The Situation

Sundays:

7:30 Shaharit//8:15 breakfast//8:45 Talmud//12:30 Lunch//1:40 Minhah//2:00 Biblical Grammar//3:20 Humash with Rashi//6:30 Maariv////6:30-9:30 = 3 hours for dinner, shower, homework/writing/reading/exercise/listening to music/transcribing Finkelstein zemers/cleaning house/hazarah

Mondays:

7:30 Shaharit//8:30 breakfast//8:45 Talmud//12:30 Lunch//1:40 Minhah//2:00 Modern Hebrew Conversation class//3:20 Liturgy (MIGHT DROP)//6:30 Maariv

Tuesdays:

7:30 Shaharit//8:15 breakfast//8:45 Humash with Rashi//12:00 Lunch//1:40 Minhah//2:00 Biblical Grammar//3:20 Hasidut//6:30 Maariv

Wednesdays:

7:30 Shaharit//8:15 breakfast//8:45 Talmud//12:30 Lunch//1:40 Minhah//2:00 Modern Hebrew//3:20 Halahah

Thursdays:

7:30 Shaharit//8:30 breakfast//8:45 Talmud//12:00 Siha with Reb Shmuel//1:00 Lunch//1:45 Parashat HaShavuah//2:45 Minhah//3:45 Gemilut Hesed at Hansen Garden//6:00 Shop for Shabbat

Fridays:

Morning/Afternoon: get stuff done, exercise, prepare for shabbat

dawn 4:48am//sunrise 6:02 am//latest shema 8:42am//Plag Minhah 3:37pm//Sunset 4:44

Saturdays:

day off

Other Stuff to Do: read Rational Rabbis, A Passion for Truth, Rereading the Rabbis, How to Read the Bible, parashat hashavuah, write stuff, see a movie, exercise, comport yourself in a way that optimizes your tefillah time

שויתי ה לנגדי תמיד

Your ambition to learn to love better expresses itself best when you commit yourself to 2 things: studying Torah and interacting with others in a Torah-conscious way.

a very rushed blog entry

Just a minute or two left until minchah.  I’m really pushing the envelope here.  You can tell because I’m speaking in cliches instead of describing what’s actually going on.  Benjmain just appeared at his makom kavuah.  He’s standing.  There’s Rabbi Romm.  Now it’s really gonna happen.  He’s just lifted his …. and we’re ready for minchah.

Talmud.  What am I gaining from the class?  Gaining experience with the multi-step process of Talmud study.  First step:  Be able to translate all words/phrases into English.  Some content words I already know from studying Hebrew.  Other content words I don’t know either because they are Aramaic or because my knowledge of Hebrew is holey (as opposed to holy).  I look up both Aramaic and Hebrew content words that I don’t know in the Jastrow Dictionary.  Sometimes that dictionary work can be tricky if I’m looking up a verb and I’m not certain what the root of the verb is, but I can usually figure that out.  When I can’t figure it out, the beit midrash (library-synagogue-classroom space) is full of experienced Talmud readers who can help me.  Then there’s the technical terms.  These terms as specific to rabbinic ways of thinking and need to be looked up in the Frank dictionary.  Sometimes I’m not sure whether a word is technical or content.  In that case I have to look it up in both the Jastrow dictionary and the Frank.  The bottom line:  with a Frank and a Jastrow dictionary, I’m sittin pretty, ready to crack open the Talmud’s meaning.

But not as pretty as you might think.  Even after I know what all of the content and technical words mean, it’s sometimes still difficult (or impossible) for me to understand the rhetorical maneuvers being.  My Talmud teacher (Reb Mordecai Silverstein) says that the Talmuid is not interested in resolving
arguments’ it’s really only interested in “thrashing around.”  Hmmm… I guess Talmud is like a shark with its prey?  I confess that I don’t really know what “thrashing around” means.  I want to understand the process by which the Gemara (as we call the Talmud’s authors) decides which arguments and examples to record and which to leave out.

Demonstrate the difficulty.  Okay.  First some basics.  The Oral Torah is a spoken collection of instructions concerning how to live a pious Jewish life.  The Mishnah is a record of the Oral Torah.  The Talmud is a compendium of arguments concerning the meaning of the Mishnah.  In order to understand what the Talmud is up to, we have to first confront the Mishnah.

Mishnah Tractate Sukka, Chapter 3: ‘The Stolen Lulav’  “The stolen lulav and the dry lulav are unacceptable.  The lulav taken from a tree that people pray to as a deity is unacceptable, and so is the lulav taken from a tree in a sinful city that is destined for destruction.  Also unacceptable are the lulav with its head nipped off and the lulav  with cut leaves.  The lulav with its leaves spread out is acceptable, though.  Rabi Yehudah says: Tie it from the top.  This certain species of lulav (tsinei har habarzel) is acceptable.  The lulav that has in it three fist-measurements so that you can shake it is acceptable.”  The preceding has been my very amateur translation of the Mishnah.

And now the Gemara.  Another amateur translation pending.  Here it comes.  “The Mishnah states categorically that there is no difference between the first day of Sukkot and the second day.  Certainly (here we see a word that is usually used to introduce a difficulty.  In addition to “certainly,” it might also be translated as “it is appropriate,” or as “it is reasonable,” depending on the context.  What difficulty is this word introducing?) in the case of the dry lulav, beauty (which is commanded in the Torah: “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a tree of beauty…” [Leviticus]) is necessary, and it isn’t there.  On the other hand, though, in the case of the stolen lulav, it is appropriate on the first day of Sukkot–it’s written [in Leviticus] “for yourselves”–from something that belongs to you, so why shouldn’t the stolen lulav be permitted on the second day of Sukkot?  Rabi Yonatan says in the name of Rabi Simeon ben Yohai:  because the stolen lulav consitutes a mitzvah attempted through a sin.  As it is written, “And you will bring stolen and lame and diseased sacrifices,” [Malakhi 1.13] (and from this verse we can make the following argument by proximity); therefore, stolen objects resemble lame ones.  Furthermore, just as lame things cannot be repaired, so too stolen things cannot be repaired.  Whether it’s before or after the original owner despairs of ever recovering his property just doesn’t matter.  “

whining about time management

Hello to you.  I’ve given myself ten minutes to blog before Chumash with Rashi class.  What is important enough to be mentioned during this ten minute slot?  Well, there’s a  ton of stuff that I’d like to write–stuff that I mostly definitely would write if this were a private journal and not a public blog–but I’m not gonna write that stuff so you can just forget it.  Today is Tuesday and the Ein Gedi Shabbaton was last Friday and Saturday.  My first Shabbaton.

Definitely noteworthy:  I’ve been having a lot of trouble regulating my sleep in the during the past two weeks.  I keep telling myself that I’m going to have to prioritize sleep, but then I just stay up again.  My reasons for staying up: davening maariv, doing laundry, late night study, watching TV (yes, that’s still an issue), being out with friends.  I tell myself that I should be in bed by 8 or 9 at the latest, read for an hour, and then sleep so that I can wake up at 6am with 8 hours of sleep under my drawstring.  But it’s really hard to get into bed by 8:00 when your last class ends at 6:15.  On days when I run (I’ve been running twice a week in the evening), I’m usually not done with my shower until 8:20 and then I need to cook and eat.  Maybe I should try running in the morning.  I used to do that, you know.  I’d have to get up at 5:45, asleep by 9:45pm.  Hmmm…

I’m not giving up on exercise.

But there are other things I really really want to do: review the day’s studying, study the siddur, read Mesillat Yasharim, write blogs, read books for the JTS Rabbinical School interview, see movies, hear concerts, see family, hang out with friends.

This yeshiva lifestyle is a toughy.  I’ve got to make some tough choices in order to maximize the time I have.  Sleep and exercise have to be top priorities because they’re what give me the fuel to make everything else count.  Then there’s also my ambition to learn to love better.  That’s the reason I’m here in the first place.

I like my hevrutot.  Alana, Shulie, Gella, Anita: here’s to you!

Talmud Journal #1

Ok.  Didn’t actually study Talmud yet, or rather we studied Mishnah but not Gemara.  Whatever.  It doesn’t really matter.  The important thing is that I studied excerpts from Leviticus, Nehemiah, and Mishnah Tractate Succoth with my hevruta and good friend Marisa.  Naturally, it was outstanding.  Marisa and I know approximately the same amount of Hebrew and she’s hard-working, serious, thoughtful, and also silly.  A great person to study with.  This kind of study is one of the main things for which I came to the Yeshiva.

What did I learn?  Leviticus 23 tells us to take (U’Lakachtem) or perhaps take AND bind on the first day of Succoth a fruit from a goodly tree (read:etrog), a date palm branch, the bough of a leafy tree (read:myrtle), and stream-willow (read:lulav) and to rejoice in front of God.

Questions Marisa and I asked about the text from Leviticus.  None of these questions were answered in the assigned excerpt.

1) What is meant by “goodly tree”?

2) What are “leafy” trees?

3)  How do we distinguish branches (”capot”) from a bough (”[g]anaf”)

4) What is meant by U’lekahtem?

5) What is meant by “rejoice”?  In other words: How shall I party, O Lord?

6) How do we observe the festival?

7) What do we do with this stuff once we’ve taken it, after the first day and on it?

What’s a sukkah?  How do we make one?

9) How do we define “citizen” (”ezrakh”)?  Are women, children and slaves included in that category?

10)  What constitutes “dwelling”?

11) Why is it so important for the generations to know that God made us live in tents when He took us out of Egypt?

12) Why doesn’t this tent business just happen on Passover?  Why are we remembering living in tents NOW and not at some other moment in the calendar?

Yeshiva Journal #1

Today is the first day of the Yeshiva’s Year Program.  I woke up this morning at 6:30 and convinced myself to click on “Snooze” instead of “Disarm.”  I think I thought that 5 more minutes would make a difference in the dream I was having.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember that dream.  When the second alarm rang, at 6:35, I convinced myself again that “Snooze” the better option.  I don’t remember how or why.  But by 6:40, at the third alarm, I was ready to get up.  I got myself ready, ate some yogurt with granola and raisins, and trundled off to the Yeshiva listening to Bud Powell’s “Strictly Confidential” and the beginning of Brahms’ second symphony along the way.

Shaharit.  And now writing.

My course schedule today will look like this:

8:45-12:30  Talmud II with Reb Mordecai Silverstein

12:30-1:40  Lunch

1:40-2:00  Mincha/Announcements

2:00-3:15  Biblical Grammar with Reb Shlomo Zacharow

3:20-6:15  Chumash w/Rashi with Shaiya Rothberg

6:15 Maariv

6:30 Run

8:00 Dinner

10:30 sleep

I’ll also be taking Ulpan, Midrash, Hasidut, and Halacha, but those classes don’t meet on Yom Rishon (Sunday).

Yesterday, during Seduat Shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat) at Moreshet Yisrael, Reb Shlomo introduced us to Reb Hayyim Luzzatto’s “Path of the Upright,” a book of medieval Jewish ethics written in the mid-18th century.  It purports to lay out instructions for how to love God, how to walk in His ways, and more articulations of the same that I can’t remember right now.  I’m very excited to read this book as learning to love God more completely is the central aim of my presence at the Yeshiva.

I hear a bustle downstairs that tells me Talmud class is about to begin.  Better go.  And now I will study Talmud for the first time in my life.  Wish me luck.  I’m so excited!

Tefillah Journal Entry #7

I increased my Jewish observance and came to study in Israel because I recognized my ineluctablility of my Jewishness and decided that I needed to embrace it and endeavor to understand it if I wanted to understand myself.  So for 3 months now I’ve been praying three times nearly everyday.  I’ve been saying birkat hamazon after meals and saying blessings before eating whenever I could remember to.  I’ve been saying a prayer of thanks for the proper functioning of my body after every visit to the toilet.  I’ve been studying Torah intermittently, and midrash and hasidut.  In two days, I’ll start my year program of study which will include Talmud, Chumash with Rashi, Halacha, Hasidut, .

What have I come to understand about my Jewishness during these three months? Judaism is still something that I largely do not understand.  Malakhel says that the Torah is about separating Jews from idolatry.  That’s a very Maimonidean perspective, isn’t it?  Perhaps Judaism is more about preventing the worship of false gods, and less about the proper worship of the true God.

Today I missed maariv because I stayed up late watching a TV show about vampires and was too tired to daven before I went to sleep.  This morning I slept until 10 and davened shacharit on my own.  Tonight I’ll daven at Yakar.

Earlier this week, on Monday, I walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel by means of which Jews in Jerusalem were able to access their major water supply without leaving the city walls during the Assyrian siege of 722 bce.  The guide spoke about three seals found by archaeologists.  These seals belonged to three men whose names are mentioned in the book of Jeremiah (I think it must be in Jeremiah, though I’m not completely certain).  These three men knew the prophet.  Two of them conspired to imprison and torture him for his prophecies and the third was his friend.  I didn’t know anything about either Assyria’s role in Jewish history or Jeremiah’s situation with respect to the destruction of the First Temple.

I’ve hiked in the Negev with my father’s 82-year-old cousin and his 21-year-old grandson.  I’ve stayed with other cousins and friends in Pardesiyya and Carmiel.

Tefillah Journal Entry #6

After staying up very late to talk with my good friend Gella about Plato’s Phaedrus, I simply could not resurrect myself from bed this morning.  The modeh ani did not happen.  I did not rise like a lion to the service of my Creator, but I will tomorrow morning.  The alarm alarmed at 6:30 but I didn’t get out of bed for good and all until about 10:00.  There were a few snoozes and alarms in between.  O, how I hate snooze alarms!  Snoozing is nice, but the constantly alarming interruptions of that snoozing send papercuts into my soul with lemon juice.

Plato is still deep deep deep in my psyche.  Socrates’ radical passion for truth and his radical love of love – his belief that the philosophical search for truth is the path of love – still guide me and push me to identify myself as more Platonist than Jew in my deepest values.  A Jew’s deepest values, as far as I can tell, are loving HaShem by living and studying His mitzvoth.  How do Platonic and Jewish values intersect?  I think I really need to take a class on Rambam this semester, and if I can’t then I’ll have to read some books about him in my spare time.

Today I davened shacharit by myself at home between 10:20 and 11:10.  There’s really a lot between Pesukei d’Zimrah (songs of praise meant to help the davener to focus) and Kriat Shema that I still don’t understand.  I just don’t know what the Hebrew means.  I need to learn the meaning of the Hebrew.  I think I might discontinue my blogging on the siddur and study the Hebrew in the siddur instead until I feel a lot more comfortable with it.

There was no minchah for me today.  I organized a brainstorming session for a few rabbinical school applicants to help them with their application essays.  That took up about two hours.  How else did I spend my time?

I davened maariv after seeing Journey to the Center of the Earth with Gella and Tad.  It was an awesome movie, even if it only had one allosaurus in it and even if that allosaurus didn’t get much screen time.  Now I really want to read Verne’s novel.

Tomorrow morning: Misrad Hapnim (The Office of Faces) to make an appointment to request a student visa.  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Shacharit (Morning Service): Morning Blessings: Blessings of the Torah

THE TEXT: Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us to engross ourselves in the words of Torah.  Please, Hashem, our God, sweeten the words of Your Torah in our mouth and in the mouth of Your people, the family of Israel.  May we and our offspring and the offspring of Your people, the House of Israel – all of us – know Your Name and study your Torah for its own sake.  Blessed are You, Hashem, Who teaches Torah to His people Israel.

ARTSCROLL COMMENTARY: It is forbidden to study or recite Torah passages before reciting the following blessings.  Since the commandment to study Torah is in effect all day long, these blessings need not be repeated if one studies at various times of the day.  Although many siddurim begin a new paragraph at והערב נה [Please...sweeten], according to the vast majority of commentators the first blessing does not end until לעמו ישראל [to his people Israel].

DWF COMMENTARY: This prayer contains three petitions (bakashot).  First, we ask that God “sweeten the words of Your Torah in our mouth and in the mouth of Your people, the family of Israel.”  Then, we ask that we the family of Israel should know God’s name and study His Torah for its own sake.  A few questions.  What is the significance of the phrase “our mouth”?  Do the Jewish people share a common mouth?  The singularity of the word “mouth” indicates that a metaphor is at play here.  The mouth is an organ of speech and also an organ of taste.  Also, “Your people, the family of Israel” has one mouth.  The Hebrew word for taste (ta’am) can also mean “reason” or “explanation.”  Maybe sweetening the words of Torah in the mouth of Israel is a metaphor for making the reasons and explanations for difficult-to-understand laws (hukkim) clearer in the collective understanding of Israel.

Jay, this is for you.  Once again, I ask, why might we want to know God’s name?

What does it mean to study Torah for its own sake?  What is this motivation: for the sake of Torah?  Is it for the sake of knowing how to live according to God’s instruction, to love Him?

Tefillah Journal Entry #5

I returned to Jerusalem from Carmiel yesterday at about 1pm, blogged and read in the beit midrash, and at 7pm my new roommate Hillary cooked up three varieties of French toast, kosher chicken sausages, Israeli salad and Tapuzina mimosas (Tapuzina is something like Orangina in the States).  This was one of the most successful attempts at buttering me up that anyone has ever launched.  Props to you, Hillary.  You scored.  I had been feeling iffy about having another third roommate.  Having invested a lot in the previous two roommates, both of whom only stayed with us for 3 weeks, I had gotten used to women crashing in my apartment for three weeks at a time without really laying anchor.  But Hillary laid anchor.  First of all, she and Benjamin already knew each other, and it made me feel left out when they talked about how much fun they had when they met last summer.  Hillary’s comforter announced clearly that she had come to stay.  What more can I say about this blanket?  You don’t bring a fluffy cushy pink comforter to Jerusalem in August unless you’re planning on staying for a while, right?  Right.  Plus, she was cooking, and the vegetable knife had been moved, and I “borrowed” one of her Q-tips without asking on her first day here and that made me feel a little guilty.

But after the french toast and the chicken sausages and the mimosas, I started to feel better about Hillary.  And then Benjamin and Hillary and I went out for drinks and told our life stories.  And I felt even better.  After 5 or 6 hours of sleep, we trundled down to Moreshet Yisrael, a Conservative shul about 5 minutes from our apartment.  We davened Shaharit with a minyan, Benjamin read Torah (and so did my friend Gella), Hillary gave a talk about the question, “What makes Jewish music Jewish?”, and then Benjamin, Hillary, Gella and I went back to the apartment, ate breakfast and talked for the next three-and-a-half hours about music, feminism, how to respond to a kid in a Hebrew school classroom who asks if he can refuse to get in the car on Saturdays because it’s Shabbos when his mother wants to bring him along to the supermarket, and how to deal with “Uncle Shlomo” the Shoah survivor who tearfully asks you the rabbi if he can lead the graveside Kaddish, the only Jewish prayer he knows, even though you don’t have a minyan.

I showered, came to the beit midrash for a while to check my email, davened minchah, called Mom to talk about car insurance and her upcoming Sukkoth visit, called my old car insurance company, ordered local organic vegetables to be delivered to my apartment every Wednesday at 4pm, caught some dinner with Gella and Franklin, ran into cousin Naava and her daughter Bathsheba at a bookstore, studied Talmud Tractate Berachot with my orthodox hevruta and high school band compatriot Daniel Finfer, and now…maariv?