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Tag Archives: stories

Sanctity in Civics: Reframing our purpose when we leave our caves

11 Monday May 2020

Posted by dinabrawer in Important Moments, Jewish Festival

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civic obligations, stories, Torah

Screen Shot 2020-05-11 at 4.30.27 PM

Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, marks the death of the talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, also known by his acronym Rashbi. On this day, it is customary to tell his story (TB Shabbat 33b). This year, as we find ourselves isolated ‘in our caves’, his story feel particularly relevant.

Rashbi’s casual critique of the benefits of Roman rule in Judea is reported to the authorities, and he is condemned to death. Rashbi goes into hiding with his son, first taking shelter in a Beit Midrash. He then realizes he is putting his wife at risk of being tortured by the soldiers in order to disclose his hiding place, and so he finds shelter in a cave. Over the next 12 years, he maintains an ascetic lifestyle, immersed in prayer and study with his son, nourished by a carob tree and a brook just at the cave’s entrance. 

There’s a postscript to this story that is less well known (TB Shabbat 33b/34a):

(Rabbi Shimon) said: Since a miracle happened for me, I will go and repair something (for the sake of others) as it is written: “And Jacob came in peace…” (Genesis 33:18). 

Rav said: Whole in his body, whole in his money, whole in his Torah. 

“And he graced the countenance of the city”; 

Rav said: He established a currency for them. 

And Shmuel said: He established marketplaces for them. 

And Rabbi Yoḥanan said: He established bathhouses for them. 

He said: Is there something that needs repair? 

They said to him: There is a place where there is uncertainty with regard to ritual impurity and the priests are inconvenienced to circumvent it.

He said: Is there a person who knows that there was a presumption of ritual purity here? 

An elder said to him: Here ben Zakkai planted and cut the teruma of lupines. He also did so. Everywhere that (the ground) was hard, he pronounced it ritually pure, and every place that (the ground) was soft, he marked it (as impure).  

After twelve years isolated in a cave, Rashbi emerges with a renewed appreciation for his dependence on society’s infrastructure. He sets out to repay his debt and offer his contribution. He sees this as a sacred duty, anchored in the midrashic interpretation of the verse describing Jacob as arriving ‘shalem’, in peace and intact, from his journey home away from Laban, and ‘he graced the countenance of the city’.

The rabbis interpret Jacob’s ‘grace’ as civic contributions; he establishes a currency, marketplaces, and bathhouses. It is striking that these three features are precisely the infrastructure brought by the Romans to Judea that Rashbi initially criticized:  

Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai responded and said: Everything that they established, they established only for their own purposes. 

They established marketplaces, to place prostitutes in them; 

bathhouses, to pamper themselves; 

bridges, to collect taxes from (all who pass over) them.

It appears that Rashbi’s period in isolation enabled him to come full circle. He is now able to appreciate not only the value of civic duty, but is ready to take up civic obligations himself. 

His own contribution is to remove an inconvenience for  a small group in a particular locality. Now the Kohanim, who until that point needed to take a long detour to avoid becoming impure due to some unmarked graves, can go about directly and confidently. 

As we contemplate our own transition from quarantine and social isolation, Rashbi’s own story may hold wisdom that will be key to emerge shalem, wholesome and in peace, from our experience of isolation. We may be critical of society and individuals. The key is to be less cynical and undertake to fix something, ameliorate the lives of others, both  as a sacred duty and as the sense of purpose that enables us to emerge shalem, at peace and intact. 

 

In Search of Seders Past

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by dinabrawer in Jewish Festival

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faith, family, memory, Passover, religion, stories

Mah Nishtanah? Why is this night different…?

This year, this question doesn’t feel staged. It rings true and urgent.

This year, despite the variations in Passover customs across families, we are united in experiencing the seder through social isolation. 

Our reference points for what a seder is, are shaped by our memories of seders past, which dictate what a real seder feels like. 

So yes, this year it will be very different. 

But will it even be a real seder? 

Can we imagine a seder that feels authentic, without our extended family, friends or guests ? 

But is there such a thing as the authentic seder, the real thing?

The mishnah (Pesachim 10:5) sums up the goal of the seder as:

In every generation a person is obliged to regard themselves as though they personally have been redeemed from Egypt.

The seder is a process of reenactment of the original story, largely focused on the haggadah, the moment in which we recall and retell our most important story. 

But the haggadah isn’t just the retelling of our people’s journey from slavery to freedom, it is also an exercise in telling the stories of seders past. 

We’re invited to do so by the haggadah itself, as it opens by narrating: 

‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God brought us out’, but rather than continuing that story, it detours to reminisce of another seder: 

‘R’ Eliezer, R’ Yehoshua, R’ Elazar ben Azaria, R’ Akiva, and R’ Tarfon were reclining in Bnei Brak…’

IMG_4617

A story within a story: In this 1929 Vienna Haggadah, the artist recreates the Seder in Bnei Brak by imagining a gathering the five most prominent rabbis of that time: R’ Yosef Karo (Beit Yosef), R’ Jacob ben Asher (Ba’al haTurim), R’ Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and R’ Issac Elfasi (Rif).

The haggadah continues to weave stories and memories of other rabbis performing their seders; R’ Yehudah abbreviating the ten plagues into three sets of acronyms, R’ Gamliel capturing the essence of the seder by pointing to three symbolic foods.  

And so, as we  immerse ourselves in the haggadah’s narrative, we don’t find a linear, original story, but stories embedded with stories. 

What the haggadah is doing is akin to frame story, a literary technique that enables us to access and connect to the main narrative through multiple side stories, or stories within stories, like a Russian doll.

The truth is that memories are themselves built in the process of retrieval. And while we may set out to retrieve the original exodus story, we can only achieve this by recalling our own stories and in so doing creating memories.

And so when we contemplate this year’s seder, rather than obsessing about how different and strange it feels compared to seders past, we can celebrate it in the knowledge that we are weaving another seder story into the rich stream of Jewish memory. 

This year’s seder is certainly unprecedented, but in years to come, the memory of it, with its particular references, questions and symbols, will become an important chapter of the continually unfolding haggadah story. 

Let’s write this chapter with all the joy and creativity we can summon.

Future generations will retell it with reverence.

 

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