“When they said Repent, I Wonder what they Meant": An Alternative Playlist for Yom Kippur

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Yom Kippur 2013

Originally posted on Tablet's "The Scroll"

One of Jewish music’s most venerable traditions is that of borrowing love songs from popular culture and re-positioning them in a religious context. Yisrael Najara took Turkish love songs from the alleys of Damascus and Gaza and set them to holy words. Yehuda haLevi borrowed the imagery of Saharan shepherds and used them to describe the longing of the forsaken Jewish people. It is told of Rabbi Ovadiya Yosef that he can only write his halakhic responsa if Umm Kulthum is playing in the background. All is fair when trying to open up the heart…

As Yom Kippur comes round the bend each year, I find myself searching for an alternative playlist of songs to supplement the traditional ones, hoping to crack open my cynical heart with a surprising connection or two. As a gift for the new year, here is my list this year. While a random selection at best, it seems each song includes its own answer to Leonard Cohen’s immutable question:

When they said: “Repent, Repent!” I Wonder What They Meant?

Pay Me or Go to Jail!

Bruce Springsteen | Pay Me My Money Down

“Repentance” is the Latin term often used for the Hebrew word “Teshuva”. They actually mean vastly different things. In the metaphor of repentance, atonement is achieved by paying back. Our sins are debts, accrued throughout year. As the New Year approaches, our debtor demands of us: “Pay me my money down!” On Yom Kippur – unable to repay all our bad deeds – we admit bankruptcy and request a bailout from the powers that be: another year of life.

I'll find my way back to you / If you'll be waiting

Tracy Chapman |The Promise

 “Teshuva” on the other hand, means returning. It has nothing to do with the financial – it is wholly spatial. Sin is distance – from truth, from God, from ourselves. The distance is understandable; a logical outcome of a year of journeys. What is required now is a return. Luckily the Jewish people have a promise: No matter where they leave to, God will be waiting for their return. Tracy Chapman promises the same, and her words could easily be a stand-in for a Later Prophet or a Medieval Spanish Jewish poet singing about God and the Jewish people, recalling that old love affair one more time…

If you go, who will embrace me like that?

Idan Raichel | Im Telech

Yom Kippur is the day of closeness, the day in which the High Priest enters the innermost sanctum, the most intimate place in the Temple. Yet the moments of intimacy also raise the anxiety – what happens if you leave? How will I handle being alone again? We recall what happened with the Temple in the end… The Israeli Idan Raichel memorialized this felling most poignantly in his Hebrew song, “Im Telech - If you go”:

If you go / who will hug me like that / who will me hear at the end of the day

who will comfort and soothe / only you know.

In our new “theological” context, one can wonder: who has a deeper anxiety about being left alone – man or God? Rationalists might not like that questions, but Kabbalists, Hasidim and Heschelians have been asking it for years…

My Entire Body: Take One

Ibn Ezra | Lecha Eli

A moment before Kol Nidrei, Sephardic Jews will recite an erotic poem of deep desire: “To You My God, is My Desire” by Avraham Ibn Ezra.:

To you my God is my desire / in you is my pleasure and my love
to you is my heart and my kidneys / to you is my spirit and my soul

One by one they will mention each of their limbs and organs, reiterating how much they all aspire, desire and long for God’s proximity.

At the same time, traditional Ashkenazi Jews will also be mumbling about their limbs and organs. But in the Ashkenazi version, called “Tefillah Zakah”, it is to decry how each limb has sinned this year, how each organ has betrayed the Lord. Of these two alternatives, despite my European roots, the Sephardic embrace of life and desire is the gate through which I hope to enter Yom Kippur this year.

My Entire Body: Take Two

Nina Simone | I’ve Got Life

Here is a third alternative, rebellious and heretical, but life affirming in a way that is reminiscent of the lust for life of the High Holiday poetry. In Nina Simone’s version of this “Hair” classic, there is a deep spirituality to the freedom of the body. Some might find that freedom in a release from religion. I find it by reclaiming the divine roots of life, seeking freedom from the way society and corporations try to define my body for me. Either way, the cry of life is the basic cry of Yom Kippur: “I’ve Got Life!”, “Seal us in the Book of Life!”

May we be sealed in the Book of Life,

Mishael

A Prayer For Syria on Rosh Hashana

How can we enter the Jewish New Year without also praying for peace in Syria? Two ancient prayers offer a context for Jews to include Israel’s neighbor in their prayers this year.

Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan

Suddenly everyone is talking about Syria. Two years of mayhem and murder, confusion and hesitation. 100,000 Syrians killed, a quarter of the population turned refugees, and now hundreds have been gassed to death, a sight which no Jew – no human – can ignore; a sight which once seen, cannot go unanswered.

As we enter Rosh Hashana, the crucial days of mercy and compassion in the Jewish calendar, we must open the door for the story of the Syrian people to enter into our prayers. If books of life and death are opening during this time, how can we not place this burning issue on our praying agenda during these High Holy Days.

Some might decry such prayers as a “bleeding heart liberal” initiative, one which undermines precious “Jewish time” for the plight of those who are otherwise our enemies. Yet praying for other nations is an inimitable feature of Rosh haShana, and praying on behalf of one’s neighbors is something Jews have been doing since the days of Abraham.

Rosh haShana contains an on-going tension between the personal and the global. On one hand it is our private judgment day, a day where the Jewish people crown God as our King. Yet Rosh haShana commemorates the creation of the world – not the creation of the Jewish people. It is the judgment day for the entire world – and our prayers must reflect that concern.

This concept is already invoked in many of the prayers of Rosh haShana, and best crystallized in one of the oldest prayers for Rosh haShana, called “Rav’s Tekiya”. Originally quoted in the Talmud, it continues to appear in almost all prayer books:

“This day is the commencement of Your deeds, a recollection of that first day.

It is a fixture for Israel, a day of judgment for the God of Jacob.

And regarding the nations it will be decided:

Which to peace and which to the sword; which to hunger and which to prosperity;

And creatures will be called up, to be recalled for life or death.”

(Babylonian Talmud Rosh haShana 27a)

This short prayer encapsulates the Jewish approach to universalism: Only when facing personal judgment day, can one also face a judgment day for the collective nation, and only on such a collective moment can one face a judgment day for all of creation. Individual, family, nation and humanity are not mutually exclusive or competing frames, but complimentary ones. One cannot be a Universalist without acting out of a personal, familial and national context, and one cannot act within his own kinship groups without also realizing that, at the end of the day, we all have a shared ancestry. Jewishness is not a ghetto in which to take refuge from the world, it is rather a lens through which to engage with the world.

Abraham and the First Prayer

In stepping up to pray on behalf of our Syrian neighbors we are walking in the footsteps of our forefather, Abraham, who - in the first prayer in the Torah - prays for his neighbor, Abimelech, the king of Grrar. Abimelech is not exactly a friend to Abraham’s family: he mostly comes across as a swindling, opportunistic and dishonest person. Yet when Abimelech’s home is cursed with barrenness, Abraham – whose wife suffers from the same affliction – prays to God on his behalf. Immediately after Abraham’s prayer on behalf of Abimelech, the geriatric Sarah and Abraham themselves receive a child: “And God recalled Sarah as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:1-2). It is with this verse that the traditional Torah reading on Rosh haShana opens, as we hope that God will recall us too, as he recalled our grandmother. From this tale, says the Talmud, we learn that “whoever begs for mercy for his friend, when he needs the same thing, is answered.” (Bava Kamma 92b).

In our prayers this year we should beg for mercy for our neighbors, seeking peace in their land, safety and stability in their homes, security and justice in their streets. We will pray that they will open their hearts in compassion to their own neighbors – and to us as well. And within this prayer we hope that we too receive these blessings, such that a great and glorious peace visits our homes, nations and countries as well, in the year 5774.

A Rosh haShana Prayer for SyriaMaster of the Universe, Father of Orphans, Protector of Widows, Whose compassion is upon all creations – look upon the nations and rise from the seat of judgment and turn to the seat of compassion. Heal the wounded, release the imprisoned, sustain the fallen, and hasten redemption for the Syrian people.
God who can make paths in an ocean, carve out a path in this sea of distress, engender in the hearts of the warring sides compassion towards each other, and open their hearts in understanding towards us as well.
Guide us as we strive to understand our role in this crisis. Give wisdom in the hearts of our leaders, and strengthen the hands of our defenders. Holder of Mercy, bring an end to this suffering, spread justice and forgiveness throughout the land, and may a great and wonderful peace spread all over the region, from Your holy land to all its neighbors, and to your entire world, and let us say: Amen.

(a Hebrew version of this prayer is forthcoming)

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Reprogramming Tisha b’Av: The Rabbi and the Hacker

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Tisha b’Av 2013

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

In the still of night, two students carry the body of their beloved Teacher through the streets. The city – besieged, burned, starved, crazed – has turned in against itself, and seems to be on an unstoppable downwards spiral to destruction. Zealots guard the gates, preventing anyone from leaving – exit is betrayal. Feigning death is the key to redemption. Once outside the walls, the Teacher brushes aside the ruse of his demise and goes off to establish a new city, in which he will teach his students how to take things apart and put them together again. Old rituals will receive new meaning. Tradition will be deconstructed and rebuilt in an unrecognizable way.

***

The Bronfman Fellowships summer – which started this week for the 27^th time – is an experience in storytelling: a few basic stories that aspire to infuse the Fellows with fresh metaphors, new horizons and novel pathways through which to understand themselves and their surroundings. Elisha ben Avuyah’s heretical escape; Rabbi Yehoshua crying out “It’s not in Heaven!”; Hillel and Shammai’s students marrying eachother despite their disagreements (or perhaps killing eachother to gain a majority before the next vote?).

One of my favorite stories is the tale of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai leaving Jerusalem in the heat of the revolt against the Romans. We will be studying this story with the fellows next Tuesday, as the long fast of Tisha b’Av descends on modern-day Jerusalem:

When Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai saw the rebellion against the Romans, he sent for the men of Jerusalem and said to them: “My sons, why are you destroying this city, and why do you want to burn down the Temple?”
They said to him: “Just as we fought against the two before him and killed them, so, too, we will fight and kill Vespasian!”Vespasian had men stationed near the walls of Jerusalem who reported everything they heard. They reported back to him: “Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai is an admirer of Caesar, and he says so to the people of Jerusalem.”After Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai rebuked the Jerusalemites one day, and a second, and a third, and they did not accept his rebuke, he asked of his students Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua: “My sons, rise up and take me out of here. Make me a coffin and I will sleep in it.”
Rabbi Eliezer held him at the feet and Rabbi Yehoshua held him at the head and they walked around with him until sundown, until they got to the gates of Jerusalem.
The gatekeepers asked them: “Who is this?” They said: “It is a corpse, and don’t you know that it is forbidden to leave a corpse in Jerusalem overnight?”They said to them: “If he is dead, take him out.”
They took him out and carried him until they got to Vespasian. They opened the coffin and Rabbi Yohanan stood before the Roman commander.
Vespasian said: “You are Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai. What can I give you?”
Rabbi Yohanan responded: “I request nothing but Yavneh. I will go there and teach my students, and set prayers there, and find a way to fulfill all the commandments of the Torah.”Vespasian said to him: “Go, and all that you want to do, do.” (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 4)

As always on Bronfman, this is not a history lesson, rather an exploration of human responses to life, an investigation into the ways people and communities create and innovate in the face of crisis. On Tisha b’Av we remember and lament the destructions, those at the hands of our enemies and those at our own hands. But it is also a time to revisit the moment when a leader stepped out and stepped up, the “Ben Zakkai moment” of Tisha b’Av.

A “Ben Zakkai moment” is the moment in which one realizes that the new reality is not a mere obstacle to overcome, but rather an opportunity to re-think the categories around which our lives have been organized. Ben Zakkai uses the crises to catalyze a paradigm shift. In his case it required a break and a betrayal of old institutions and allegiances, and even collaboration with enemy forces. Ben Zakkai’s about-face panned out, earning him a place of honor in the pantheon of Jewish leadership.

We’re living in a time in which old institutions – corporate, communal and professional institutions - are crumbling and losing their relevance, while new technologies and fields of knowledge are retaking the stage, establishing a world of fluidity. “Yavnehs” are springing up all around us. It’s a time of Ben Zakkais. But specifically as this time we need not only those with the courage to step out, but also the ones with the resources to reconstruct.

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai is often considered the founder of Talmudic thinking, raising the generation of students that created the “Torah of the Mouth” needed to keep the “Written Torah” vibrant and relevant in a post-Temple world. In Yavneh  he worked to redefine the most basic categories of Judaism in a post-Temple reality.

As we seek to inspire today’s Ben Zakkais, the problematic image of computer programmers and hackers come to mind. Though the term “Hackers” often elicits images of anarchists, as is the case with recent news coverage, the “Hacker ethic” seems to me a great definition of what Talmudic thinkers also strove to be about. Steven Levy in his book describes it as follows:

“Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems – about the world – from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting things. This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that (from his point of view) is broken and needs improvement.”

Hackers who are only about destroying and disrupting betray this ethic. But students who are taught only to succeed at tests and miss out on the joy of taking things apart for its own sake – will lack the skills to create the new and interesting things that we are in need of today.

As for Bronfman Fellows – it’s the spark in their eye they get when taking something apart and creating something new – which often sets them apart. For me, that’s the spark of a Talmudic frame of mind, the spark which Yohanan Ben Zakkai lit in his students so many centuries ago.

כשבא אספסיינוס להחריב את ירושלים - 
אמר להם: שוטים, מפני מה אתם מבקשים להחריב את העיר הזאת, ואתם מבקשים לשרוף את בית המקדש, וכי מה אני מבקש מכם אלא שתשגרו לי קשת אחת או חץ אחת ואלך לי מכם.
אמרו לו: כשם שיצאנו על שנים ראשונים שהם לפניך והרגנום, כך נצא לפניך ונהרגך. 
כיון ששמע רבן יוחנן בן זכאי, שלח וקרא לאנשי ירושלים. 
ואמר להם: בני, מפני מה אתם מחריבין את העיר הזאת, ואתם מבקשים לשרוף את בהמ"ק? וכי מהו מבקש מכם? הא אינו ומבקש מכם אלא קשת אחת או חץ אחת, וילך לו מכם. 
אמרו לו: כשם שיצאנו על שנים שלפניו והרגנום, כך נצא עליו ונהרגהו. 
היו לאספסיינוס אנשים שרויין כנגד חומותיה של ירושלים, וכל דבר ודבר שהיו שומעין היו כותבין על החצי וזורקין חוץ לחומה. לומר שרבן יוחנן בן זכאי מאוהבי קיסר הוא. 
וכיון שאמר להם רבי יוחנן בן זכאי יום אחד ושנים ושלשה ולא קבלו ממנו, שלח וקרא לתלמידיו: לר' אליעזר ורבי יהושע. 
אמר להם: בני, עמדו והוציאוני מכאן. עשו לי ארון ואישן בתוכו. ר' אליעזר אחז בראשו, ר' יהושע אחז ברגליו, והיו מוליכין אותו עד שקיעת החמה, עד שהגיעו אצל שערי ירושלים. אמרו להם השוערים: מי הוא זה? 
אמרו להן: מת הוא, וכי אין אתם יודעים שאין מלינים את המת בירושלים? 
אמרו להן: אם מת הוא, הוציאוהו. והוציאוהו. והיו מוליכין אותו עד שקיעת החמה, עד שהגיעו אצל אספסיינוס. 
פתחו הארון ועמד לפניו. 
אמר לו: אתה הוא רבי יוחנן בן זכאי? שאל מה אתן לך. 
אמר לו: איני מבקש ממך אלא יבנה. אלך ואשנה בה לתלמידי, ואקבע בה תפלה, ואעשה בה כל מצות האמורות בתורה. 
אמר לו: לך, וכל מה שאתה רוצה לעשות עשה. 

Tourism as Sin: The 12 Spies and the idea of Tzitzit

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Shlach 2013

One of modernity’s most interesting creatures is the tourist. The pre-modern world had pilgrims, traders and vagabonds, but the idea of people travelling the world simply of their own accord is totally new. Tourism has since become not only a staple of affluent modern life, but also one of the most apt metaphors for a way of being in the world. Being a tourist is about the ability to be “in all places, but of none of them.” In small doses this can be a fantastic experience, but as a way of life I find it quite troubling.

This week’s parasha is bookended by the notion of tourism – in the tale of the 12 spies (“go tour the land”) and in the commandment to wear Tzitzit (“and you shall not tour after your hearts and eyes”). It’s a good opportunity to explore what we know of tourism and to re-read the “tourism texts” of our parsha in that light.

Parashat “Shlach” tells the tragic tale of the 12 spies sent to “tour the land”, performing reconnaissance on behalf of the Israelites. But the spies declare the land “unattainable”, creating a mass rebellion against God and Moshe.  A period of 40 years of wandering ensues. The Mishna claims that the sin of those twelve tourists was the original cause for Tisha b’Av – a national day of grieving our failures. Reams have been written about the sin of the spies actually was, and yet I wonder if their tale can be retold as a “sin of Tourism.”

Scholars distinguish between two types of Tourist experiences: modern and post-modern. Modern tourists seek out authentic cultures – be they ancient or contemporary – on a quest fed by their own desire for authenticity. “Tourism is the secular modern substitute for the pre-modern religious experience” claims sociologist Erik Cohen. The predicament of the authenticity-seeking tourist is that at best the tourist finds a “staged authenticity,” for his very presence undermines the authenticity of the natives. Indeed, the rigorous tourist seeks to break through the “front” presented to her, to the “back” – the real life at the visited destination (enter a million stories about how “we really saw the real thing…”). Yet it is mostly a self-defeating exercise, since that “authentic core” is exactly what cannot be experienced by an outsider.

Post-modern tourism, on the other hand, is described as unburdened by the search for authenticity or originality. Playfulness and entertainment are at the center, regardless of whether the experience is staged or not. It is a studied stance which does not privilege the authentic over the inauthentic. The only criterion is an aesthetic “experiential” one. It is this type of tourism which has turned from a stance into a way of life, as described best by Zygmunt Bauman:

The tourists want to immerse themselves in a strange and bizarre element (a pleasant feeling, a tickling and rejuvenating feeling, life letting oneself by buffeted by sea waves) – on condition, though, that it will not stick to the skin and thus can be shaken off whenever they wish. They choose the elements to jump into according to how strange, but also how innocuous, they are: you recognize the tourist haunts by their blatant, ostentatious oddity, but also by the profusion of safety cushions and well-marked escape routes.

The tourist’s world is fully and exclusively structured by aesthetic criteria (to the detriment of its other, also moral, dimensions…). Tough and harsh realities resistant to aesthetic sculpting do not interfere here. One may say that what the tourist buys, what he pays for, what he demands to be delivered is precisely the right not to be bothered, freedom from any but aesthetic spacing.

The problem is though, that as life itself turns into an extended tourist escapade, as tourist conduct becomes the mode of life and the tourist stance grows into the character, it is less and less clear which one of the visiting places is the home... Homesickness means a dream of belonging; to be, for once, of the place, not merely in… When tourism becomes the mode of life, when the threshold of excitement climbs relentlessly upwards and each new shock must be more shocking than the last one – the possibility of the home-dream ever coming true is as horrifying as the possibility of it never becoming real.  (Zygmunt Bauman, “From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity”, pg. 29-31)

Returning to our parsha with these insights, I wonder if the Israelites’ fear of entering the land is a fear of leaving the innocuous stance of the tourist. It is a fear of engagement beyond the surface, a fear of taking on responsibility, with all of the dangers and risks involved in such an involved stance. As slaves in Egypt and followers of God in the desert, the Israelites didn’t have to exert responsibility or take on significant risks. They were allowed to be tourists, dreaming of home but also fearing what that would entail. When faced with the real costs and risks of “arrival”, they balk. Their tourism has grown into their character, and they no longer want to relinquish their surface-deep freedom for a home. Perhaps they never knew what such a home was.

Today, with the enormous opportunities to encounter and experience, tourism is no longer an occasional stance but has become a smost attractive way of life. The highest accolades belong to those of chameleon-like abilities, existing “in all places” without being “of any place”. From the lives of the ultra-educated-hyper-mobile-global-professionals to the odyssey year’s confusion of “Girls”, postmodern living can easily lead us into becoming tourists in our own stories.

It is this second idea, not being “of any place” that the spies and their followers are doomed to live the rest of their lives as they wander through the desert for 40 years. But the end of our Parasha suggests a remedy for both being in the world and of the world. Take it as a material commandment or a powerful counter-metaphor, the mitzvah of Tzitzit can be described as the act of “anti-tourism”:

And it shall be unto you for tzitzit, that you may look at them… and that you not go touring after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you use to go astray; in order that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God.

…וְהָיָה לָכֶם, לְצִיצִת, וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת כָּל מִצְו‍ֹת יְהוָה, וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם; וְלֹא תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר-אַתֶּם זֹנִים, אַחֲרֵיהֶם. לְמַעַן תִּזְכְּרוּ, וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֶת-כָּל-מִצְו‍ֹתָי; וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים, לֵאלֹהֵיכֶם.

Tzitzit are a mitzvah of the eyes. Eyes are a funny thing – they never are where we are. They are always beyond - searching, looking, leaving. Eyes are also the first tool of the search for meaning (“Raise your eyes and see – who created all this?” says Isaiah) or philosophy (Maimonides’ first commandment in the Code is to “look”). It is the move to compassion and empathy, the first base for the creation of meaningful bonds. But the eyes first must be grounded, they must be “of a place” before they take us to a new place.

Read in this frame, Tzitzit is about creating a portable home, encasing ourselves in a flexible film which enables the heart and the eyes to emanate from a place of self-knowledge, and from there to take in the world. But Tzitzit are not just about self-knowledge, they are about knowing oneself to be obligated: “and you shall see the tzitzit, and you shall remember the mitzvot, your incumbent obligations – and you shall preform them”.

More than anything else, obligation is the opposite of tourism. Rather than understood as a protective armor against a seductive world, tzitzit might be a way to engage with the world out of a frame of obligation and belonging, a grounding point for all future journeys.

Shabbat Shalom.

Thessaloniki, 1533 and the Bridesmaids: The Origins of Tikkun Leil Shavuot

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Shavuot 2013

When the companions gathered together on that night in order to prepare [letaken] the adornments of the Bride, so that she may be ready to appear before the King with her jewels and adornments as is proper, Rabbi Shimon would say:
“Happy is the share of the Companions when the King asks his Bride: “Who has prepared your beautiful adornments? Who has made your crown so radiant, and done all your preparation?” For there is no one in the entire world who knows how to arrange the adornments of the Bride like the Companions. Happy is their share in this world, happy is their share in the world to come!”

(Zohar III: 97b-98b)

Thessaloniki, best site for a 16th century Tikkun 

We celebrate Torah twice in the Jewish year. On Simchat Torah we dance with a closed scroll, ignoring the content and instead celebrating the  fact that God gave us this amazing present called Torah. But the Torah is about partnership – at least in the Rabbinic version of the story – so it is only fitting that there is a night when we focus on the fact that this divine text was delivered into human hands. Enter Shavuot, Chag Matan Torah, the holiday of the Giving of the Torah, where we unroll the scroll and study its contents. On this night, we don’t just hold the Torah, we celebrate being partners in creating it.

The Zohar takes this idea one step further, introducing the idea of the nocturnal Tikkun (Maimonides, for example, didn’t celebrate Shavuot in this way at all). On a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, one begins with reading highlights of the Written Torah, but it is the Torah sebe’al Peh, the Torah-of-the Human-Mouth, which the Zohar mandates to be studied on Shavuot In this frame, Shavuot celebrates the Human side of the God-Torah-Humanity partnership. The ultimate receiving of the Torah is turning the words of Torah into Jewels and adornments:

Rabbi Shimon would sit and study Torah all night, on the night when the bride was to be united with her husband. For we have learned that the bridesmaids are needed in the bride's palace on that night, as she prepares for her meeting on the morrow with her husband under the bridal canopy. They need to be with her all that night and rejoice with her, preparing the jewels with which she is adorned, studying Torah – from the Humash to the Prophets, and from the Prophets to the Writings. Then they should study Torah of the Mouth, the midrashic and mystical interpretations of the verses, for these are her adornments and her finery.
And she enters with her maidens and stands above their heads, and she is adorned by them, and rejoices with them throughout the night. And on the morrow she does not enter the bridal canopy without them, and they are the ones called “the sons of the bridal canopy.”
When she enters the bridal canopy the Holy One, blessed be He, inquires after those birdesmaids, and blesses them, and crowns them with the bridal crowns.
Blessed is their portion. (Zohar I:8a) 

Like Cinderella’s fairies, the students of Torah spend their time weaving and adorning the Bride all night, delicately piecing together hiddushei Torah in an attempt to prepare for the great union of the morning. The Zohar’s metaphor is a totally different way of thinking about learning Torah, imbued with a desire for the aesthetic, the delicate personal touch of a jewler, the erotic love of friendship. Judaism is a jewelry workshop, not a museum…

One of the most striking aspects of the Zohar’s culture, as described in our short excerpt, is that spirituality happens within a circle of companions, a havurah, preferably of 10 participants. This idea inspired many other havurot, most notably in Tsfat in the 16^th century. One such havurah held a Tikkun Leil Shavuot exactly 480 years ago, which – luckily for us – was recorded and copied in numerous books in subsequent years, becoming a landmark for Jewish intellectual history. I share a translation of this account as a gift for Shavuot.

The year is 1533, and one Rabbi Yosef Karo, soon to be of Shulkhan Arukh fame, is living in Thessaloniki. Born in Spain before the expulsion, he is of the generation of Jews who were welcomed by the Ottoman Empire. Karo is known as a Halakhist, but he had a strange hobby: the voice of the Mishna would occasionally appear as an angel from his mouth. On Shavuot night of 1533 he meets up with his friend and fellow mystic, R. Shlomo Alkabetz (soon to be of Lecha Dodi fame). They decide to learn together with some companions, but fail to convince a full minyan to join them. They begin to learn, stringing words

Cover of "Maggid Meisharim", R. Yosef Karo's
book of Mishna revelations

of Torah together, until suddenly, when they begin reciting Oral Torah, the “spirit of the Mishna” speaks up from Karo’s throat. My favorite part of the story comes the next morning, when they meet up with the friends who snubbed them on the first night, and they all cry together for the missed opportunity. Beware my friends, and do not miss Tikkun Leil Shavuot this year. Who knows what might transpire…

How is my Learning? Proposing an Annual Checkup

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Shavuot 2013

“The crown of Torah is ready and waiting for all…

all who want are invited to come and take a share”

(Maimonides’ Code, Talmud Torah 3:1)

Here is a proposal for Shavuot beyond the cheesecake. If the High Holidays are the time we inspect our behavior towards others, and Passover the time we take stock of our freedom, then Shavuot, being a celebration of our becoming the “People of the Book”, should be about how we are doing at learning.

Granted, the number of people who maintain a practice of Jewish learning might be slim, but judging by the joy I get from reading articles on exercise and yoga without being much of a practitioner of either, I hope this project can garner some readership. Thus I offer a “Jewish Learning Checkup” for maintaining a healthy and generative learning practice.

This is not a prescriptive brow-beating checkup (we’ll leave that for Yom Kippur), but rather an aspirational diagnostic tool, five categories through which to examine ones practice:

A Jewish Learning Checkup:

1.       Kevah: How can my learning be more than leisure?

2.       Canon: What are the texts I wish to engage with?

3.       Hevruta: Who are the partners challenging me in my journey?

4.       Hiddush: Is my learning generating innovations – in the text and in myself?

5.       Action: Does my learning inspire my actions?

Reflection and context on these five questions follows.

1.       Kevah: Learning as a regular practice

“Do not say, I will study when I have the time,

for you may never have the time.”

(Avot 2:4)

How can learning be embedded into an already overstuffed life? How do we prevent it from being relegated to a sporadic leisure activity?

In the age of the Netflix-induced decline of communal cultural campfires, the experience of living in a shared cultural rhythm is even harder to attain in our lives.  This shift is also disruptive to the first floor of Jewish learning which has always been connecting a canon to a communal calendar. This cyclical approach informs everything from the ancient “Parashat haShavua” (weekly Torah portion) to the recent “Daf Yomi” (daily page of Talmud). Text becomes a routinized practice which is weaved into the fabric of the busy life, synchronizing individuals with the pulsating rhythm of a community of learners. It is less about content and more about constant.

Today’s world calls for a learning practice which is a personalized journey, where content and relevance reign supreme, and thankfully so. Yet much can be adopted from the communal calendar approach: Timed benchmarks, even in the smallest of doses, are meaningful – as long as they are regularized. There is enormous power to commitment, whether it is reading “one midrash a week” or “a new Jewish book each year”. It might be a low bar quantitatively, but placing the project of Jewish learning as a fixture of your own story is the significant act here. Celebrating success with a “siyyum” is another great institution: Friends (and smoked fish) are invited to celebrate a learning milestone, adding a healthy social element to a personalized practice, and providing an opportunity for the learner to become a teacher – sharing with others what you’ve learned.

To be sure, knowing one should maintain a practice is a far cry from actually starting one. What makes you go out and do, and then keep it up? Think of your physical exercise practices – what can be learned from those? For the learning you already do –how can you share and celebrate it with others?

2.       Canon: Weaving canonical texts into life

“Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it”.

(Avot 5:26)

I remember the mystified look my daughter gave me when she first saw me kiss a book that fell on the floor. is the practice of deciding that a certain body of texts is of elevated status, and is thus worthy of returning to time and again.  This higher status changes not only the frequency in which the book is read, but also the way in which it is read. Canonized texts are read with a classicist assumption: that one can find personal meaning and relevancy in the text beyond the context in which it was written. The canonized corpus is constantly returned to, creating a language and a collective imagination which shape the learner’s world view. The more regularly we enter the magical kingdom of the text, the more that kingdom becomes the overlay through which we understand our own life and society.

New Canons?

Canonizing

Many think the Jewish canon is a closed one, comprised solely of texts written centuries ago in an imaginary Jewish vacuum. But the Jewish learning canon has always been wider than perceived, and in modern times we have seen an expansion to include Jewish novels and literature, modern poetry, academic scholarship, art and film (in a Bronfman Fellowships learning session, Yehuda Amichai is as canonical as the Talmud…). One could also advocate for a learning practice that highlights shared canons: the American canon, a World Religions or Western Philosophy canon, to name but a few.

Not all texts are worthy of becoming canonical – it is the exclusivity that makes canons work. The important question is: what are the canons I choose to engage with? What are the canons that my community invites me to explore? What are the texts in my life which I elevate, return to them again and asking: how is this text relevant to me now?

3.       Hevruta: Finding partners for adventures in learning

A person who studies alone – is like a lone branch aflame.

A group of friends studying together – are like a bonfire of many branches.

Yossef Gikatila, The Book of Parables, Spain 13th C

The library, taking its cues from the monastery’s scriptorium, is a place of solitary, silent, devotional learning. The Beit Midrash in contrast is loud, noisy, heated and, well, sweaty…. Texts are read aloud, and the more noise and contrasting readings and opinions one can produce – the better. Jewish learning is most generative with partners – be it the havurah/study-circle/book-group, or the hevruta/one-on-one friendship.

Finding the right Hevruta has all complexities of dating, but Hevruta is also a frame of mind. There is a healthy pluralism to learning when it is done in Hevruta. The “Hevruta personality” seeks to be challenged, and demonstrates openness towards other perspectives. In the hands of the right partner, vulnerability and a willingness to be “at risk” in front of the text are be present. Even rejecting a text requires enough understanding of both the text and oneself in order to understand why the learner is deciding to reject it is a classic Hevruta move.

What partners do wish for ourselves in our learning practice – which are already there? How can we turn friends and colleagues into Hevrutas? Am I challenging myself to new horizons that think differently than me?

4.       Hiddush: Innovations in interpreting text and self

 “One cannot have a Beit Midrash without Hiddush (=innovation)”

(Talmud Bavli Hagigah 3a)

One who engages in Jewish learning is always asked “What hiddush was there in the House of Learning today?” (Bavli Hagigah 3a). Regularized canon has an aspect of passivity to it, a repetition by rote of things one has already heard before. Thus Talmudic tradition balances the regularized with the innovative, mandating hiddush: the desire for innovative readings, fresh understandings and surprising turns in the plot. There is a theology at play here: just as God “recreates the world anew each day” – so we recreate and innovate, rejuvenating the text, the learning, and ourselves. Generating Hiddushim is a daunting task, one that requires producing Torah as much as learning Torah.

A learning practice that is committed to Hiddush is also about being committed to personal innovation. In Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s words, each human life is considered “the greatest hiddush!” When learning and innovating in Torah, we must strive to be innovating in ourselves, recreating ourselves, rediscovering our story and sharing it with the world anew.

What innovative connections can I make through my learning? How do I not only consume Torah, but create it? What is it about myself that I want my learning to help me better understand?

5.       Action: Connecting learning to doing

 “Great is learning which inspires action”

(Bavli Kidushin 40b)

What is at stake in our learning? Not just this or that intellectual attainment or private self-understanding, but the very way we are in the world. This is not just about reading texts as normative authorities which provide answers to specific dilemmas (i.e. Halakha, which has prime place in Jewish learning), but about the way Aggadah – the stories, imagination and language of Jewish texts – inspire our behavior. Our learning should inform our disposition towards others, our political decisions, the way we exercise power and authority at work and in the home, the way we consume and purchase, eat and buy – this is a learning that is worthy of its name.

In mussar circles there is a practice of stepping back from each text learnt and asking “What is this in avodah, in my work?” What can I take from this text to my own life’s work? What question can I be asking to allow my learning to inspire my action?