Overheard on Vayishlach

Heard an awesome dvar comparing Yaakov's wrestle with the angel and the formation of Eve, and it inspired me to think about the issue a bit more. Here are the awesome parts:

1. We have two stories in Breishit where God, or some sort of Divine messenger, damages or changes a person's body: the angel striking Jacob's thigh and God excising Adam's rib.

2. In both cases, the victim is introduced as being alone.
-Adam in 2:18:

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, לֹא-טוֹב הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּוֹ; אֶעֱשֶׂה-לּוֹ עֵזֶר, כְּנֶגְדּוֹ.

God said, "It is not good for Adam to be alone. I shall make him a helpmate."

-Jacob in 32:15:

וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב, לְבַדּוֹ; וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ, עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר

Jacob was left alone - and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

3. In both cases, names and name giving giving play a prominent role.

-Adam names the animals, and then names woman.

יָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ.

לְזֹאת יִקָּרֵא אִשָּׁה, כִּי מֵאִישׁ לֻקְחָה-זֹּאת

God brought all the animals to Adam, to see what he would name them, and that which Adam named the animals, that became its name . . . [regarding Eve] "This I shall name Woman, for of Man it was taken." (I've also translated q.r.a as "named" in this context - which is what it means in context, though it does weaken the point a bit.)

-The angel asks Jacob's name and re-names him. Jacob asks the angels name and does some naming of his own.

וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, מַה-שְּׁמֶךָ; וַיֹּאמֶר, יַעֲקֹב

וַיֹּאמֶר, לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ--כִּי, אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל:-

וַיִּשְׁאַל יַעֲקֹב, וַיֹּאמֶר הַגִּידָה-נָּא שְׁמֶךָ, וַיֹּאמֶר, לָמָּה זֶּה תִּשְׁאַל לִשְׁמִי;

וַיִּקְרָא יַעֲקֹב שֵׁם הַמָּקוֹם, פְּנִיאֵל

The angel said to him, "What is you name?" He responded, "Jacob." The angel said to him, "No longer shall Jacob be said as your - rather, it shall be Israel" . . . Now Jacob asked, and said, "Please tell me your name." He responded, "Why would you ask my name?" . . . Jacob named the place Peniel.

4. Now . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? There's only two times in Breishit where the word צלע appears.

-Adam's צלע ("rib", but also translated as "side") is removed by God.

וַיִּקַּח, אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו, וַיִּסְגֹּר בָּשָׂר, תַּחְתֶּנָּה

וַיִּבֶן יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הַצֵּלָע אֲשֶׁר-לָקַח מִן-הָאָדָם, לְאִשָּׁה;

God took one of his ribs, closing the flesh under it. God constucted Woman from the rib which he took from Adam.

-Turns out, the word for Jacob's limp is quite similar! (I'm no master of Hebrew etymology, but limping is walking to the "side")

וְהוּא צֹלֵעַ, עַל-יְרֵכוֹ

And Jacob was limping upon his thigh.

5. Finally, both stories contain a procession of animals, sent before a particular man.

-God brings all the animals before Adam. (See the naming section)

-Jacob sends a huge caravan of animals before Esau.

וַיִּקַּח מִן-הַבָּא בְיָדוֹ, מִנְחָה--לְעֵשָׂו אָחִיו

זִּים מָאתַיִם, וּתְיָשִׁים עֶשְׂרִים, רְחֵלִים מָאתַיִם, וְאֵילִים עֶשְׂרִים

גְּמַלִּים מֵינִיקוֹת וּבְנֵיהֶם, שְׁלֹשִׁים; פָּרוֹת אַרְבָּעִים, וּפָרִים עֲשָׂרָה, אֲתֹנֹת עֶשְׂרִים, וַעְיָרִם עֲשָׂרָה

Jacob took a gift for his brother Esau from that which he owned. 200 she-goats and 20 goats; 200 ewes and 20 rams; 30 suckling camels and their young; 40 cows and 10 bulls; 20 she-asses and 10 donkeys.

Pretty Cool, Right! Those are the main parallels - but you could stretch for a few more:

a. Forbidden Foods: Surrounding both narratives are mentions of forbidden food. The command to not eat from the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad immediately precedes the Adam story (2:16-17). The tradition of Jacob's sons to not eat from the Gid Hanasheh (sciatic nerve) immediately follows the Jacob story (32:33).

b. Breaking the Fourth Wall: Both stories do this unusual (but not entirely rare) thing, where the narrator suddenly steps back from the narrative and explains how something in it effects us today. In effect, the narrator seems to break the fourth wall. Likewise, both examples begin with a על כן – "therefore". In the Adam story, we are told, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his woman, being as one flesh." By Jacob, we learn, "Therefore, the Children of Israel do not eat from the sciatic nerve which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this very day."

c. Some interesting things going on with sleep. In the Jacob story, the narrator tells us twice about Jacob sleeping at night, and thrice mentions that it was "that night". (See 32:14, 22, 23). Oddly enough, Jacob decides to get up in the middle of the night, which is when the wrestling match takes place. In the Adam story, there is no indication that anything occurs during night time - instead, God places Adam under a sudden, heavy sleep before performing His surgery (See 2:21). Jacob is up in the middle of the night; Adam is asleep in the middle of the day.

d. Just generally, both stories deal with how mankind/Jews relate to our bodies. Adam and Eve, in the last verse of the story, stand naked and unashamed. (OK - the Christians probably screwed up that Perek. That verse belongs to the next narrative). The last verse in the Jacob chapter details how Jews no longer eat from the sciatic nerve, commemorating what happened to their ancestor's body.

Welcome to America

Loving this photo from today's Times.

Here are our official-looking, big-strong defenders of justice escorting to justice that international criminal brigand . . . while showing off a little sports team pride! There we have a Raiders hat, back there is an Ohio State Buckeyes cap, and directly northwest of the Russian's 'stache is a, ?, Buffalo Sabres anyone? We Americans, we do love our sports culture. You'd think the poor guy had committed crimes against the AFC West.

Thoughts on the Election

1. Obama didn't go about trying to save his party in this past election to insure he wins the next one.

Mid-term elections are about domestic issues; presidential elections are about foreign issues. Only on the former is there tangible dissatisfaction - on the latter, the Prez is doing just fine. I think his goal was to distance himself from what would be a very foreseeable loss and, in two years time, with Americans out of Iraq and Republicans blame-able in the House, finally turn to the American public and say, hey, I have accomplished a ton.

2. Prop 19. How many more Mexican gang murders before Californian moralists realize their prudishness is killing more people than its helping? Just at thought.

3. I disagree with his policies, but Obama's the man. Am I the only who thinks his words and actions betray a man of tangible decency, old-school virtue, humble intelligence, and radical self-awareness. I think many of his solutions are wrong, but as a dude . . . he's the man. Isn't this obvious? Am I crazy?

Four Points on Vayera

1. Definitely some room for comparing the Sodomites at Lot's door with the story of Migdal Bavel. All the city's men - a unified group - gather to do something bad. Though, by merit of their numbers and unity, they would be able to succeed, a Divine force intervenes by removing a basic human skill.

Also, once again, cities/organized human communities get a bad rap in the Bible.

Essential to this is the mob's line to Lot, הָאֶחָד בָּא-לָגוּר וַיִּשְׁפֹּט שָׁפוֹט "this one comes to sojourn here a while, and he thinks he can play the judge" . . . . something is going on here, as in Babel, that regards questions of authority and community.


2. Every time I read the parsha anew, I'm surprised by the צחק wordplay. Yeah - I expect it in the Sarah and Avraham stories, and its always interesting that they name their son with it . . . but then I'm totally *shocked* to see it appear again in the Sodom episode. Lot tries to warn his sons-in-law about the approaching destruction, but he is in their eyes כִמְצַחֵק, as a jester.

What's the deal!!!

3. Check out my dvar torah on Akeidat Yishmael, at The Drisha Parsha Blog

4. Finally, finally, finally!: I think I know why God scolded Sarah for laughing: He didn't - God scolded Avraham.

In 17:15-17 God tells Avraham that he'll have a child in his old age. Avraham, as we know, laughs in amazement. And, as we know, no immediate negative reaction from God to this laughter. Laughing is a legit reaction to hearing something fantastical for the first time.

Now, let's say you're Avraham and you bear the righteous faith that what God said is actually going to happen. What sort of things do you do? Well, you probably tell Sarah that she's destined have more kids. You probably tell her that you'd like to try to conceive a child together. You would certainly sleep with Sarah or perhaps sleep with her more often than you previously did. But either way, Sarah would understand that a child is a distinct possibility!

So when a few months later, a few fellows come in and say that Sarah will soon be with child, the fact that Sarah laughs is damning - it means this is the first time she heard of the promise! Avraham hasn't been doing any of the aforementioned things! Hasn't told her himself, or slept with her, or said, "hey, let's try to have a child."

It should not surprise us if God would ask Avraham something like - "What the heck, Avraham?! Why is she laughing?! How could you not believe in my promise to you?!". In fact, this is exactly what God does in 18:13-14

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם: לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר, הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד--וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי . . . הֲיִפָּלֵא מֵיְהוָה, דָּבָר.

And God said to Avraham, "Why is Sarah laughing? Why is she saying 'Oh, is it really possible I'll give birth so old!!'" You really think anything is too hard for Me to do?!

Note, the "rebuke" is handed out to Avraham - not to Sarah - for it is Sarah's laughter which shows Avraham has not trusted in God's promise.

Economic Mass E-mail

You may or may not have received the following mass e-mail, just in time for the upcoming elections. It *sounds* like an interesting critique, but something is just straight wrong about it. Can you solve its hidden riddle?:

HOW A STIMULUS PACKAGE WORKS.

It is a hot day in the small Kansas town of Pumphandle and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and living on credit.

A salesman drives into town, stops at the only motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk to pay for a one night's stay... on the condition that the room is decent. He's handed a key so he can check it out.

As soon as the salesman heads upstairs, the motel owner grabs the hundred bucks and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and hustles down the street to pay off what he owes to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to settle his bill with the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay what he owes to the local hooker, who's had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker dashes to the motel and pays off her room rentals.

The motel owner puts the $100 back on the counter.

The salesman comes back down and states that the room is unsatisfactory. He takes his $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole town is now out of debt and looks to the future with unbridled optimism.

And that, dear friends, is how a "stimulus package" works.

Here's why this critique ain't a good one:

Let's say there are just two people in a town - say, a motel owner and a hooker. Let's suppose that at one point the motel owner borrowed 100 bucks from the hooker, and that at another point the hooker borrowed 100 bucks from the motel owner. Does either party owe either party? Of course not! They're even!

The example in the email was the exact same, but instead of 2 parties, there were 5. A owes B, B owes C, C owes D, D owes E, and E owes A. In other words, nobody owes anybody. Before the salesman came nobody owed anybody, while the salesman was in town nobody owed anybody, and after he left nobody owed anybody.

---------

Anyhoo, it seems to me that Sciences are granted by the public a sort of Obedience to Mystery. I, Ben the Non-Mathematician, may not understand the upper levels of crazy Mathland, but I'm willing to submit to it, willing to understand that there *are* mathematicians who have been trained in the technical language of their art and do indeed make substantive progress. There's a conception of initiates and non-initiates, and a tangible (if not fragile) trust by the non-initiates towards those who work in the field.

Economics, it seems, has failed to garner such respect. The main cause, I believe, is because economics deals with something everyone has and considers themselves expert of - money. We use it and we know it and we treat ourselves as semi-initiates, expecting common sense to guide us to truth and treating technical economic language with mistrust and disgust.

In the public eye, the most celebrated economist in the world will never be able to stand up to the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates - "hey, they are the ones who are actually making the economy work." No biologist ever felt threatened by a particularly prolific rabbit - "hey man, you study life, but this rabbit here has reproduced life like a 1000 times"; nor do authors feel threatened by men who lead dramatic lives - "hey man, you write interesting stories, but I met a guy who once had a really interesting life"; but economists, due to nature of our interests (money, utility, labor, etc.) are always assumed to be speaking overly fancy things about that which everyone and anyone already "knows".

Cohen as Korban?

A very, very rough outline of Parshat Emor's first two perekim:

Perek 21
A. The Impurity Caused by a Dead Cohen (21:1-6, 1o-12)
B. A Cohenness who Must be Burned (21:9)
C. The Disqualification of a Blemished Cohen (21:16-24)

Perek 22
A. The Impurity Caused by a Dead Animal/Carrion (22:8)
B. Laws of a Sacrifice That Must be Burned (22:17-18)
C. The Disqualification of a Blemished Sacrifice (22:19-24)

Wacky, right?

The textual parallel is very loose and shaky. But the conceptual parallel is kinda cool.

Newcomb's Paradox Part 2

And here's the paradox, in the words of the philosopher Robert Nozick: "To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly." (Oh right, here's Part 1)

One half thinks as follows:

There's a 99.9% chance that Olivia made an accurate prediction. If I reach for both Box A and Box B, there is a 99.9% chance that there is nothing in Box B, and I'll end up with a measly $1000. Sure, there is a .1% she's wrong and I'll get 1,001,000 dollars - but those are terrible odds! If, instead, I only reach for Box B, there is a 99.9% chance that Olivia left a million bucks in it, which I'll end up with. There's a .1% chance she's wrong and I'll end up with nothing, but those are very low odds!

If you want to get all mathematical about it, the expected value of choosing Box A and B is:

(.999)(1000) + (.001)(1001000) = 999 + 100 = 1999

while the expected value of choosing just Box B is:

(.999)(1000000) + (.001)(0) = 999000.

Choosing just Box B wins! In game theory, we call this approach the expected utility hypothesis.


However, the other half of humanity, thinks differently:
Regardless of how Olivia acts, it is always better for me to choose both boxes. There are four possible outcomes, summarized in the following chart.

	Box B contains nothing	Box B contains $1,000,000
Choose Box B	$0	$1000000
Choose Box B and A	$1000	$1,000,1000

Notice that "Choose Box B and A" always produces a higher payout! If Box B contains nothing, then choosing both boxes gets you 1000 dollars instead of nothing; if Box B contains something, choosing both boxes again nets you an additional 1000 dollars. In game theory lingo, the "Choose Box B and A" strategy strictly dominates the "Choose Box B" strategy. Choosing both boxes wins!

In technical terms, we have a conflict between the Dominance Principle and the Expected Utility Hypothesis. In layman's terms, an ability to predict the future (even a non-perfect ability!) seriously screws with the way we think.

We're relatively comfortable with the idea that decisions today can affect events in the future; when future-seeing is allowed into the mix, we have to start pondering whether decisions today can affect events in the pass. We have to wonder: can my decision right now about which box to choose affect what Olivia - in the past - decided to put into Box B?

Newcomb's Paradox

Here's a fine way to melt your neural connections. Consider the following:

There are two boxes, A and B. Box A contains $1000, whereas Box B contains either $1,000,000 or absolutely nothing. You may choose to take Box A, Box B, or both, and keep any money inside. At first, your decision is simple: take both. Can't hurt.

But here's the catch:

A wise creature (Olivia the Owl) has been known to predict the future with 99.9% accuracy. You have performed many trials to establish this fact: you have had Olivia predict what you will eat for breakfast tomorrow, whether your child will be male or female, whether the stock market will rise or depreciate, whether or not you'll get that promotion, and even what color underwear you will wear in precisely a year from now - and we have established that Olivia the Owl has excellent predictive power. (For the sake of argument, its possible for Olivia to be wrong in her predictions. Out of the one thousand trials that you conducted, she failed once.)

One hour before you make your decision, Olivia the Owl gets to decide whether Box B will contain one million dollars or, instead, the proverbial sack of coal. She tells you: "If I predict that in the future you will pick only Box B, then, right now, one hour before you make your decision, I will place the full $1,000,000 into Box B. If, however, I predict that in the future you will take both Box A and Box B, then, right now, one hour before you actually make your decision, I will leave absolutely nothing in Box B."

So: what should you do?

When You Love Something, You Have to Learn to Let it Go

I like Tanakh - she's coo.

But, let's be honest, not every part of is, well, immediately cool. And, we're all aware of some passages that are, well, immediately sorta troubling or scary.

This doesn't usually bother me all that much - over all, its really great, and we're pretty adept at making big deals about the parts that are cool and sorta glossing over those chapters that seem to us arcane or archaic. Not quite selective reading - more like a selective consciousness.

That's fine. I'm down.

But for the sake of intellectual honesty, suffer me a little mind-experiment:

For whatever ridiculous reason, civilization is about to be wiped out and, except for 1,000 survivors and whatever you can rescue from the flames, humanity will have to be rebuilt from the beginning. So - would you save humanity's last Tanakh (and tell people that its holy and Divine)? Remember - all that Amalek, and eye for an eye, and chosenness, and animal slaughter, and stoning, and subservient women, and whatever else you might struggle with . . . It's your call: lots of lives riding on this decision.

Or better yet, if you did save it- would you maybe tear out a page here or there? Just a couple? Fate of humanity on the line here . . .

Or better yet, let's say each additional perek had a cost - 10,000 bottles of fresh water destroyed for every additional perek saved. So maybe you'd keep Eden or Akeida or Shir HaShirim - important theological touchstones - but how important would it to be for you to make sure humanity has an eternal copy of the Breishit genealogies, or the 118th chapter of Psalms?

Scary thought?

The Most Important Thing to Come out of the YU Ganel

It is finally official:

The Torah's prohibition of homosexual sex is a hok, not a mishpat. The contemporary generation of Jews might be comfortable, or used to, or even OK with the fact that homosexuality is assur. But deep down, very few of us claim to understand it. Thirty years ago, or three hundred years, homosexuality = immorality = abomination was obvious. No Longer.

Because we can't see homosexuality as anything but a hok, the Ganel got such a large turn out; because we can't see homosexuality as anything but a hok, Stern girls and social commentators alike emphasize the importance of remaining sensitive and understanding towards Orthodox homosexuals; because we can't see homosexuality as anything but a hok, we're going to have a whole lot of trouble trying to educate our kids about this in 20 or so years.

Smicha for the Wrong Purpose

Overcoming Bias has a couple of posts on how contemporary academia isn't designed to produce or disseminate world-ready knowledge, but instead focuses on manufacturing prestige and "authorities". If the system was actually about knowledge (as we idealistically imagine it) then:

a. Undergraduates would be taught by expert teachers, not big-name professors who don't really care and require the assistance of a team of TAs.
b. There wouldn't be undergraduate research journals (even our much beloved Gesher), nor would there be the glut of academic journals filled with silly jargon. Academics would focus on the most pressing questions, and seek to find the most compelling answers. Everything else will got tossed in the can.
c. University curricula would be much more comprehensive, focused, rigid - and practical. Once you determine what it is that you wish to study, it should be relatively obvious what does and doesn't need be covered. That core of knowledge and analysis should neatly match what it is you want to do with that education.

Since, however, its about prestige: we want to be students of fancy professors whose research has nothing to do with our mid-level course; people publish for the sake of publishing, and, in the process of finding something they can write about, they lower the quality bar, specialize in something no one else cares about, and avoid the big questions; the curricula has more to do with graduating with a title than anything else. Universities make their set of requirements and, well, you just sort of do 'em. Generally, the knowledge you cover is useful - but only coincidentally.

Unfortunately, I believe the same flawed set of goals applies to our smicha system (though it expresses itself in different ways): the goal is not to produce knowledge (or effective rabbis), but prestige.

a. Rabbis running a smicha program are not always the best teachers - in fact, I'd say that after high school, pedagogically sound rabbis were the exception. The goal isn't to learn from Great Rabbi X, but to have learned under Great Rabbi X.
b. You have shiur in Bava Batra b'iyun, and learn the Halakhot of Taaroves - even though these have nothing to do with life as a rabbi. Sure, some Rosh Yeshiva-track semicha students need to know it, but that's coincidental. Heck, it'd be nice to a have a tanakh-track, and a shul-rabbi track, and high school teacher track, . . . but that's not how its done. Instead, its about having "done" prestigious Bava Batra, and having learned what every other smicha program makes their students learn. Smicha program X's curricula parallel the curricula of other smicha programs - because the point isn't to have the best curriculum, but to send the same signals everyone else is sending.
c. Roshei Yeshiva are not encouraged to produce publishable hiddushim, or to focus on big or unsolved questions, but to just to give shiur and just generally be respected and smart. Nonetheless, lots of people publish (e.g. our much beloved Beis Yitzhak, the glut of "Shiurei haRav X" that are published at the behest of Rav X's students!) but without any really significant product.

Nope - its just about prestige. In a way it works - people leave RIETS with a title "rabbi" that signals something about them to other people (much as a BA from Hopkins does), and that is important and - apparently - useful. But, considering how we have this great, well-funded, well-staffed set of institutions, wouldn't it be nice if we used them for a better purpose?

In a traffic jam, why don't people just start driving on the shoulder? Fear of getting a ticket?? What's the chance they'll pass a cop, who happens to be in the left-most lane, who happens to have sufficient time and room to even think he has a chance of chasing them down? A lot lower than the chances of getting caught speeding, which drivers often decide to do.

Same question, more universal situation: Often a lane leading to highway interchange is backed up, while all other lanes are running smoothly. Every driver reading this has at one point or another sped through a smooth lane, right up to the point of interchange, where they slow down and wait for some sucker to let them in. Why doesn't everyone do this, all the time? Why is anyone waiting in the slow lane?

Any rational incentive at play?

Ideas for Terrorists

Suicide highway car accidents. People will stop driving. Choose a city, one accident a month for ten months. . .


Also, add this to the list of perverse experiences/thoughts all Jews of our generation have had:
a. Holocaust nightmares.
b. Wondering, "man, if I was a terrorist, I'd have so many good ideas. What are they waiting for?!"

So True - I can't believe its taken me 22 years to think of this

Aggadic Midrash can be seen as evidence that Hazal didn't take Biblical narrative literally. At the very least, they must have viewed the "truthiness" of Biblical narrative very differently than we do today.

This is what I mean:
a. Assume that midrashim themselves aren't meant literally/factually/historically. I think thats a fair assumption and is accurate at least 75% of the time.

b. I can't imagine building a whole conscious genre of midrashim on something that you imagined was in fact literal and factual and historical. I just can't imagine it! Would someone write midrash-esque stuff on, say, . . . Six Days of War, or Ghandi's biography, or the Diary of Anne Frank?

c. I'm not really sure how Hazal viewed the "truthiness" of Biblical narrative, and I'm not close to confident about taking a radical view. This much, however, needs be kept in mind: the fact that Hazal wrote midrashim on Tanakh says something interesting about how they viewed Biblical narrative . . . and that something is important and requires deeper thought.

Opera Rock Superstar Two Thousand and Ten

Musical film and theater reached its rousing climax in the '60s. For fifty years since, American media consumers simply stopped feeling that people bursting into spirited song, or love expressed through plaintive duet, were as moving or meaningful as the realist's less exuberant alternative.

Musicals continued, but were more fun than anything else. A spectacle and a tradition, but not a particularly accurate expression of the human experience. Actors sing; humans don't.

Ah, but now, to sing is to be real and quite gloriously human: American Idol, an assortment of YouTube superstars, and of course Glee mean we have aesthetically realigned ourselves away from realism.

So far, the musical revolution has been reserved for humor, love, and light dramatics. My prediction: a return to opera within the decade. By opera I don't mean foreign languages or big fat voices, but Glee-style tragedy and dark drama. Glee for grown-ups - not just pretend grown-ups.

Guide to the Damned

In The Inferno, Dante is guided through the Abyss by Virgil. Not a bad choice.

Who'd you pick? Like, traveling through hell is a pretty big deal, and the guides make all the difference.

My short list:

1. Adam
2. CS Lewis
3. Mother Teresa

Egel vs. Luchot, Part 2

As discussed here, Tanakh describes the luchot twice. The first is factual and to the point: when the luchot are creatd, we find out that they are -

a. “Tablets of Testimony” (i.e. symbolic of something important)

b. Stone slabs

c. Written (i.e. text) by God

It is all we need to know and nothing more.

The second, lengthier description serves to create a parallel within the narrative of the egel hazahav. It allows us to get more complete sense of the gap between calf and Commandment, and the gravity of Israel's sin. So its style is a bit more emphatic and encompassing:

Luchot	Egel Hazahav
The Tablets were written from both sides – from this side and that side they were inscribed. And these Tablets, they were the work of God; and the writing, it was the writing of God – engraved upon the Tablets. (32:15-16)	Break off the golden rings - which are in the ears of your wives, sons, and daughters - and bring them to me. . . Aaron took it from them, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, making a molten calf. (32:2)
Points to Note a. Tablets are the work of God. b. Writing of God. c. No description of how it was created d. Text e. Empty, inscribed space	Points to Note a. Calf made from gold rings. b. Aaron fashioned it. c. With a tool d. Calf e. Physical substance

For the luchot, we are told again and again that they were formed by God. We get no description of how that actually took place – it just happened, Divinely, mysteriously. The working material is a creation in and of itself – God didn't miraculously write on earthly stones, but created a heavenly pair of tablets.

For the golden calf, we get this great image of an eldery goldsmith hunched over a fire, working on this handmade calf. We learn about the tools he needed for his craft. The material is itself man-made and pre-formed (earings) the substance (gold) likewise a product/symbol of human work.

Furthermore, the egel is what it is by merit of its visual image and physical form: it looks like and physically represents a calf.

The luchot are what they are by merit of its words and those blank, non-tangible spaces: it is a text, composed out of air.

Graven Images, Graven Imagery

At the moment when God gifts His people the luchot, we get a neat little description of them:

When God concluded speaking with Moshe on the mountain, God gave him the two Tablets of Testimony – which were tablets of stone, written with the word of God.

Concise and sparing in detail, this description follows a style typical of Tanakh. However, in the next perek, we get a more elaborate – and somewhat out of place – repeat rendition. Just before Moshe walks in on the Israelite orgy of egel worship, leading him to smash these tablets, we read:

Moses turned away and descended from the mountain, with the two Tablets of Testimony in his hand. The Tablets were written from both sides – from this side and that side they were inscribed. And these Tablets, they were the work of God; and the writing, it was the writing of God – engraved upon the Tablets.

Q: Why another description, why here, and why in a different style?

Suggested A: To form a parallel between two utterly opposite relics. Perek 32 isn't just the story of Israel's sin, its the tale of two objects: the egel hazahav, placed in contrast with the luchot. We follow as both are created, as a leading figure brings it to the nation, and as – ultimately – both are utterly smashed into oblivion.

	Egel	Luchot
Wrought by . . .	Aaron	Moshe
Creation Description	Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your women . . . Aaron took it from them, and fashioned it with a tool, making a molten calf. (32:2)	The Tablets were written from both sides – from this side and that side they were inscribed. And these Tablets, they were the work of God; and the writing, it was the writing of God – engraved upon the Tablets. (32:15-16)
Destruction Description	Moses took the calf which they made and burnt it in fire, then ground it into fine powder.	Moshe became angry, casting the Tablets from his hands and shattering them at the base of the mountain. (32:17)

So why a repeated and lengthier description of the luchot? To form this parallel; to compliment the description of the egel; to make the tablets not just in the story, but part of the story. We get a symbolic story within a story: what happens to the two objects neatly represents the actual human narrative unfolding around them. The tablets' creation is Israel's loyalty/responsibility to God made tangible – its destructions signals the failure of that young endeavor. The egel's creation is Israel's pagan tendency embodied in gold – its destruction portends Moshe bringing the rebellon to a quick end.

Don't you Know who I am???: Parshat Shemot and the Joke of Authority

Authority is a joke in Exodus 1-4.

Tthe characters at Exodus' beginning seem either very forgetful of, or utterly oblivious to, people in obvious positions authority. Even more interestingly, those very authorities ignore their own power, letting obvious sedition pass without word.

a. Shifra and Pua totally ignore Pharoah's orders. Their ridiculous excuse - um, if Jewish mothers birth before you arrive, how do you make a living? - is accepted without question by someone who could just as easily have these women decapitated.

b. Yocheved ignores Pharoah's orders, by both hiding her child for three months and placing it in a baby-boat.

c. Pharoah's own daughter RESCUES a FREAKING JEWISH baby! Was she unaware of her father's - the KING's! - little executive order regarding Israelite babes?! And, she manages to keep him. Imagine that conversation between Pharoah and his daughter.

d. Moshe is upset when an overlord taskmaster whips his Jewish slave . . . precisely what an overlord taskmaster is granted the authority to do! Even so, why didn't Moshe just walk up to the guy and tell him to stop. Isn't he a prince or something?

e. Moshe tries to break up a fight between two slave Jews and they start trash talking him. Wait - don't you guys know this is a member of the royal family?

f. When Moshe flees to Midyan, he finds Yithro's daughters abused by a group of shepherds. Yithro, mind you, is the Cohen of Midyan (Targum: raba d'midyan) - yet his daughters are abused so often and consistently that Yithro is actually surprised when they arrive back at a normal time from the well. Who are these shepherds? Why isn't Yithro doing anything about this?

g. Moses' entire first dialogue with God is full of seditious comments. God is ordering Moses to do something and, again and again, Moses refuses. God doesn't assert His authority, but sweetalks Moshe, until God finally just starts getting annoyed.

What's going on!

A more realistic Greek-Hebrew connection

In which month was the world created? There is a relatively well-known dispute in BT Rosh Hashana 11a between R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua, the former arguing for Iyar as the first month, and the latter arguing for Nisan.

I'm sure one can create many fascinating and meaningful explications of this debate; I myself - during various Rosh Hashana davenings - have tried. But I don't think we can even begin to grasp the full meaning of this debate without recognizing that:

1. Aries (ie Nisan) is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac.

2. March (=Mars, i.e. Aries) was the first month in the ancient Roman calendar.

On one level, the Talmudic debate is taking up whether or not the Greeks and early Romans got it right.

Dante's Inferno - Part 1

Skimming through the guide to Hopkins' 2010 Intersession, I noticed a course called, "Three Weeks in Hell." Quite the experience.

An excerpt from the course description:

Before there were horror films, there was Dante. Rivers of boiling blood! Schismatics tearing themselves apart! Sinners locked in solid ice!

So far, the course has been excellent - and, thankfully, a bit more serious than the description suggests. Faithful reader(s), expect Hell-inspired updates.

Spurious Etymology

In Greek mythology, Acheron is a river leading to Hell.

Acheron = אחרון. Hmmmm?

Also, in ancient Greek, akhea means woe. איכה=Lamentations=woe=akhea.

Is there any historical/etymological evidence for either of these proposals? No. Can someone build a ridiculous Hannukah Dvar Torah around this . . . I'm working on it.

The Mystery of the Funnel

You definitely know what a funnel is. But why do you know what it is?

After all, when was the last time you saw a funnel, let alone used one. Yet, nonetheless, not only does everyone know what a funnel is, its obvious to everyone that everyone knows what it is. But funnels are entirely absent from our lives and even from representation in visual media.

Weird.

It's the Mystery of the Funnel.