Talmudic Heroines: How I Fell in Love with Aggada

Gemara. Shiur. Halakha. Mishmar.

These were not words I understood or even heard before I got to college. I grew up with what I still think was an amazing Jewish education, but this education did not include learning what these words mean (I'm still not entirely clear on what Gemara is so if someone could clear that up for me, that would be great, thanks). Instead we learned about Judaism's relationship with social justice and how to live practically as Jews in the world. We explored big philosophical questions, and I got the best relationship/sex education that I've ever had. But those things didn't help me when I couldn't understand the announcements at Hillel dinner or what my friends were talking about going to on Thursday nights (by the way, that one is Mishmar, a celebration to get ready for shabbat often involving singing and cholent, a sort of stew).

Talmud especially, even though I didn't include it on that list, was a scary entity with too many words in Hebrew or Aramaic on a page for me to even begin to understand. I felt like Talmud was for "real Jewish scholars," and that I was not one of them, despite the fact that I am a Judaic Studies major who wants to be a rabbi. Bible was comfortable. Bible I could read in English and no-one would judge me. Even Mishnah was made accessible by our former Jewish Chaplain through reading of "Strange Stories in the Mishnah." But I never touched Talmud. I didn't dare register for a Talmud class or God-forbid show up to a Talmud shiur (class).

But that all changed when I got to Israel. Through my program, we had to option to choose between four different classes to take on Tuesday afternoons. The options were an advanced Talmud class, a class based on the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible), a class about Jewish philosophical questions, and a class about Talmudic heroines. Each of the teachers stood up for about a minute to talk about their classes so that we could choose, and I listened to each of them, sort of passively, exhausted from the five hours of Hebrew that preceded our trip to our Beit Midrash program. But then Gila Fine, the editor-in-chief of Koren Publishers stood up to introduce her class, Talmudic Heroines. Now at this point, I had decided that I was going to take the Tanakh class. I don't remember what Gila said, but I remember how it made me feel. It made me feel like I was capable of understanding this text that I had put aside for so long. I told myself I would try it for one day, and if I didn't like it, I could switch.

 The Talmud had always been presented to me as one thing, an authoritative text that was filled with laws and rabbis disagreeing with each other. And it is that. But then I learned about Aggada. According to Shmuel Hanagid, "Aggada is every interpretation that appears in the Talmud about any matter that is not a commandment," that is to say, it's all of the stories that come between the pieces of Jewish law. Aggada is substantially more accessible to the inexperienced reader than the maze of halakha, Jewish Law, especially when you get to learn about it through the lens of different female archetypes. I knew I wanted to stay in the class the first time Classical texts (which I am ironically more familiar with) were introduced to learn about the female archetypes: Circe as the femme fatale, Medea as the shrew. We learned about Yalta, who seems to be a shrew when you first look at the story, but when you examine the story more deeply, you can see the complexities of her character and she can be redeemed. I continued to show up to Beit Midrash each Tuesday, enjoying learning about these women and the fact that they were engrossing enough to distract me from my chronic pain, but I didn't think much of it. I did, however, sign up for a Talmud class at Hebrew University.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when we returned to Beit Midrash after Passover break and I still remembered all of the steps that one is supposed to take to successfully look at a piece of aggada: close reading, context, hypotheses (with subcategories under each of those that I'm happy to share if you're interested). During my Talmud class on the same day, I felt like I could actually compare two texts that we had read. And I realized that Aggada, and to some extent Talmud in general were no longer so out of reach. I have a lot more to learn, but the hardest part was taking the first step.

I owe so much to both Gila Fine and Jason Rogoff for putting up with my ridiculous number of questions and for making Talmud accessible and exciting.

A Lovesong for "This is Water": The Two Literary Pieces That Never Fail To Keep Me Grounded

In my English class when I was a senior in High School, we read many things, but the two that have stuck with me are David Foster Wallace's brilliant commencement address: This is Water, and T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. There is many things that I love about these pieces, and if you would excuse my unapologetic enthusiasm, I would like to share them with you.

Let's start with This is Water. First of all, I am a college student, and as an overcommitted, anxious and hyper organized college student, I often fail to look at the big picture. Let me give you an example(I promise, i'll get to This Is Water in a minute): Tomorrow, I have five classes in a row, two club meetings and a club fair to attend, and at some point, I need to do my homework for the aforementioned classes. This is one day of my life. Looking at the big picture is not something that I was considering on Sunday afternoon when I color coded my schedule in my planner. Now we come to "this is water." I highly recommend that you read/listen to the whole speech, but if you don't want to do that, here's a quick summary: we don't pay attention to what we've always known, our so called default setting, and the purpose of a liberal arts education is to help us learn how to think. I think I've mentioned some of these concepts in a previous blog post, but bear with me. I could spend every moment of tomorrow cursing my teachers for assigning me ridiculous amounts of homework or feeling guilty for committing to too many things, or I could actually think about how lucky I am to have the problem of having too much to do, and I could think about the fact that my peers are probably just as rushed in the line for Einstein's as I am.

The second thing from "This is Water" that has always struck me is this line: "Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship." As someone who wants to devote her life to religion, I find this comforting.  By focusing on the bigger picture, I am able to let my religion help me. We need to make conscious choices of what we worship. Instead of worshiping money and celebrity and success, we should worship gratitude and compassion and if you prefer, God. If we worship material things, there will never be enough to satisfy ourselves. The issue is that, as Wallace says, these are often the easier things to attain because they seem more achievable and concrete.

At the end of the day, the real impact of "This is Water" for me is a reminder to be conscious. To be conscious of my environment, conscious of how I think, and conscious that everyone around me is as stuck in their "default setting" as I am. It appears that this blog post is already too long, so you'll have to wait until next week to hear about my obsession with this poem.