? I wonder why I chose that word. I really punctuated my thought that way?" And this, of course, is the beauty of the written word. It is what I live and breathe, and really drinking it all in allows me to thrive.

So it is with that, that I leave you. I find myself anxious about the approaching Tisha B'av. I feel horribly unprepared and not in the proper state of mind because of the changing winds of my present situation (on Wednesday I leave for Nebraska, and on August 18 I start on my drive to Connecticut). But somehow, everything always seems to fall into place.

Shalom!

No'ach: A rough sketch.

This is, in essence, what it looks like when I study Torah. Comments, short excerpts and things that catch me off guard that I pen for future examination. I'm trying to go throughout the year, keeping up with the Torah, it's commentary and haftarah readings. My text is Etz Hayim: torah and Commentary, which is a Conservative text. Additionally, I have a full Hebrew-text Tanakh and the Jewish Study Bible. So, basically, I've got my bases covered. Although I did not write remarks on last week's Parhsha (or dedicate nearly as much time to it), it's there. I haven't gotten to this week's haftarah reading, and I am saving that for tomorrow morning. So here you go, this is the thought pattern of Amand for the No'ach Torah portion (B'reishit 6:9-11:32).

+ 7:22 -- Was G-d concious of sparing the life of all marine animals? Why? All creatures on "dry land" are swept away in the flood, but not marine life. Curious ...

+ Amazing that locations in such early biblical and near Eastern stories can be pegged (8:4).

+ Olive branch is bitter? I had no clue ... but what irony, eh? The dove and the olive branch have come to symbol peace. We refer to leaders passing or sharing the olive branch, but how appropriate that it has a bitter taste, for all compromises tend to leave a bitter taste in one's mouth.

+ "The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth..." (9:2) -- Is this an attempt to quell the desire of humans to reach a higher eschelon of superiority? Is this meant to put humans in a position of power so that they don't seek to unseat G-d? The commentary suggests that this was in response to the human idea (when man was commanded to be vegetarian) that men could behave as animals. Thus by G-d differentiating the power and dietary restrictions ... man no longer could behave as animals, because they were "above" them. Interestingly, I'd have to disagree. Other commentators?

+ "I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow apears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh." (9:13-15) -- (prayer for rainbows! ... keeping promises, recited after seeing a rainbow) Wow. I had no clue that there was content regarding rainbows in Torah. I almost feel cheated ... the magnificence has always been something I appreciated, but I had no idea that it was tied to a sort of convenant reminder with mankind. It almost makes the beautiful sight MORE magnificent. This also is curious re: when rainstorms produce no rainbow.

+ (10:2) -- Great grandson of Noah is named "Ashkenaz" ...? Does this have any bearing to the term "Ashkenazic" ...? The commentary suggests that the people of the Ashkenaz line were island people of Greece, etc., but says nothing about the common belief that Ashkenazic Jews are those descended of Eastern Europe, Germany, Poland, Austria, etc. In fact, if I'm not mistaken Greecian Jews were considered Sephardic, if anything, not Ashkenazic. I must investigate!

+ (10:8) -- How did Nimrod go from being the first man of might on Earth to being a name called of someone who is a complete idiot? Also, in commentary says he was the first to "misuse" his talents, killing first animals and then humans because of his bloodlust. Interesting and amusing.