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Talmud going through us...

It is said that a scholar once came to R. Israel Salanter and boasted that he had gone through the Talmud, surely an achievement. Detecting a smudge of arrogance in the man's manner, R. Salanter asked him: "you had gone through most of the Talmud, but how much of the Talmud had gone through you"?

 

Here a story of two people through whom Talmud had gone, and a lesson for us.

How a Talmud Class Helped Save My Marriage

After 36 years of fiercely devoted marriage, my husband and I are broke, anxious and disappointed. We hardly speak to each other, and when we do it is mostly to accuse and complain. Is it desperation, a search for solace or something more elusive that brings us to the most unlikely of places? One autumn afternoon, responding to an invitation by a rabbi friend, we find found ourselves joining a class called “Tales From the Talmud.”

Neither ET, as I call my husband, nor I have any reason to believe that rabbinic literature will be restorative. Our personal histories with Judaism are very different: ET, a hidden child during the war, lived most of his adult life as a secular, Parisian Jew. His attitude toward Talmud study is at best neutral, tinged with curiosity. I am a generation younger, raised in the postwar era by a father whose militant Orthodoxy was a constant impediment to everything I longed for in life.

Despite my misgivings, we find ourselves on the 46th floor of a midtown law firm, seated on opposite sides of a spacious conference table, ready for class to begin.

The first discussion pushes a hot button. How can we recognize true love, the Sages asked. One replies that the real thing is not conditional on anything external such as beauty, wealth or status, for if it were, love would too easily risk its own extinction. Another counters that true love is of course dependent on conditions. The real question is — what conditions. If they arise from solid values — piety, wisdom, trust — they will sustain the bond.

Could my love have been conditional on the good times? It’s uncomfortable seeing myself in that harsh light. What were the underpinnings of our union? Over three decades, we had no shortage of passion, travel, dancing, culture, humor, social life. But lasting values like open communication, deep caring, trust and honesty, devoted parenting and providing one another with rock-solid, safe refuge also figured high. Lately we’ve seen serious erosion on all counts. I try to catch my husband’s eye, but he is looking away.

In the following weeks I recall how the rabbis see the world as multileveled. The physical world is real and present, while it also partakes of higher realms in which ultimate meaning lies. In the Talmud, the faithful often encounter life-threatening drought. The imbalance in the natural world is symptomatic of ills on other planes: They must reckon with their deeds; their relationship with God must be set right.

We read of a rabbi who brings his disciples to a rooftop to pray for rain. His humble wife undertakes her own quiet supplications in another corner. The rain comes to her area of the roof, not the men’s. When resources run dry, as inevitably they do, women are the go-to rainmakers — even, or especially, in a patriarchal society.

When we leave class, ET says, without apology or aggression: “You know, I was able to provide for you for a long time. Now it’s your turn.” Ill at ease with this reversal of assumed gender roles, and even more discomfited by my own inflexibility, I find an excuse to hurry along. But I am unable to ignore the message.

A week later, still seated apart, we read a story about an older rabbi who declares to his wife that he will henceforth be sexually abstinent. The frustrated woman dresses up as the town prostitute and vamps in the garden, where her husband retreats to study. Overcome with desire, he asks her to fetch him a pomegranate. She agrees, and there is a certain ambiguity overlaid with sexual innuendo as to what happens next. He returns to the hearth to find his spouse in her usual wifely drab. He laments that because he has sinned, he must be punished. His wife insists he has committed no such sin because the object of his “illicit” desire was none other than her.

Again, the wife is the more resourceful of the two. I ask ET if, in his view, the husband might have known all along that the object of his desire was really his wife. ET insists that the man’s libido was awakened by only the fancied transgression. We are having our first edgy and totally honest exchange in a long time.

In another class, we read of a father who reminds me of my own. ET and I are now seated side by side. An angry Rabbi Abin tells his daughter, “You are a source of trouble to mankind; return to dust so that men may not sin because of you.” ET knows how I suffered from my own Orthodox father’s refusal to nurture my life force. ET gently presses my thigh with his own under the table.

The class draws to a close with a final story. A certain Rechumi spends all his time off studying in the far-off academy, coming home to his wife only for Yom Kippur. One year, she waits and waits, sure that her husband will come, but he does not. Still at school, Rechumi wanders up to the roof in deep contemplation. In the moment his wife realizes he is not coming, she sheds a single tear. In that same moment, the roof collapses under Rechumi and he is killed.

ET asks, “Do you know why this one tear is so powerful?” I reply, “Because it is her “Aha” moment, the instant everything becomes clear.”

He says, his voice cracking: “This is not simply a unique tear. This is her last tear. After this tear, she will never shed another over this man.”

We sit curled up in each other’s arms, breathing in harmony if not in unison, recalling the old feeling of absolute belonging.

“That is one tear I will not shed,” I say.

The classes are over, but the rabbinic imagination has put us in touch with our impulses and excesses, our patterns and possibilities. Like the Sages, we do not always agree, but we are again fully engaged. It seems the embrace of shared vulnerability is the unconditional condition of aging love, one that is not likely to expire.

 

Hitting Rock Bottom -Korach

The Torah is written on many levels, among them the literary and metaphorical. We may not always understand the metaphors it uses, but they, nevertheless, can "get into our kishkes", affecting us on the symbolic, experiential and emotional levels, so that an idea penetrates, diffuses and dwells in out subconscious and, affects and shapes how we understand and interpret other Torah passage. Stories do that, images and phrases do it. 

Among such devices is, I believe, the swallowing of Korach and his congregation by the earth.

On the face of it, the earth opening its mouth and swallowing the unruly rebels is remarkable and a riveting image. As we discussed before, and based on Mordechai Breuers work. the story of Korach is a split screen. On one scree, there stands the grouping of characters around Korach: on the other screen is the one led by Dosan abd Aviram. In one wants power, the other one egalitarianism in Divine Service. One is around Korach's tent, the other by he Altar. The two movies, however, intertwine and bleed into the frames of one another. Most importantly, they dies in two different ways. Korach is swallowed by the earth and the the others are consumed by fire. 

What it the metaphor of the earth opening up and swallowing Korach and his congregation? There are, of course, many, but one stands out.

The metaphor of falling through the earth, may I suggest, represents the concept that goes beyond  "hitting rock bottom". 

When a person falls,he or she tend to eventually hit rock bottom. It may be an alcoholic, thrown out by his wife and children, having lost his job, vomiting in a dark hotel room after another binge, an addict waking up where he never imagined he would ever be, or milder variations of such, that make an individual confront that there is no where to go lower than this, and the only way now is up.

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”  J.K. Rowling

But what about those who refuse to acknolwedge that they hit rock bottom, who persist on the same way, who insist on staying where there is  no lower where to go?

Korach was warned. His base motivations were reveled to him, but he refused to turn back. Within a forthnight he went from a respected elder to a despicable rebel. He hit rock bottom. He had nowhere else to go but up. But he did not!

The metaphor in the parsha is telling us that, even where one seems to have to hit rock bottom but refuses to go up, and there are appears to be no lower than he can go, if the does not catch himself, he will find that there is yet lower where to go.

The solid rocky ground can open up the gehennom under its seemingly solid surface, and there is much lower than one can go!

The alternative to not going up from the very bottom is not staying there, but going even lower. Where one thinks that it cannot get worse, the ground open up, and unimagined depths of depravity reveal themselves. It teaches us that one must, must go up for if not, there is much lower yet to go.

 

 

Rabbi Akiva and the Alef Bet

In the Shavuos edition of this year's Inyan magazine I saw an article about Alef Beis that asks the following question on this passage from Avos D'Rabbi Noson, Ch.6 (Version A):

What were Akiva's beginnings? 

It is said: Up to the age of forty, he had not yet studied a thing. One time, while standing by the mouth of a well in Lydda, he inquired, "Who hollowed out this stone?" and was told, "Akiva, haven't you read that 'water wears away stone' (Job 14:19)? - it was water falling upon it constantly, day after day."

At that, Rabbi Akiva asked himself: Is my mind harder than this stone? I will go and study at least one section of Torah. He went directly to a schoolhouse, and he and his son began reading from a child's tablet. Rabbi Akiva took hold of one end of the tablet, and his son of the other end. The teacher wrote down alef and get for him, and he learned them; alef to tav, and he learned them; the book of Leviticus, and he learned it. He went on studying until he learned the whole Torah.

 

Why was there a need for Akiva to study Alef Bet, when his knowledge of Tanach must have been prodigious, He knew the verse from Job 14:19, so he must have known how to read, and quite a bit of Tanach as well.

The author, whose name I unfortunately no longer recall, suggests that what R. Akiva learned was not the just the shapes and forms of the letters but the entire mystical tradition relating to the alphabet.

 

If so, however, why was his young son studying it with him?

 

I would suggest two other approaches:

 

1.R. Akiva certainly knew how to read but now he was about to launch on the study of Torah Shebaal Peh. The Alphabet is the most basic expression of Oral law, as indicated in this Talmudic passage in Shabbos 31a, and he had to relearn it as a part of Torah Shabbal Peh, or this dimension of the Oral tradition would be missing from him:

 

A case occurred, a Nochri came in front of Shamai; he asked, how many Toros do you have.

1.Shamai: We have two, written and oral.

2.The Nochri: I believe you about the written Torah, not about the oral Torah - convert me on condition that you will teach written Torah to me!

3.Shamai angrily drove him away.

4.The Nochri came in front of Hillel; Hillel converted him. The first day, Hillel taught him Aleph, Beis, Gimel, Dalet; the next day, Hillel reversed the order of the letters.

5.The Nochri: Yesterday you taught differently!

6.Hillel: You rely on me to know the letters - you can also rely on me regarding oral Torah!

 

2. Some day , he knew that he will no longer be Akiva, but Rabbo Akiva, the great Sage from whom many will come to learn. He will receive many questions. One day a questioner will ask him how to teach Alef Beis, and he would not know. This is why he started again from the beginning.

One sometimes encounters rabbis whose learning did not start from Alef Beis. They gained a lot of knowledge but missed absorbing the authentic attitude and feeling of Yiddishkeit. They can handle the data but not the Spirit of the Law. They can answer technical questions but not teach the inner dimension. They don't understand why something that is not clearly forbidden might still be inadvisable. R. Akiva did not want to become such a rabbi, and, even though he could read, he elected to start his education again from the beginning.

 

 

Three Rabbis:

 

 

 

 

Of ants and grasshoppers, and frigate birds... and spies

When the spies returned from their mission to the Land of Israel, they curiously never said that Jews cannot conquer it. This is what they said:

"“We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.  However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there (Numbers 3) .

To which Caleb responded: "“Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

The spies then explained what they experienced:“The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³ And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

Much has been made of this amazing lack of confidence in themselves, their mission and ultimately of Hashem's power, but an important question remains. Why did they not compare themselves to ants? Why to grasshoppers?

Rashi seems to have been troubled by this question and he explains that grasshoppers really means ants. He says: "We heard them say to each other, 'There are ants in the vineyard like people".

However, one can suggest that they really did mean grasshoppers and not ants, and why is this?

Because there is a major difference about how ants and grasshoppers think of themselves.

Ants are very happy to run across the ground and have no aspiration to leap, to go higher. They are very happy to be ants, like all their fellow ants, of which they are an integral part. Ants are faithful workers, who contribute to the collective; they work industriously and proudly, until it is their time to go into oblivion, fully satisfied with their  little lives and their tiny, but to them primary place in the ant universe. No ant ever thought to rise above his fellows. His is what he is, a social creature, who measures himself solely by its social position in the world of ants. 

Grasshoppers jump. They rise and they fall. They cover distance. They try, every time to jump higher.

Ants do not get depressed by Giants. In their universe, Giants don't even exist.And if they do so what. Can Giants build ant heaps, drag kernels to the Queen, build walls and do all the things good ants do? Of course now. If so, what are they good for?

But grasshoppers, understand, they understand.

Ants will never be depressed by Giants. But, grasshoppers are.

When the spies saw the Giants, they suffered an acute crisis of confidence. For so many years, they worked on scaling the heights of greatness, fixing their characters, gaining awareness of the Divine, plumbing the depths of Torah. Year by year their jumps became a little higher, their time in the air a little longer.

And then they met Giants. They felt like frauds, or worse, suckers. Grasshoppers cannot be Giants, so why even try.

Fine, you might say, that is true and so why were they wrong.

"Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites (Numbers 14).  The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?

They were profoundly mistaken because with Hashem's active help and assistance, even grasshoppers can become Giants. This is what they did not understand.

Once we talk about animals, let us look at another majestic creature that Hashem had made.

Frigate birds can stay in the airs for days at a time, hardly ever flapping their expansive wings. For many years, zoologists were mystified about this ability, until they realized that frigate birds ride currents. They are able to find an updraft and stay with it for hours at a time, skipping and jumping from one current to another.

 In their confusion and humiliation, in their embarassment about the limits of their own powers, the spies forgot the great Power of Hashem. They forgot that they need not flap their wings to exhaustion, gaining altitude inch by inch. They can rest upon and ride the updraft of the Master of the World.

So can we!

 

 

 

I Am Back

With Hashem's blessing and with His assistance, I will again start blogging on Avakesh.