Hatam Soferet

Feathers, we use them to fly

Jen and Julie, soferot

I’ve mentioned, from time to time, my student Julie.

Julie came to meet me one day in Manhattan a couple years ago, looking oh-so-very timid. I recognise the look; it’s the one I wear when I’m in the presence of a Great Brain, where I cannot quite believe my own temerity in bothering the August Personage with my vastly trivial affairs. Except of course I do not expect people to wear that look around me, so I made haste to be as friendly and lovely as I possibly could.

Once she realised I don’t bite, she worked hard as hard, and just shot ahead. You could see her progress from week to week, and she’s got a rare head for halakha as well. She even enjoyed learning the really hard parts with me, the bits that I’ve never learned with anyone before because they’re so convoluted it takes a particularly clear head to get through them.

That was a treat for me, an absolute treat – but Julie’s also an incredible feminist; she insisted on paying me for lessons even though I was probably getting as much out of them as she was half the time. In so doing she taught me some very important things about how getting paid and feminism interrelate.

So it was my utter pleasure to receive a phonecall a while back from the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco, who were looking for a scribe for a rather exciting exhibition, because I could recommend Julie most wholeheartedly.

And actually it’s rather lovely; people I know vaguely keep coming up to me – at shul or in the supermarket or wherever – and going “I was in San Francisco last month and…” and they tell me about how they saw Julie and how super she was, and I get to go “squee bounce I know!!!”

And she’s working her way through the Torah, slow and steady, just as you might expect; and I hear great things about how she gives presentations and talks to people and explains everything ever so clearly and nicely. All good.

So why this post today?

Because today I’m helping her and her NEXT employer write a contract, and there’s a certain bittersweet feeling when you wouldn’t have minded being in further negotiations with that project yourself! But this is the true success – when your students become your colleagues, your equals, your competition. And that is, ultimately, wholly sweet.

August 31, 2010 – 19:48 | Posted in La vie soferet, feminism | Comments (0)

La vie soferet – fun and games at the NYPL

The New York Public Library is having an exhibition this winter, about Three Faiths And Manuscripts, or some such. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and their various adventures with calligraphy.

I’d link you to the relevant Library page, but the exhibition is not on the website yet, not even under “Upcoming.”

Anyway, part of the exhibition is going to be films of various calligraphers doing their various calligraphic things, and one of the calligraphers is me.

The Library is this gigantic building on 42nd St. I got out of the train at Times Square and walked across town, because I don’t do that very often and it’s sort of picturesque, in a startling kind of way. It was chucking it down with a) rain b) tourists; I contemplated taking pictures of both, but I was running a little late, so I got you that image from Wikimedia instead, and you’ll have to fill in the rain and the tourists from your imagination.

We were working in a large panelled room with large panelled doors and a large marble doorway and a lot of fancy-pants lights, some part of the museum’s setup and some part of the photographer’s kit. He was the best sort of photographer, the kind that just films and lets you get on with writing. The annoying kind keep going “Can you do that again? -Can you dip the pen again? Now can you kind of hold it like that?”. I don’t take that sort of direction while I’m writing any more; either you let me write, or I do something fake, but you don’t get to tell me how you think me doing writing should look, because that messes up the writing, and I decided some time ago that my priority is always my work and never the camera – but I didn’t have to explain that to this chap, which was a treat and a half.

The Library were most emphatic that if they had to have a lady scribe, she had to be doing something politically acceptable, so that orthodox visitors wouldn’t freak out. Personally I think that once you have a Reform scribe in your video (which they do) you’ve got no reason to exclude a female scribe, but that just goes to show that the concern is not so much Orthodox Legal Sensibilities as Icky Girl Cooties. Then again, they could have chosen to exclude me completely, so I guess I’m mostly grateful.

Anyway, that meant I didn’t do anything Torah-related for their film, nor even the mezuzot I’m presently working on, no, I wrote some of the Megillah of Kohelet.

I’m sort of writing Kohelet and thinking maybe I’ll finish it in time to read on Succot – at the present rate that doesn’t seem very likely, but we’ll see – anyway, as it turned out, I was writing this bit that day. Good for being filmed, because of the distinctive pattern.

It’s the bit – you probably remember it, it’s the only thing anyone remembers from Ecclesiastes – “a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build…” It’s poetry, obviously, and the rhythm of the words is reflected in the rhythm of the layout.

Side of computer included in image for size comparison and general pleasingness of contrasting media.

I did not take any pictures of me writing, on account of, I was busy writing. But afterwards, I took a picture of the view out of the window. And I took some photos of the tourists who kept trying to come in, for amusement’s sake, but they didn’t come out so well.

Days like that are rather funny to blog. I go to whatever location it is, and set up, and do my thing as I would at home, and someone hovers around with a camera, and then they go home and cut and paste and eventually they turn it into something that is splendid video but looks most unlike how I was feeling. I guess maybe an egg feels like that when it gets made into a cake. So too with blogging – I think you’re sort of expecting to hear about the cake, and I’m more inclined to write about it from the perspective of the egg.

Thus it is that I can write a whole post about “Today I went to the NYPL to be filmed doing writing” and have no pictures of Teh Soferet Writing.
It was cool to go to the fancy-pants library, and see the pretty pretty architectural details, and swan nonchalently through doors labelled “Staff Only,” but I’m most excited about this photo of the view from the window.

Never mind, eh? When the exhibition opens, I’m sure they’ll have something online, and I’ll tell you about it then. In the meantime – this is what it’s like being an egg.

August 26, 2010 – 20:12 | Posted in La vie soferet, feminism, layout | Comments (0)

La vie soferet – moving house; Thursday

Downstairs neighbour has spent the afternoon in the garden in a deckchair.

I come in through the garden carrying a sefer Torah.

You see I left the sifrei Torah in the old apartment. First and foremost because I didn’t want to put the sifrei Torah in the moving truck, in boxes as if they were just anything, and second because this way, I could set up the aron kodesh for them so they would have a fitting place to rest as soon as they arrived. Flatmate had a car today, so we went to fetch them.

(Yes, sifrei Torah plural. One I own, and one I have because I’m repairing it.)

Anyway, there I am walking through the garden with a sefer Torah.

“A sefer Torah in my house!” says Downstairs Neighbour. “I can’t believe it!”

She opens the door for the Torah.

“What kehilla?” she asks. (Kehilla means congregation – she’s asking “to which community does this sefer belong?”)

“It belongs to me,” I say, slightly embarrassed, because owning a sefer Torah is rather like owning an original Da Vinci or something. It’s just not really something normal people do.

“I never heard of such a thing!” says she, calling the elevator.

I make the kind of smiley face that means “Well, now you have!”

“You must be very religious,” is her next comment.

This makes me want to laugh my socks off, because I’m wearing cargo pants rolled to mid-calf, ratty sneakers, and a v-necked T-shirt. I don’t feel very religious at all. So I mumble “Uh…I guess so…” or something similarly inarticulate, and thankfully bid her a good evening as we reach her floor.

Perhaps I should have dressed more thoughtfully (religiously?) to transport the sefer Torah, come to think of it. But it’s boiling hot outside so sober trousers, etc., didn’t even cross my mind, and my Becoming Clothes for Summers aren’t very good for navigating stairs with heavy objects, carrying as they do the risk of tripping on the billowy skirts and falling over. This, you understand, I did not want to do with a sefer Torah in my arms.

Anyway, the aron kodesh was made ready the previous day, and the sifrei Torah are now sitting inside it, quite as if they’d never moved. Downstairs Neighbour now lives below a sefer Torah, and my apartment is back to normal, just in New Frankfurt (a.k.a. Washington Heights) and not in Totally Manhattan (a.k.a. Riverdale)

August 20, 2010 – 17:43 | Posted in General | Comments (0)

La vie soferet – proofreading with accomplices

Well, that was fun. An afternoon at Hadar working with one of my ~~accomplices~~ apprentices on Elementary Proofreading.

No, I don’t really have apprentices. Just the occasional afternoon teaching here and there; the sort of thing that I would do more of if I had apprentices. Anyway, we were doing some sheets of a sefer that needed proofreading. It was the soferet’s first Torah work, I think, and the client, for doubtless good and valid reasons, had decided not to have a computer check.

The computer check, you remember, is the one that super-reliably checks that you’ve got all the letters in place – no missing vavs or extra yuds or homophones or accidental switches. Lacking that, apprentice and self have to do that job, which means checking each letter, several times, against the tikkun.

Me, I have my lovely scribomatic program to help me with that, but Apprentice hasn’t bought a copy of it (yet), so I was taking her through the old-fashioned method, reading each letter off the tikkun and checking it that way. First I read and she checked; then we swapped places and I checked while she read. We marked in pencil everything that seemed to need attention, and compared notes afterwards.

It’s very easy, when proofreading someone else’s work, to get into one of those superior “dear me, my daughter-in-law has dust on top of her bookshelves!” mindsets. Proofreading is an inherently critical process – it’s your job to look for mistakes – and accordingly I’m trying to get into the habit of, if I’m criticising, to turn it into a lesson – not “this is bad” but “here is how to improve this.” “This is pasul,” sometimes, but not “therefore you suck,” rather “here is how to make it kosher.” I didn’t have anyone to do that for me, so if I do it for other people, the world is a better place, right? So I was trying to model that for Apprentice, and I’ll also be sending an email version (with photographs) to the Soferet.

Apprentice is taking some sheets home with her to work on, and we’ll meet again and look them over in a few weeks’ time. The first thing she needs to do is do the Thing with the Tikkun; this is relatively easy. The more subtle details – is this kosher, is that kosher, what about this detail – she’ll have a go at, and we’ll meet again in a few weeks and see how she got on. If she was a full-time apprentice she’d do that with me checking in pretty often; as is, we’ll have to save all the checkups until we next meet.

Anyway, after several hours, I needed to leave the Apprentice and go buy shoes – my sandals are falling to bits on my feet, not good – but the Apprentice didn’t want to start driving to Boston in rush hour. So – we were at Yeshivat Hadar – I cast about the beit midrash, and propositioned a likely-looking person – one of those people whom you rather suspect would get a kick out of being asked to help – and left the pair of them sitting and doing the Thing with the Tikkun.

This pleased me rather. There’s me, with a fair bit of experience, leaving Apprentice, who has a little bit of experience, working with Yeshiva Girl, who has no experience fixing Torahs but can perfectly well read letters from a tikkun. And she’ll ask questions of Apprentice, who asks questions of me, and everyone moves up a step.

Except me because I didn’t find any sandals, but hey, can’t have everything.

August 2, 2010 – 23:30 | Posted in La vie soferet, proofreading | Comments (3)

More literature from MarGavriel

We have just emerged from the doom and gloom of the Ninth of Av. In the various Ashkenazic Rites, as well as in the Italian and the old Byzantine (“Romanioti”) rites, the largest and most central piece of the morning service of this day is the Qinoth (poems of lamentation) by the great poet Eleazar be-Ribbi Qallir (“the Qalliri”). These poems are excruciatingly difficult to follow – the poet has weighed down his own artistry with literary structures which leave little room for comprehensible content: the poems contain backwards alphabetical acrostics, forwards alphabetical acrostics, acrostics of the poet’s name; allusions in each line to each sequential verse in the biblical book of Ekha; allusions in each stanza to the 24 groups of priests (משמרות כהונה), and more. Moreover, they contain unexplained, opaque allusions to rabbinic literature, and difficult, rare Hebrew words.

The excruciatingly difficult structure and language of these poems surely must be intentional and inherent: they are meant to be painful to read, for they are written for the Ninth of Av, a painful day [They're Vogon poetry, basically - JTF]. Moreover, the communities recite so many of them. The Shaharith service on the Ninth of Av can easily last five and a half hours, as it did at my synagogue yesterday, and at many other synagogues around the world.

Alas to those for whom these Qinoth are the totality of their acquaintance with Qallirian piyyut! If only they knew about his other work, they would have a much fuller, and more positive, picture.

For in fact, the Qalliri, who gave us the pain of the Qinoth, also gave us the antidote. For each of the seven Sabbaths of Consolation which follow the Ninth of Av, he wrote beautiful, lyrical Qedushtaoth. (A Qedushta is a sequence of piyyutim which adorns the first three berakhoth of a Shaharith ‘Amida for a Sabbath or festival, and culminates with the recitation of the Qedusha.)

The greatest living scholar of piyyut, Professor Shulamit Elizur, writes the following about these compositions:

In the Qallirian Qedushtaoth for the Sabbaths of Consolation, we see the smiling face of the paytan. Rather than linguistic tricks and copious allusions to midrashim, which are characteristic of a large subset of Qallir’s piyyutim, these piyyutim are written in clear, flowing language, based primarily on Biblical Hebrew.

Moreover, at least in the surviving sections, there is a complete lack of any reference to apocalyptic midrashim about redemption, which we would have expected in piyyutim about the redemption and consolation of Jerusalem. Bits and pieces from the Pesiqtoth and other midrashim do show up here and there, complementary to the biblically-based structure; but the main novelty of these piyyutim is in the paytan’s creative composition, in which he skillfully builds up delicate lyrical passages of sorrow and mourning for the troubles of the exile, and then erodes them with waves of joy and consolation that uncontrollably drown out the sorrow.

Interspersed between descriptions of Zion sitting poor and storm-tossed [עניה סוערה], and claiming “the Lord hath forsaken me” [עזבני יי], we find delicate passages of consolation, which come to soften her, comfort her, and calm her down. And beyond these, there are passages of unmixed consolation and hope, overflowing with “double joy, and double, and double more” [שמחה כפולה בכפלי כפלים]. All this is written in clear, readable, fluent Hebrew, such that the poems are in need of practically no explanation at all.
(קדושה ושיר, Jerusalem, 1988, p. 102)

Let us look at the first stanza of the Qalliri’s Qedushta for Nahamu, the first of the Seven Weeks of Consolation. It is addressed entirely to a personified Jewish People, in the feminine singular (except for the concluding stanza, addressed to God, which is in the masculine singular, leading into the conclusion of the first berakha of the ‘Amida). Already in the first two words, the poet alludes to Song of Songs 4:8 (“With me, O bride, come from Mt. Lebanon!”), and thus places us in the context of the Song of Songs, where God is addressing His bride, the personified Jewish People, with love.

Finally, note that the Qallir uses one word in this poem which is Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, namely the root שפר (beautiful). Aramaic was the everyday spoken language of his audience, and perhaps the use of this word is meant to reach out to them, using a familiar word.

אִתִּי מִלְּבָנוֹן לֹא תֵבוֹשִׁי בִּגְדֵּי עֻזֵּךְ בְּכָבוֹד לִבְשִׁי גּוֹיִם בְּרַגְלַיִךְ תִּדְרְכִי וְתָדוּשִׁי דְּגָלַיִךְ אַעֲדֶה שֵׁשׁ וָמֶשִׁי	With Me, from Lebanon, you shall not be shamed; Your raiments of strength you will don with honor; Nations you will trample with your legs, and trod over them; Your flags I shall adorn with linen and silk.
הִתְנַעֲרִי בַּת צִיּוֹן מֵעָפָר וְקוּמִי עֲטִי מַלְבּוּשׁ שְׁפָר זֵרֵךְ הָאַחֲרוֹן מִן הָרִאשׁוֹן יְשֻׁפַּר חֶטְאֵךְ יוּתַם וּכְעָב יְכֻפָּר	Rouse yourself up, O daughter of Zion, from the dust, And get up and enrobe in beautiful clothing! Your later halo will be more beautiful than your first; Your sin will be over, and atoned like [the passing of] a cloud.
טִירוֹתַיִךְ אֲשֶׁר בְּאַפִּי הוּעָמּוּ יָקְדוּ בְחֵמָה וּבְכָלָה הֻזְעָמוּ כָּבוֹד יַעֲטוּ וּמִפִּי יְרֻחָמוּ לָהֶם יַשְׁמִיעוּ נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ	Your palaces, which were dimmed due to My fury, Burned in anger, and with destruction were wrathed – They shall be robed in glory, and given compassion from My mouth. Announce to them: “Give ye comfort, give ye comfort!”
ככתוב: נחמו נחמו עמי יאמר אלהיכם	As it is written: Give ye comfort, give ye comfort to my people, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 40:1)
ונאמר: ברב שרעפי בקרבי תנחומיך ישעשעו נפשי	And it is written: Though there be a multitude of [anxious] thoughts within me, thy consolations charm my soul. (Psalm 94:19)
ונאמר: וּתהי עוד נחמתי ואסלדה בחילה לא יחמל, כי לא כִחדתי אמרי קדוש	And it is written: And let this be my consolation, though I be anxious with unsparing fear: I have not rejected the words of the Holy One. (Job 6:10)
ונאמר: שמחו את ירושלם וגילו בה כל אהביה, שישו אתה משוש כל המתאבלים עליה	And it is written: Rejoice with Jerusalem, yea, be glad with her, all who love her; celebrate a celebration with her, all who mourn for her. (Isaiah 66:10)
ונאמר: למען תינקו ושבעתם משֹׁד תנחומיה, למען תמֹצּו והתענגתם מזיז כבודה	And it is written: So that ye may nurse, be satisfied from the teat of her consolations; so that ye may suck, and enjoy the breasts of her glory. (ibid., verse 11)
כְּבוֹדָהּ עַל כֹּל יִתְעַלֶּה וּכְבוֹדָךְ בָּהּ כְּאָז תְּגַלֶּה יָמֵינוּ כִּימֵי קֶדֶם תְּמַלֵּא וּבְעֹז מָגִנָּךְ בְּכָבוֹד נִתְעַלֶּה	Her glory will be elevated above all, And Thy glory shalt Thou then reveal in her. Our days – may you fill them, like the days of yore, And in the strength of Thy shield may we be uplifted in glory.
ברוך אתה ה’ מגן אברהם	Blessed art Thou, O Lord, shield of Abraham.

July 22, 2010 – 23:35 | Posted in liturgy | Comments (2)

Eicha reading in Washington Heights

I’m having a home reading of Eicha – from a klaf – *because* of reading from a klaf, yay – in Washington Heights, on leyl 9 Av, 9pm.

If a minyan of people are interested, there could also be maariv, kinot, etc.

Normally I would append “and watermelon, cookies and so forth” to such sentiments, but not for leyl 9 Av :-/

Email me if interested so’s a) I can give you the address b) I know how much floor space to clear.

July 15, 2010 – 22:58 | Posted in liturgy | Comments (0)

הגויה של תשעה באב

MarGavriel points us to a little Agnon story. A story appropriate for the season:

סיפר לי ר’ אהרן פריימן ז”ל משמו של ר’ אליהו פלנסר ז”ל. ר’ איציק אייכל וחבריו מצאו להם נכרית אחת שבישלה להם לתשעה באב. שבאותו הדור קשה היה ליהודי בברלין למצוא תבשיל בתשעה באב. היו קוראים לאותה נוכרית הגויה של תשעה באב.

Aaron Freiman, of blessed memory, told me the following in the name of Elijah Palnser, of blessed memory. Itzik Eichel and his friends found themselves a certain gentile woman who would cook for them on the Ninth of Av. For in those days, it was difficult for a Jew in Berlin to find food on the Ninth of Av. They used to call that gentile woman “di tishebov goyte”.

ערב תשעה באב באו והודיעו לר’ איציק אייכל שהגויה של תשעה באב מתה. אמר להם לחבריו, חברי בואו ואומר לכם, אי אפשר שבין היום למחר נמצא ערלית אחרת שתבשל לנו לתשעה באב, אם כן מאחר שמתה הגויה של תשעה באב נתענה בתשעה באב זה עם כל ישראל על חורבן ירושלים.

One year, on the eve of the Ninth of Av, Itzik Eichel was informed that the Tishebov Goyte had died. He said to his friends: “My friends, come and let me tell you something. Between today and tomorrow, it is not going to be possible for us to find another gentile woman who will cook for us on the Ninth of Av. Since this is so, for the Tishebov Goyte has died, let us fast on the Ninth of Av this year, and mourn, together with all Israel, over the destruction of Jerusalem.”

תכריך של סיפורים, ע’ 159
trans. MarGavriel

It seems to me interesting that the non-Jewish woman is in the role of Jerusalem.

I wonder – what do you make of this? Especially those of you who have studied Agnon in college and so forth. It is so short that it cannot be so simple, it seems to me, but I do not have literary-analysis tools to explore it.

July 14, 2010 – 13:35 | Posted in identity, israel | Comments (4)

Hachnasat sefer Torah

I finished writing the sefer Torah for Dorshei Emet. You might have worked this out, from the lack of Torah-writing posts of late, but I didn’t actually get round to making a post about it yet.

I tweeted the final stages of putting the sefer together on May 11 and 12, and it was delivered to its new community on May 16.

You may remember that I spent a couple of days a week writing at Yeshivat Hadar, being the unofficial soferet-in-residence. Being in a friendly, welcoming, Torah-filled environment was a tremendous boost.

So, when I’d finished writing, we celebrated together, and there was cake for breakfast.

Then the sefer Torah got collected by someone driving from New York to Montreal, and driven to Montreal. This is safer than trying to come through Montreal aiport customs early on Sunday morning with a sefer Torah, a process liable to take an indefinite amount of time.

Because I had what to be doing on Sunday morning, namely, writing letters with congregation members:

In the afternoon, the sefer Torah was brought in under a chuppah with much rejoicing:

Then there were miscellaneous speeches, the filling in of the very last word, dancing and so on, and the sefer got its new clothes, and it was unrolled around the children of the congregation. Who were possibly slightly bemused, but it was all terribly symbolic and meaningful and so on.

I heard from a Torah reader a few weeks later. Apparently they had had a nice time reading from it. Good to hear.

This was my third sefer Torah.

July 7, 2010 – 16:23 | Posted in La vie soferet, presenting | Comments (3)

17 Tammuz – a snippet of liturgy

(Joint post from me and MarGavriel)

I don’t know about you, but when someone says “Selihot,” my heart sinks, because in my experience, selihot are Hebrew Text Walls of Doom, muttered incomprehensibly and far too fast, punctuated by wails of Divine Attributes which are the only bits I actually recognise. Sound familiar?

Apparently (who knew?) when done properly, they’re actually poems with actual meaning. Not just text walls of doom. More on one verse of one of them in just a moment, but first – liturgically, what exactly are selihot?

Selihot are poems originally recited by the cantor, in his repetition of the Amidah. On weekday fasts, they form part of the berakha סלח לנו, and on Yom Kippur, part of the middle berakha, the Yom Kippur one. Before, after, and between the poems, the 13 Attributes of Divine Mercy (ה’ ה’ אל רחום וחנון) are recited, prefaced by eitherאל ארך אפים or אל מלך יושב.

In recent centuries, almost all our communities have removed the Selihot liturgy from its original context, and placed it after the whole Hazzan’s Repetition, presumably because of concerns of hefsek [thought-train derailment]. Some few communities resist the urge to destroy, and retain the original structure; if yours does, feel free to leave a note in the comments for the edification of others.

In recent years, communities have also removed the Selihot liturgy from the prayerbook and placed it instead on grubby photocopied handouts, but you can find this one (by Solomon ibn Gabirol) in Artscroll, on page 868. Here’s a sound file of the stanza.

גְּדוֹר פִּרְצִי בְּבֶן פַּרְצִי / וּמֵחֶדֶק לְקוֹט שׁוֹשָׁן Repair my breach with the descendant of Peretz [i.e., the Messiah], / and collect the lilies [Israel] from amidst the brambles.

בְּנֵה בֵּית זְבוּל וְהָשֵׁב גְּבוּל / הַכַּרְמֶל וְהַבָּשָׁן Build the Temple Dwelling, and restore the borders / of Carmel and Bashan.

וְעַיִן פְּקַח וְנָקָם קַח / מֵאֵצֶר וּמִדִּישָׁן Keep thine eye alert, and take vengeance / from Etzer and Dishan [Biblical Edomite groups, i.e. Roman-Christians].

שְׁפוֹט אִלֵּם וְאָז יְשַׁלֵּם / הַמַּבְעֶה וְהַמַּבְעִיר Bring justice to the mute one [the Jewish people], and then / may the destroyer and burner pay back –

יוֹם גָּבַר הָאוֹיֵב וַתִּבָּקַע הָעִיר The day when the enemy overpowered [us], and the City went under siege.

17 Tammuz, by the way, is the only Minor Fast to be mentioned in the Mishna (m. Taanit 4:6), where it is juxtaposed to 9 Av:

חמישה דברים אירעו את אבותינו בשבעה עשר בתמוז, וחמישה בתשעה באב. בשבעה עשר בתמוז נשתברו הלוחות, ובטל התמיד, והובקעה העיר, ושרף אפסטמוס את התורה, והעמיד צלם בהיכל… Five things befell our ancestors on 17 Tammuz, and five on 9 Av. On 17 Tammuz, (a) the Tablets were smashed, (b) the Tamid-offering ceased, (c) the City was besieged, (d) Apostomos burned the Torah-scroll, and (e) an idol was set up in the Temple…

This kind of text isn’t unknown in the Mishnah, but it’s perhaps a trifle unexpected. The Mishnah is the realm of legalese, of rulings, of law. Why here does it speak of history, of identity, of nonlegal matters?

The poem’s line שְׁפוֹט אִלֵּם וְאָז יְשַׁלֵּם / הַמַּבְעֶה וְהַמַּבְעִיר (bring justice to the mute one, and then / may the destroyer and burner pay back) is very clever language, when you look at it. In just a few words, the poet invokes huge swathes of Talmudic discourse, all developing very central Jewish ideas of justice and obligation – where people play fair, and bring disputes to the court, and things are settled properly.

But that’s just the problem. Our enemies, whether Titus or anyone else, don’t play fair. And they get away with it. And we can’t judge them in human courts. And it’s beastly unfair.

So we pray to God: שפוט אלם – “give fair judgment to the mute [‘Am Yisra'el], and only then will the מבעה ומבעיר pay up”. Bring the judgements the court would render, if we could only get these people into court.

…בתשעה באב נגזר על אבותינו שלא ייכנסו לארץ, וחרב הבית בראשונה, ובשנייה, ונלכדה ביתר, ונחרשה העיר. משנכנס אב, ממעטין בשמחה. …On 9 Av, (a) it was decreed that our ancestors would not enter the Land [at the time of the Spies], and the Temple was destroyed (b) the first time, and (c) the second time, and Bethar was captured [by the Romans, from Bar Kosiva's insurgents, in the year 135], and (e) the City was plowed [to utter destruction]. Once the month of Av enters, we decrease our joy.

So these are the Three Weeks of Doom, starting now and culminating on 9 Av, in the destructions of Jewish direction, spirituality, hope, pride, identity. This is the time of year when we remind ourselves what it is like to have nothing.

Nothing save what’s inside. The voice of the poet, calling from the brambles, praying for God to bring us justice. “God – we are Jews, and we try to play by the rules – the Torah’s שלם ישלם המבעיר את הבערה and Bava Kamma’s ארבעה אבות נזיקין: השור והבור והמבעה וההבער and that sense of fairness and justice is part of what makes us Jewish. Take that away, and we are disoriented unbearably. Restore that. Please.”

June 29, 2010 – 15:38 | Posted in liturgy | Tagged 17 Tammuz, jewish identity, selichot | Comments (0)

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גְּדוֹר פִּרְצִי בְּבֶן פַּרְצִי / וּמֵחֶדֶק לְקוֹט שׁוֹשָׁן	Repair my breach with the descendant of Peretz [i.e., the Messiah], / and collect the lilies [Israel] from amidst the brambles.
בְּנֵה בֵּית זְבוּל וְהָשֵׁב גְּבוּל / הַכַּרְמֶל וְהַבָּשָׁן	Build the Temple Dwelling, and restore the borders / of Carmel and Bashan.
וְעַיִן פְּקַח וְנָקָם קַח / מֵאֵצֶר וּמִדִּישָׁן	Keep thine eye alert, and take vengeance / from Etzer and Dishan [Biblical Edomite groups, i.e. Roman-Christians].
שְׁפוֹט אִלֵּם וְאָז יְשַׁלֵּם / הַמַּבְעֶה וְהַמַּבְעִיר	Bring justice to the mute one [the Jewish people], and then / may the destroyer and burner pay back –
יוֹם גָּבַר הָאוֹיֵב וַתִּבָּקַע הָעִיר	The day when the enemy overpowered [us], and the City went under siege.

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