Talmud

Recalibrating our life route

In the summer, we read through Torah portions that sound like very weird vacation routes. As a Shabbat regular joked during our livestreamed service, it sounded like the old-fashioned CAA TripTiks.

In the days before GPS or MapQuest, you went to your local automobile association’s shop. A travel agent would hand you tour books for wherever you were traveling and create a personal set of maps, with highlighted routes, for your journey. With lots of tips for where to stop, eat and how to use your sightseeing time along the way, it was pretty useful. I used those tour books in years past, but my family eschewed the TripTiks; my parents insisted we could read maps on our own.

Considering the long list of places that the Israelites went during their 40 years in the wilderness, it could be compared to a family summer vacation gone wrong. Rather than the fastest, most direct route between two points, the Israelites wandered. In fact, it was their behaviour and relationship with G-d that had gone wrong. This exile and wandering was very much about the journey. In Numbers 32:13, it says: “The Lord was incensed at Israel and for 40 years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked the Lord’s displeasure was gone.”

We often talk in platitudes, like “life’s a journey, not a destination,” but let’s be honest. Most of us want to get places in life – accomplish things and do things properly. We might enjoy hiking or meandering down country roads, but most of us don’t want to see our whole lives as a lot of meaningless wandering.

This issue hit home for me in my recent studying of Tractate Yoma, which is all about how Yom Kippur works. Towards the end of the tractate, on page 86A, the rabbis discuss repentance and the notion of “hillul Hashem” or “desecrating the name of G-d.” Their explanations don’t seem direct at first. Rav suggests it’s like when a public figure, such as him, goes to the butcher, takes meat and doesn’t pay immediately, thus setting a bad example. Rav Yohanan suggests that, if one walks a distance without Torah or tefillin, it indicates a lack of appropriate respect for the Divine.

The tractate continues with when someone’s friends are embarrassed by his reputation, and other examples. Then, finally, a really difficult one: “But one who reads Torah and learns Mishnah and serves Torah scholars, but his business practices are not done faithfully and he does not speak pleasantly with other people, what do people say about him? Woe to so-and-so who studied Torah, woe to his father who taught him Torah, woe to his teacher who taught him Torah. So-and-so who studied Torah, see how destructive are his deeds and how ugly are his ways.” (Tractate Yoma 86a)

There it is, the person who disgraces G-d’s name and struggles when seeking repentance on Yom Kippur. This is because, despite a clear road map of how to behave, he got very lost on his way.

All of the examples touch on how we behave in community, and how it reflects on us and affects others. Shaming oneself or harming others disgraces G-d’s name because, well, we’re all made in G-d’s image. We should know better.

Many of us are still taking summer adventures, but it was helpful for me to read about finding one’s way more existentially, and to consider Yom Kippur. It had remarkable relevance to something else that happened.

Recently, we were involved in what would have been a big real estate purchase for our household. My kids and husband were very excited. We made tons of plans and, like the careful tourists we are, we had the routes on our “roadmaps” highlighted. We knew which steps we had to get through, and how to proceed. This was to be our summer adventure.

However, the experience proved far more challenging than usual – and no map would have helped. In the end, we learned that the seller’s finances were so tangled and she owed so much money that the sale couldn’t go through. Like the story in Tractate Yoma, it felt embarrassing and upsetting. It’s hard to see a person fall off the path that most of us expect to take.

We don’t think of closing an open construction permit or paying property tax bills as being central to our life journeys. Yet, just like the poor behaviour that caused G-d to get angry at the Israelites, sometimes our missteps cause a lot of misery down the line, and to other people.

Being an upstanding person, who promptly pays bills and deals with the chores of adulthood, doesn’t just reflect on one’s own character. As the rabbis pointed out, behaving properly avoids embarrassing others or setting a bad example. It reminds us to talk about “Torah,” or generally upright things. We should apply what we learn – to behave kindly and ethically towards others all the time.

When someone doesn’t do this, it’s not just an issue of seeking individual repentance and everything is fixed. The ramifications go beyond an individual’s bad behaviour. It turns out that not paying taxes or taking care of household maintenance affects many others nearby in a community.

When this failed real estate deal happened, it wasn’t our fault. It felt, I explained to my parents, like we’d put our car in a parking lot with an invisible sinkhole. When the sinkhole opened up, all the cars, including ours, fell in. When we got to the (imagined) parking lot, all was lost, but there was nothing we could have done. We couldn’t have known that this experience would derail us from our journey.

I can’t lie. Being thrown off the highlighted route was disconcerting. I kept thinking about how the car’s GPS voice says “recalculating” when we’re driving and get lost. It’s taken me nearly a week to process the failed home purchase. Now, we must create a new metaphorical summer destination, with fun activities for our kids.

We can’t always control our path. Maybe that’s why those platitudes mention “the journey” instead. While we focus on our destination, the lake or camping or a staycation, it’s so important to think about how we behave and live along the way. Our actions can affect everybody.

I took a long walk with my dog on Shabbat, and spoke with three separate neighbours. They all needed the company and the conversation. Was this one of my new stops, on an entirely different path?

The Israelites wandered 40 years to get to the Promised Land. Sometimes, the things we do along the way are the most important part after all.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

The Talmud’s advice, support

We have relatives who live in Surfside, Fla., where a high-rise collapsed. Many people are still missing or have died. Although the area around Miami is urban, the town of Surfside is small and close-knit, with fewer than 6,000 residents and a fairly large Jewish population. When we contacted my husband’s first cousin and his family, he told us how their beloved community centre, where they swim and gather every day for afterschool activities and camp, was the reunification centre. He described his job sorting out the kosher and non-kosher food donations for everyone. What stood out most was his comment, “This is all very personal for us.”

There’s little we can do from Canada other than pray and offer moral and financial support. This crisis, where our cousin’s friends, and their children’s friends, are among the injured, lost and missing, is on our minds.

I continue to study my Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day) but, I’ll admit, there are times where I study the text and then say, “Well, I’ve done that,” but nothing in particular speaks to me. It’s sometimes a chore. It’s the equivalent of when, in pre-pandemic days, I might organize everything to get the whole family to synagogue for services. By the time I’d gotten everyone fed, dressed up, out the door and through the service without major misbehaviour, I’d count it a big success – even though the prayer part was largely “dialing it in” for me. That is, I hardly had a chance to feel engaged in the prayer, singing or learning. (I’d guess many parents know what I’m talking about here!)

Meanwhile, here on the prairies, it is ridiculously hot now. I’m cruising through Tractate Yoma 83a close to midnight, when the temperature is just cool enough in my non-air-conditioned house to concentrate, and I read this: “… with regard to one upon whom a rockslide fell, and there is uncertainty whether he is there under the debris or whether he is not there; and there is uncertainty whether he is still alive or whether he is dead; and there is uncertainty whether the person under the debris is a gentile or whether he is a Jew, one clears the pile from atop him. One may perform any action necessary to rescue him from beneath the debris. If they found him alive after beginning to clear the debris, they continue to clear the pile until they can extricate him. And if they found him dead, they should leave him, since one may not desecrate Shabbat to preserve the dignity of the dead.” (Yoma 83a)

I gasped. Of course, the rabbis knew the trauma of a rockslide or a building collapse. What they described made me feel even prouder, knowing that the Israeli rescue team was in Surfside. Those Israelis got off the airplane, set up camp at the site and went to work. The search only stopped on Shabbat afternoon so they could start to set up demolition, a week after the collapse, as the building is unstable, and Hurricane Elsa is coming.

In a very raw situation, I could see ancient texts working through some of the awful issues Surfside rescuers have faced.

Oddly, this section of Talmud covered a lot that seemed personal. There is a whole part on how to help a pregnant person with her cravings, even on Yom Kippur. The notion of eating being absolutely necessary to nurture a life (hers and the fetus) was clear to the rabbis and, even on Yom Kippur, one must help a sick or pregnant person to eat if it’s necessary for health. As someone who has been pregnant with twins, I found this powerful and insightful.

Just before this part, in Yoma 82a, there’s a discussion about helping kids learn to fast for Yom Kippur. The rabbis’ advice was clear – help younger kids, a few years before, to wait a bit before meals, or to practise missing a single meal, in preparation for getting ready to fast at age 12 or 13.

I grew up in an actively Jewish Reform family, but I never knew of a family member studying Talmud. I was struck by how this common-sense Jewish teaching was passed down so exactly. When I read it in the text, I was literally seeing how my parents taught me about fasting on Yom Kippur. I first introduced “skipping snack” on Yom Kippur to my twins, as a stepping stone on the way to trying to miss a meal later on. We were following the Babylonian Talmud’s playbook here, even if we hadn’t read it ourselves.

Also part of this discussion is the concept of bulmos, which sounds a little connected to modern food disorders. In Tractate Yoma, bulmos means a person is desperate for food and must eat. As in, they might go blind if they don’t manage to raise their blood sugar. What is this ailment? Maybe a serious drop in blood sugar, or someone who has diabetes, or someone suffering from starvation. In these cases, the person must eat. All normal conventions about paying for food or kashrut are cast aside to help a person regain their health.

In times of stress, like heatwaves, rockslides or building collapses and illness, or even happier (but still stressful) moments like pregnancy or childrearing, we sometimes feel all alone. We struggle with things that are deeply personal. I was surprised at the timing of studying these pages of Talmud. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, because Daf Yomi operates on a seven-and-a-half year cycle. Even so, it was also deeply reassuring to feel less alone while thinking about big issues like health, how we are raising our kids, and the huge loss of life in Surfside.

There’s no sugar-coating it: we must, as adults, face difficult things. However, studying these wise Jewish leaders’ opinions and experiences with those same issues offers some companionship, even across a divide of 2,000 years.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Balancing our wants and needs

It’s warm out! My kids and I are longing to be outside all the time – but we can’t. Not only is there still remote school, work and other obligations, but our neighbourhood is loud with construction noise. It’s hard to play in the yard when a table saw is screaming through stonework next door. It’s also a constant social-distancing game. Our corner lot is busy. People walk on the sidewalks on two sides, and construction workers on a third.

Some might respond with, “Well, move to the country, why don’t you?!” When we bought our house, it wasn’t so crowded, nor near to so much construction. We’ve made a life here. Moving requires a lot of upheaval. We want to keep our kids in the same school, too.

Like most things, we all must balance our desires and wants (for quiet, for more space, etc.) with our needs (relative safety, proximity to the basics like healthcare, school, work, groceries and a Jewish community). This balancing act is deeply personal. It’s not obvious from the outside what will work best to resolve this, and it’s not always clear “from the inside” either.

In my Talmud study recently in Tractate Yoma, I’ve been learning about how the high priest was to do the rituals of atonement on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. It’s a series of very precise, concrete rituals. While deep meaning is assigned to some of these steps, the rabbis mostly want to parse what should be done to make the ritual work effective, as compared to making it invalid. They indicate that, if the high priest does it wrong, a year’s worth of sin remains for the entire Jewish people.

This kind of detailed ritual and accounting sounds like an enormous burden. The Temple high priest must have been under a lot of pressure! After all, when you consider the fate of Nadav and Avihu in Leviticus 10:1, who present “strange fire” as an offering to G-d and die. Or, if you consider Korach, who rises up against Moses – he and his buddies Dathan and Abiram and their families are destroyed when they rebel. In Numbers 16, the ground bursts open and swallows them up. Doing things wrong or inappropriately has consequences.

Some see that our tradition offers us a lot of fearmongering. There are those who worry that if they do things wrong – Jewishly, professionally, or other life choices – they will be literally “struck down.” Others don’t take any of it seriously and, as a result, their inability to abide by norms – public health orders, religious rules, societal ones, professional ones, etc. – results in a lot of problems for the rest of society.

What does this mean? If we turn it around and look for the gifts around us, instead of the potential hazards, perhaps things clear up and seem better. At least, searching for the gifts helps me cope.

We caught that upside recently – the gift, at 11:30 a.m. on a weekday, when, for whatever reason, the saws next door were quiet. The weather was sunny and cool. My twins stopped fighting. I looked up from the porch to find them in the yard, playing an ad hoc game of badminton, while keeping the dog occupied with her ball instead of fetching (and dismantling) the shuttlecock.

As warmer weather and, hopefully, healthier times are ahead, we have so many positive opportunities. It’s a rare moment where we can actually make personal, religious, social or political changes that might have seemed impossible before. Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely many pandemic moments when I’ve been caught in the detailed burdens or negativity – anxiety and fearmongering – struggling to see the good.

However, watching my kids laugh and chatter as they swung around their rackets, I was reminded of how lucky most of us actually are. Having a home, food and educational access, never mind green space, are great luxuries right now. Further, having a path forward, due to the COVID vaccines, also is a gift. Nobody has done everything right and, in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem, the high priest’s rituals served to help everyone process those mistakes, while we have different paths towards course correction and self-improvement today.

It’s important to recognize the flipside, which is that we haven’t done everything wrong, either. The warm and sunny days ahead can give us a bit of a break. It’s a window into whatever post-pandemic future lies ahead. Just as the warm weather provides us a bit of respite, so, too, do Jewish texts, which help us process our mistakes and concerns, balancing them with the joys, too.

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” based on Psalm 150, reminds us that the Temple was not just a place for sin offerings. Psalm 150 is filled with music, instruments and happy expression, often in relief after making those Temple offerings. According to the Talmud, huge groups sang Hallel as part of their Passover lamb sacrifice. Their observance made the Temple Mount ring with communal song.

Sometimes, finishing the difficult rituals and processing our experiences and the anxiety can put the noise and the stress behind us. The exercise can offer us a chance to bask in the sunshine and the music. Let’s all hope for that gift of laughter, music and thanks, as we celebrate Canada’s short summer season and lean towards the light.

Accepting a lack of control

Over a year ago, I wrote an article for the CBC with suggestions for parents on how to stay sane while coping with kids during the pandemic. I did some research, thought about it, and set out some points to follow. Now, all these ideas sound, well, familiar, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them. I mentioned things like making a routine, keeping up with learning and life skills, getting some alone time, exercise and going outside. I included efforts to have intentional fun, and practising gratitude. As I write this, much of Canada is experiencing the third wave. Manitoba, where I live, is now our country’s hot spot. It’s been a long haul for all of us.

I’ve been struggling with what is “new” when, frankly, much has stayed the same. Even as some of us have gotten vaccinated, we still need to stay home. Like everyone, I’ve gone through periods of feeling anxious, as those in charge waver on how best to keep people safe. Then, the most recent war in Israel and the Palestinian Territories erupted … and things seem even scarier.

It’s hard to admit that we have little control as individuals. We choose who to vote for, or to wear a mask, or to social distance. We cannot individually control global pandemics, violence, extremism or antisemitism. That lack of control can be very scary.

I often retreat into absorbing “flow activities” to keep myself well during such difficult times. Often, I’m cooking, sewing, knitting or spinning yarn. I’m reading or taking long walks with the dog and kids. We’re watching geese and goslings on the riverbanks and spotting woodpeckers and warblers. Taking time to see and make new things can be really good for our mental health, and it’s often positive and productive.

I also continue to study my page of Talmud, usually late at night. I recently read Tractate Yoma 35, which discusses, in part, what the high priest would wear in the Temple, as he does his most holy actions of the year, on Yom Kippur. Everything is spelled out in detail. This is done by the rabbis both to explain what used to happen in the Temple and what perhaps might happen again, if the Temple were rebuilt. Even the cost of the priest’s clothing, which must be paid for and owned by the public, is noted.

The high priest acts for the whole community and, at the same time, these rituals have to be performed by him alone, as an individual. It’s an example of where the entire community must support a leader but has no control over that leader’s actions.

In the midst of this careful recounting of how he is to fulfil his duties, it says in Yoma 35b: “Rav Huna bar Yehuda, and some say Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda, taught: after the public service concluded, a priest whose mother made him a priestly tunic may wear it and perform an individual service … provided he transfers it to the possession of the public.”

The rabbis’ discussion indicates that the tunic the high priest’s mother made him must be donated to the Temple after he wears it. If he is attached to it, this might be hard. Also, it might be worth more than what the high priest’s garb should cost. It’s something a dear one made him, and it could be both emotionally and monetarily valuable. Yet, his mom makes it freely, knowing it might only be worn at this one time, and then donated for wider Temple usage.

Bear in mind what this meant. A high priest’s mother wants only the best for her child and, yet, must submit to the whole community who depends on him. So, she procures the right fibre-linen. She might have to process it, or it might come ready for spinning. She spins enough for a garment on her spindle. (There were no spinning wheels or industrial textile factories back then!) She weaves the fabric, and sews it into the tunic according to the given specifications. Then, she gives all that work away simply for the chance to clothe her son for a short time in her own handiwork for his extremely important event, serving on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. This lesson is an ancient one – and, yet, many of us have to learn it over and over.

There’s so much we cannot control. Many huge world events are beyond us. We learn to submit to the experience that we cannot bend to our will. In the meanwhile, though, we can do everything in our power for good, as we see it. We can offer our money, creations and time. We can behave properly and follow instructions … and wait.

Many of my activities feel the same way as that mother’s tunic, although I have no high priests at my house. I spend many hours on meals, making clothing, helping kids learn, exercise, etc. Then, I finish my tasks and give it away. This “disappearing” work makes a difference in the universe, but I’m no closer to controlling the entire pandemic, the unrest in Israel, or beyond.

This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had as a parent and an adult. We must accept where we are because, in some cases, nothing we’re capable of will control the situation or effect change. However, in the meantime, we can be like that high priest’s mother. We can offer up our love, our handiwork, our peaceful efforts and knowledge. We can expect never to see it again, like that gorgeous linen tunic.

Learning to make things and give them away may be the most important gift. The activity itself is the part that calms me down in the face of so much uncertainty. Last night, I used some knit remnants and my sewing machine and made a lightweight sweater for a 9-year-old. This is an ancient Jewish process, but it’s also another brand new sweater. Tomorrow, he may wear it … in the mud puddles and the rain – and that’s OK, too.

BI hosts Zoom scholar series

On Feb. 16, Congregation Beth Israel welcomed the first of four renowned Jewish scholars in a made-for-Zoom series, The BI Scholars. Canadian-born Dr. Henry Abramson, dean of Touro College in New York and a specialist in Jewish thought and history, kicked off the series with a talk entitled Becoming the People of the Byte: The Internet, Talmud and the Future of the Jewish People.

photo - Dr. Henry Abramson launched The BI Scholars series on Feb. 16 — Dr. Henry Abramson launched The BI Scholars series on Feb. 16. *(photo from Beth Israel)*

His discourse looked at how Jews, over time, and to this day, use and relate to new information technology, and how it changes our modes of learning and disseminating texts. Abramson explained that Jews are generally early adopters of technology, beginning in the second century CE when, under the guidance of Judah Ha-Nasi, we moved from an oral tradition to the documentation of the Mishna in manuscript form, a big change that encountered significant resistance along the way. This was followed by the era of the printing press and, now, digital technology.

These communications technologies allow for significant democratization, and Abramson pointed out the value of the internet in that learning is available to all, whereas “treasured texts were previously not accessible to 50% of the Jewish community – namely, women.”

However, technology also presents dangers in terms of knowing the authenticity and authority of texts. It is our job, said Abramson, “to discover what we can trust and what we can discard.”

One of the female scholars about whom Abramson speaks is Ilana Kurshan, who has completed a remarkable feat of Talmud study – finishing the whole Talmud in seven-and-half years, Daf Yomi, a page a day. Kurshan will speak at the March 9 instalment of the Zoom series about her award-winning memoir If All the Seas Were Ink, which takes readers on a guided tour of the Talmud, while detailing her personal stories of love, loss, marriage and motherhood.

It is, indeed, one of the most unique Talmud commentaries ever written, as she explains: “The memoir is secondary. The way I happened to write this commentary on the Talmud is through my life.”

During her years studying the Talmud, Kurshan, a rabbi’s daughter from Long Island, N.Y., came to discover the terminology to understand her own daily experiences. “Talmud speaks to the human dimension of experience and, in many ways, that does not change,” she said. According to Kurshan, you cannot divorce the human experience from one’s own experience. “Just as the Talmud is a commentary on life, my life became a commentary on Talmud.”

On April 20, Dr. Benjamin Gampel, the Dina and Eli Field Family Chair in Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary, will speak on the topic Riots, Inquisitions and Expulsions, and the Emergence of the Sephardic Diaspora. Gempel is a specialist in medieval and early modern Jewish history.

The series ends with Yuri Vedenyapin from McGill University, whose topic is The Adventures of a Yiddish Teacher. An actor and a singer-songwriter, his areas of academic interest include Yiddish language and culture.

All BI Scholars Zooms start at 7:30 p.m. To register, visit bethisraelvan.ca/happenings/adult-programs/bischolars.

Rejoice or slog? You choose

Over the past two weeks, we’ve dealt with one of the worst household chores during Canadian winter: car repair. We’ve got two old cars. No, I don’t mean gorgeous restored antique cars, stored lovingly in a garage. We’ve got two cars that sit out in the back lane parking area in all kinds of Manitoba weather. We don’t have a garage.

The “younger” car is already 16 years old. This car, inherited from a family friend long ago, was having issues. We needed a new engine or a new car. Shopping for a new car during a pandemic didn’t seem wise. My husband opted for the engine.

While the car waited for its new engine to be installed at the auto repair shop, we had cold weather, as one does during Manitoba’s winter. Nobody at the garage plugged in the block heater or kept the car warm. Three thousand dollars later, while the new engine worked fine, the battery froze. The car had a good 10 kilometres of trouble-free driving back to our house before the battery died entirely. I spent a few days fielding Canadian Automobile Association calls and driving back and forth to the repair shop, accompanied by our kids – at home for remote school – and my husband.

On Jewish topics, well, we’ve just read the Shirat Hayam (Song of the Sea) Torah portion, which is in parashat Beshallach, Exodus 13:17-17:16. This is where we celebrate miracles, like crossing the Sea of Reeds, but not only that. It also details how G-d gave the people water, quail and manna, too. There were a lot of amazing gifts offered to the Israelites. There’s a message of hope here, and of life beyond the drudgery they encountered in Egypt, if they can see it.

There’s also an interesting confluence in that those who study Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day) are working through Pesachim right now. This is the tractate where the rabbis debate a lot of rules around Passover. As I learned from both the Torah portion of the week and Talmud, I saw a similarity that gave me pause.

The Israelites escaping from Egypt were in a time of great upheaval, including a plague that had just struck down all of the Egyptian firstborn. The rabbis in Tractate Pesachim are also in an unsettling time – the Temple in Jerusalem was long gone, and they were trying to understand how the Pesach sacrifices were done at the Temple and apply that ritual to a new vision of Jewish life.

Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, with more upheaval, trying to find our way through unrest and difficulties. It’s 2021, Passover is coming, and this will be yet another Zoom holiday, full of unexpected experiences.

When faced with all this, we have choices. We can, of course, complain and grumble, as the Israelites did in the desert, in Exodus 16:2-3. We sure have heard complaining during the COVID-19 pandemic, even among people lucky enough to have food, safety, warm housing and stable income.

In Exodus, Moses told the people that enough manna would be provided each day and how to gather it. The Israelites didn’t believe it, and some of the food got maggots because they didn’t follow the rules. Our Canadian public health officers have been leaders. They have told us how to stay safe and well and, sure enough, (surprise!) some of us haven’t followed the rules and have gotten into trouble.

Finally, we get to that whole “dead car in winter” routine. Could I draw a parallel here between our poor car and Pharaoh’s chariots, maybe? No. Instead, I saw the message the Israelites offered when they crossed the Sea of Reeds. “Who is like you, O Holy One, among the ones who are worshipped?” There is an expression of hope, joy and grateful acknowledgement there.

The thing is, our cars do a lot for us, getting us to work, school and the grocery store. This is essentially the plodding that is just a part of our lives, whether we complain or acknowledge it or not. We can find that drudgery everywhere, in schoolwork, in chores and in our careers. However, we can make a choice here, too.

In Tractate Pesachim, as the rabbis go through every part of Passover, they pause on page 68. In that pause, they reflect on what they are doing in studying Torah. Rabbi Elliot Goldberg, in his introduction to page 68 on the My Jewish Learning website, points it out: “Every 30 days, Rav Sheshet would review what he had learned over the previous month and he would stand and lean against the bolt of the door and say: Rejoice my soul, rejoice my soul, for you I have read scripture, for you I have studied Mishnah.”

In all good Jewish texts, there is a counterargument. Here, the Gemara responds: “But didn’t Rabbi Elazar say: If not for the Torah and its study, heaven and earth would not be sustained, as it is stated: If not for My covenant by day and by night, I would not have set up the laws of heaven and earth. (Jeremiah 33:25)

In other words, study isn’t just a slog. It benefits and nurtures us, and that causes us to rejoice. Also, Jewish tradition and Rabbi Elazar say that our study and work and, therefore, our Jewish action and rituals, uphold the world and keep it running as we know it.

We can see the car dying and its subsequent repairs as a struggle, and it is. We can also rejoice at how long the car has served us, how nice it is to have a break outside, even if it’s to drive back to the shop.

I won’t lie. It would be wonderful if, like manna, a new car appeared instead, but, since that isn’t happening right now, I need to rejoice in what does appear – a new engine, a free replacement battery and an opportunity to pause in the middle of the slog to see how lucky we are. The car died in our back lane, not on a highway. We were warm inside the house, and able to pay for repairs.

We need these ancient narratives – the Shirat Hayam story, rejoicing in freedom and full of hope, as well as the Pesachim reminder about the joys of study. They serve as a much-needed attitude adjustment. In the midst of a truly scary pandemic, in sickness and death, many of us are very lucky souls. It would benefit us to remember it. If a dead car battery or an engine replacement is the worst thing happening to us? We’re lucky indeed.

Views on various occupations

COVID-19 changed a lot of people’s perceptions as to what types of jobs are essential. Not only doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are on the front lines, but so are retail clerks, maintenance workers, truck drivers and many others. In this context, it is interesting to think about what occupations, if any, have been promoted or praised in Judaism.

As it turns out, Jewish scholars gave work considerable attention. Talmudic sages advocated for working rather than living off charity. Indeed, this principle provides some food for thought for modern-day Israel, where many ultra-Orthodox do live off charity. According to a January 2020 report by Dr. Lee Cahaner and Dr. Gilad Malach for the Israel Democratic Institute, between the years 2003 and 2018, about 50% of ultra-Orthodox men aged 25-64 and 76% of women in the same age bracket worked.

Scholars had a great deal of respect for labour. The Talmud abhorred idleness and argues that it leads to mental illness and sexual immorality. (See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot 59b, at jlaw.com/articles/idealoccupa.html.)

“Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Judah HaNasi would say: Beautiful is the study of Torah with the way of the world, for the toil of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin.” (Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, 2:2). Midrash Rabbah Bereshit (Vayetze chapter) goes even further, saying that practising a craft saved lives.

Yet, the sages believed that being absorbed with making money is not the ideal for an individual. Again referring to the Pirkei Avot (4:10), Rabbi Meir asserted: “Rather limit your business activities and occupy yourself with the Torah instead.”

Historically, teachers were valued – but only to a point. The high priest Joshua ben Gamla (circa the first century CE) issued an opinion that “teachers had to be appointed in each district and every city and that boys of the age of six or seven should be sent.” Where the boy had a father, it was the father’s responsibility to make sure his son had a basic education. Significantly, between the third and the fifth century CE, providing the salary of the Torah and Mishnah teacher became a communal task. Even those without children contributed to the teacher’s wages.

But teachers were not fully trusted. The Mishnah of Tractate Kiddushin 82a teaches that a single man or single woman should not become a teacher. The Gemara explains that the rabbis worried that such a teacher might have an affair with a parent of one of the students.

On torahinmotion.org, Rabbi Jay Kelman contends that the Gemara initially suggests that the Mishnah is afraid that an unmarried teacher might molest his students, but then rejects this explanation, noting that molestation is not something we need to suspect happening. Kelman, however, says, “this is something which no longer can be said with any degree of certainty. What we can say with certainty is such a fear is warranted even with those who are married and that, while rare, when it occurs, the results are devastating and tragic.”

While on the subject of sexual misconduct in certain occupations, here is an idea that might resonate with the #MeToo movement: the Talmud lists certain precarious trades that require men to often be alone with women. For example, a male goldsmith who makes jewelry for women. Talmud scholars were uneasy that such a businessman would be tempted to sin.

Curiously, harsh words were said about doctors. Tractate Kiddushin 82a ends with this statement by Rabbi Yehudah: “The best of physicians deserves Gehenna.” Why do they deserve a damned place? An article on talmudology.com contends that the opinion was based either on the belief that doctors were haughty before G-d or the fact that their treatment sometimes killed the patient.

Even though Israeli citizens highly value their army, Shalom Sabar points out in a Forward video that, in Medieval Haggadot, the “bad son” was portrayed as a soldier. This was because, at the time, non-Jewish soldiers would come to kill Jews.

Sailors, on the other hand, “are mostly pious … with many a ship sinking, sailors were in constant fear causing most to be super honest in the hope that G-d would protect them.” As Kelman summarizes, there really are no atheists in the foxhole.

On myjewishlearning.com, Rabbi Jill Jacobs states that, since Mishnah Zeraim (Seeds) deals solely with agricultural issues, we have proof that Judaism emerged from an agriculturally based community. Yet, in the Torah, farmers get off to a really bad start. Early in Genesis, we learn that Cain was the first farmer. Notwithstanding, G-d refused to accept his offering, accepting only his brother Abel’s. Cain couldn’t accept this rejection. In a jealous rage, Cain killed his brother and hid what he had done. G-d, consequently, reduced Cain to a life of wandering.

At a time when, around the globe, people are learning more about the extreme misconduct of some police officers, it is worth looking further into the Torah to see what Deuteronomy 16:18 and later commentators wrote about the police. Deuteronomy points out that both judges and police should be appointed to govern the people with due justice. Drawing on various Jewish sources, Rabbi Jacobs divides the function of the Deuteronomy-based police into several specific, but integrated parts: the patroling police person who “reminds the public to obey the law”; the roving inspector who ensures fair pricing and compliance with local ordinances; the arresting police officer who, while assuming the person is innocent until judged guilty, nevertheless begins the judgment process by arresting the suspect; the bill collector police officer who extracts payment from the obligated party to give to the aggrieved party; and the police officer who is a leader in his/her community. From Jacob’s assessment on truah.org, it would appear that today’s police have what to improve, especially when it comes to trust-building measures.

Over the centuries, Jewish scholars have taken into account the fallibility of people engaged in certain occupations. With tremendous insight into human behaviour, our sages apparently realized progress is not always in a forward direction. We have a long way to go in (re)establishing the integrity that Jewish scholars outlined for certain professions.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

***

The abstract of the article “Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions or Minorities?” (The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 4 [2005]), Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein reads: “Before the eighth-ninth centuries CE, most Jews, like the rest of the population, were farmers. With the establishment of the Muslim Empire, almost all Jews entered urban occupations

despite no restrictions prohibiting them from remaining in agriculture. This occupational selection remained their distinctive mark thereafter. Our thesis is that this transition away from agriculture into crafts and trade was the outcome of their widespread literacy, prompted by a religious and educational reform in Judaism in the first and second centuries CE, which gave them a comparative advantage in urban, skilled occupations.”

The full article is available at jstor.org.

– DRF

Comfort food and COVID

There’s been an uptick in the eating of comfort food in our house since the pandemic began. Cooking and eating are a big deal during stressful times.

Now, we were “into” food pre-pandemic. I cook a lot. However, everything went up a notch when our focus turned inwards, particularly for holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and Thanksgiving. When our neighbourhood bakery closed down in the spring, I went from making only challah to making all our bread. My kids, surprised, said, “Mommy, you made this? It’s really good!” – as they gobbled up the crusty spelt bread I turned out. Over these months, it’s gone from bread production to canning. Once the shelves filled up with jams, pickles and applesauce, autumn became baking and roasting season.

We’ve eaten too much: apple pie and crisp, sweet potato pie, cherry pies, and more. I tried for moderation – and then my husband bought Halloween candy. He started doling out two snack-sized chocolates a day. I couldn’t resist.

In the summer, I combated all this “extra” with dog walks and playing outside, but now it’s cold out again. It’s harder to take long walks. Fall virus numbers have soared, so swim lessons, gym visits and other kinds of exercise are off the table for now.

Imagine my surprise when Daf Yomi, the practice of reading a page of Talmud a day, came to the rescue! I found good advice while reading Eruvin 82b and 83b. After all, it’s not the first time in Jewish history that we’ve gone through periods of stress. When feeling out of control, it might only be natural to struggle with basics like “how much is enough to eat?”

In Eruvin 82b, a discussion emerges. To extend the eruv, the boundary of how far you can go on Shabbat, you can place food in a location, usually cooperatively, with your neighbours, so that you all “share” the space. When you establish this with your neighbours, it’s communal space, like in your house. You can carry things within a larger area. Imagine a block party potluck, and you’re understanding this.

How much food is enough? It’s supposed to be enough when each neighbour puts in enough for two meals. However, that amount must be defined. Is that food enough for two “work day” meals, when people might be doing hard labour? On Shabbat, we eat more, so do we put more out to designate the eruv? How much should it weigh? Does it need to be expensive or fancy food?

The rabbis then do math, which is always a bit dodgy, to be honest. Why? Measurements in the ancient world varied from one geographic location to another. Food staples varied, too – for instance, some places had better access to one kind of grain as compared to others. Rice bread is acceptable, for example, but millet bread can’t be used, because the rabbis say it’s hard to make edible millet bread.

Different communities couldn’t afford the same things and, even if they could afford them, in some cases, the bread they produced was simply not edible. In Eruvin 81a, there’s a discussion about a kind of mixed grain lentil bread, a concoction of wheat, barley, beans, lentil, millet and spelt as spelled out in Ezekiel 4:9. “Rav Hiyya bar Avin said that Rav said: One may establish an eruv with lentil bread.” The Gemara determines that there was a bread made like this in the days of Mar Shmuel, and even his dog wouldn’t eat it. So, the food put out for the eruv must be edible to humans (and dogs) and taste good!

The rabbis refer to the Torah and decide that the manna the Jewish people received while wandering in the desert was about an omer (two litres) each. There’s some dubious calculating to determine how much food is “enough.” The most helpful information I found was repeated by multiple sages over more than a thousand years.

In Sue Parker Gerson’s introduction of Eruvin 83 on myjewishlearning.com, she offers some context for understanding the talmudic text. The sages say, “One who eats roughly this amount [an omer] each day is healthy, as he is able to eat a proper meal; and he is also blessed, as he is not a glutton who requires more. One who eats more than this is a glutton, while one who eats less than this has damaged bowels and must see to his health.”

Maimonides, a physician and a Torah scholar more than 800 years ago, wrote a lot on healthful eating. In Gerson’s article, she includes eating tips from him, as well as from Rashi and Adin Steinsaltz. Regarding Maimonides, he said, “One should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, he should stop eating when he has eaten close to three-quarters of his full satisfaction.… Overeating is like poison to anyone’s body.”

It’s only natural to use food to celebrate, to comfort and to cope during this crazy time of upheaval. How can we combat this temptation? The rabbis advise: remember not to overeat, eat only what is edible and healthy, and practise moderation.

This is hard. We live in a world of plenty, possibly even including leftover Halloween chocolates. But there are Jewish teachings, over generations, about avoiding overeating. Weight gain could make us more susceptible to complications from COVID-19, and so many other illnesses. It’s not good for us, but, knowing how much food is “enough” isn’t a new issue and, like everything else, it’s a Jewish one. The rabbis probably didn’t have leftover candy or sweet potato pie, but they knew the temptations we might feel to make, or eat, too much of them.

Fences and walls can be good

My household is facing a lot of upheaval. The 100-year-old house next door was recently demolished, as the new owners wanted to live in an “old house neighbourhood” but in a new house. Their choice has been hard for us. It doesn’t preserve history and it’s not environmentally sustainable. The demolition and excavation are loud, and the shaking and vibrating has damaged our house and the neighbours’ homes, too. It’s a hard situation and we’ve got nowhere else to go, especially during a pandemic.

Years ago, when our twins were toddlers, we built a sturdy wooden fence around our front yard, to match the taller fence in the backyard. This fence has been a blessing. It’s kept kids and dogs safe, not to mention balls, badminton shuttlecocks, and more. Anything that strayed over the fence in any way – like, say, squash and cucumber vines – were completely trashed during this construction, which left a bare, muddy cavern on the other side. It’s been unsettling.

This physical boundary reminds me of other ones with which we’re all reckoning. As the pandemic continues, mask wearing and physically distancing from others has to be absolutely ingrained in us. Yet, articles online mention parents who hate having to enforce mask wearing with their kids, or how friends must make difficult decisions about whether to hang out with others who won’t wear masks. Our public health officials warn against mask shaming but these boundaries, these masks, are part of what keeps us safer.

This goes further, when considering how people manage remote school, work and public interactions where, frankly, all the rules have changed. Every family home, workplace and even transportation has changed. We set up boundaries – we build both physical and imaginary fences, through Plexiglass partitions and dots on the ground, to keep ourselves safe.

As Jews, none of this should be new to us, because the rabbis loved a good boundary! Whether it’s deciding what can or can’t be done on Shabbat, or how to manage keeping kosher, there are rules everywhere in Torah and rabbinic teachings. The rules, however, aren’t always clear or easy to follow. It requires both study and thought to decide what will work – and it isn’t always obvious how a Jewish person should interpret those rules or what’s important to follow.

Lately, I’ve been reading about how an eruv can work, because I’m studying Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day) and have been working through tractate Eruvin. What’s an eruv? Well, a simple definition (straight from the internet) is: “An urban area enclosed by a wire boundary which symbolically extends the private domain of Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath.”

If you’ve wondered why it’s OK, in some traditional Jewish neighbourhoods, for people to push strollers or carry food over to a friend’s house on Shabbat, well, it’s because they’ve created this special ritual space. This creates a single “private space” that connects a whole community of homes. The eruv is so important in some places that it causes housing prices to go up within its borders.

Many times, I’ve heard complaints from people about how “there are too many rules” in some context or other. Whether it’s “fences cut up the landscape in our neighbourhood,” “Why can’t we eat in this room in the community centre?” or, from parents, “It’s so hard to make kids wear masks or stick to this rigid schedule.” However, for many, creating routine, structure and boundaries, physical or psychological, helps us in so many ways.

The example of the Shabbat and festival eruv is a way to see rules in a positive light. If the “rules” state that we cannot do something in the public sphere on Shabbat, look at how we can get around this by using an eruv, the rabbis say – we create a huge private “home” out of all of our homes. What a rich way to build community, belonging and togetherness!

Even if we’re not Shabbat observant or using an eruv, this is a reminder of why fences and boundaries can be used for good. Without our sturdy wooden fence, I suspect our kids and dog might fall into the enormous excavation hole and construction site next door. Without those masks or social distancing rules, we’d have to stay home completely during the pandemic.

It takes all of us to make boundaries work effectively. As Robert Frost writes in “Mending Walls,” there is a lot of resistance to walls. From hunters to animals to elves – “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

However, Frost’s neighbour reminds us, “Good fences make good neighbours.” A boundary can keep us inside a rich and loving community. It can also keep us physically safe from harm or psychologically safe, by creating structure and limits to our days.

For now, we all need to embrace these boundaries. We must use these fences and walls to bolster us onwards, as we shelter through the winter and pandemic, even beyond the temporary walls of Sukkot.

Need to value what we have

Every fall, we go apple picking. For my husband and me, it was one of our first dates, apple picking together in upstate New York. Over time, it has become a family outing, with each kid eating lots of fresh apples with the promise of applesauce and pie on the horizon. The timing is often perfect for the fall holidays, too.

This year, though, the pandemic has drastically increased unemployment. Many people are hungry. All around our (relatively well-off) neighbourhood, there are apple trees heavy with fruit. Here in Manitoba, frost is on the horizon. I have felt a huge pressure to put up food to share, and to pick more apples. This could be a long winter.

The first apple tree we helped pick was that of an elderly neighbour. She just lost her adult son, who was disabled. She was in mourning, terribly sad and frail looking, but also isolated by the pandemic. We all masked up immediately as she came out to greet us. Her smile was meaningful. Watching my kids cleaning up the fallen apples was important. She told us a visiting relative had made her pie. I got the sense she enjoyed that, as she is overwhelmed by the quantity of apples on the tree and the effort required to make anything from them for herself, these days.

A couple days later, I dropped off four 125-millilitre (four-ounce) canning jars of applesauce and a takeout container with two generous slices of apple pie. We canned pints of applesauce, made pie and apple chips for lunches. We still had way too many apples. We took a trip to the food bank and my husband donated 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of apples, more or less, at the self-serve donation bin. He also saw squash and other large amounts of produce from Winnipeg’s gardeners and I was relieved. It sounds like our mayor’s encouragement to citizens to grow more vegetables might have worked.

A couple weeks passed. We didn’t think we had more apple tree picking on our schedule as school approached. I continued studying Talmud as I had time. In Eruvin 29, there is a section that discusses what kinds of food should be given to the poor. The list is specific, including nuts, peaches, pomegranates and a citron. It stipulates that support for the poor should offer them dignity. In essence, poor people should have access to the same kinds of good foods as everyone else. Also, the food should be luxurious enough so that, if they were to sell it, it might be equivalent to two meals of something else. The food support should be dignified. It should offer poor people the same autonomy to choose, as anyone else might.

We received an email from another neighbour. Her apple tree had grown a lot of fruit this year. She still had a lot of apples left. Did we want to come?

We began to pick what looked like an untouched, heavily laden tree. It had so many low-hanging apples that my 9-year-old twins and I easily reached up to pick many with our hands. Again, we picked far more than we could use. The apples were so ripe though, that we had a lot of “drops.” These are the apples that fall when you jostle a branch even slightly – you just can’t catch them all.

We make the drops into applesauce or apple chips, but bruised apples have to be processed quickly. You don’t want to donate them to the food bank. I remembered this part of Eruvin, which reminds us that the best produce, not the bruised ones, should go to the hungry. Meanwhile, I tired of pleading with my boys to be careful, that they were wasting food. To them, it was just a bruised apple.

I tried to help them see it differently – to imagine it as the apple in a kid’s lunch. You’d be hungry without it. Days later, we are still processing bruised apples, but donated at least 100 more pounds of nice apples to the food bank. The tree’s owner asked us to come back again if we could manage it before the first frost.

At the end of Eruvin 29 and the beginning of the next page, Eruvin 30, there’s a reminder that we can’t allow the customary practices of the wealthy to be the ruling for everyone, including the poor. The way it’s explained is through the roasted meat that Persians eat (the wealthy are extravagant) and the fact that even a small scrap of fabric is valuable to the poor, so it matters if it should become impure or soiled.

During the pandemic, we’re all now wearing masks – small amounts of fabric that were previously considered waste. I made many kids’ masks from cotton shirting fabric I’d bought long ago, sold in small rectangles as discount samples. This experience is a reminder that is reinforced at this time of year – although we often live in a “land of plenty,” Yom Kippur helps us remember what it is to be hungry. Sukkot reminds us to value harvest. Scraps of fabric and apples make a difference. We can pick the apples before they fall, and offer others the same gorgeous produce that we take for granted.

In some ways, the Talmud seems ancient, but, thousands of years later, issues around disease, hunger and waste are still relevant. It’s great to have “roasted meat,” but even fabric scraps and bruised apples are important. It’s a Jewish thing to try to be grateful and value small things, even though we might have been tempted to waste them. We can use every fabric scrap and apple – and we should, because, as Rav Abaye notes, not everyone can afford lush roasted meat meals.