WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:01.300 Corinne: Restaurant. 2 00:00:02.670 --> 00:00:04.380 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Recording is in progress. 3 00:00:05.090 --> 00:00:07.969 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Good morning, everyone. Shabbat Shalom. 4 00:00:08.470 --> 00:00:10.270 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm Rabbi Rachel. 5 00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:25.840 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): standing in for Rabbi David this morning, or… I am… I am one half of the Rabbi Rachel and Rabbi David duo, and it is a pleasure to be with y'all. I am going to begin by sharing this screen. 6 00:00:26.380 --> 00:00:29.060 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So that… nope, that was not the right screen. 7 00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:30.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Wait. 8 00:00:31.250 --> 00:00:35.929 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I, Hank, pardon me, small technical difficulties. 9 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:37.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We're gonna do that again. 10 00:00:38.350 --> 00:00:44.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): going to share… this screen… Hopefully, you're now all seeing… 11 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:47.749 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): a PDF. Is that a truth? 12 00:00:48.330 --> 00:00:49.270 David Green: Yes. 13 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:51.100 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, thank you. 14 00:00:51.500 --> 00:01:06.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So I would like to begin, as ever, with our blessing for Torah study. Baruch Atta Adonai, Elohenu Melecha Olam. 15 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:13.950 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, source of all being. You make us holy in connecting command. 16 00:01:14.140 --> 00:01:19.109 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And command us… to immerse in words of Torah. 17 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:26.640 David Green: And now, let's see if this works. I'm going to turn us over to Rabbi David for a moment. 18 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:28.940 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Who has an opening message. 19 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:54.209 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is such a pleasure to be with you digitally. I am officiating Jordana Ponticelli's bat mitzvah today on this week's Parsha, so thank you, Rabbi Rachel, for giving me just a moment to welcome everybody, to assure you that I'll see you next week. And to give you a brief introduction to what Midrash is about. 20 00:01:54.260 --> 00:02:01.390 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): to set you up for the learning you're about to do with Rabbi Rachel. If… Quick question, can every… is this working? Can everybody hear? 21 00:02:06.750 --> 00:02:08.440 Sandy Ryan: We can hear, but not see him. 22 00:02:09.550 --> 00:02:17.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Okay, well, I'm not… We know what he looks like. Alright, we're gonna roll with it. 23 00:02:18.580 --> 00:02:19.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I've learned… 24 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:28.430 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You've got with me before with Shirami. You've seen some of these materials before, so thank you for taking in this reminder. 25 00:02:28.490 --> 00:02:40.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): My purpose here is not to give a total introduction to our subject, the whole year we'll do that. Rather, to give you a running start to the orientation that Rabbi Rachel and I bring to this. 26 00:02:41.180 --> 00:02:55.060 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Let's just jump right in. The first sentence of Torah. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We probably all have experienced this. Turns out the Hebrew is amenable to multiple interpretations. Is it a beginning? 27 00:02:55.900 --> 00:02:59.939 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): beginning. I wouldn't be… Get it? Does it mean there was another? 28 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:06.200 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In God's beginning to create, Much the same. 29 00:03:06.330 --> 00:03:12.040 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But now it's not so much narrating, was describing. 30 00:03:12.230 --> 00:03:13.580 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): buzz… 31 00:03:13.790 --> 00:03:25.590 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): that change our interpretation? How about this one? In a beginning, this word et in Hebrew, which has no English translation, created God. Wait, wait a minute. 32 00:03:26.610 --> 00:03:33.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): how could God be created? The Hebrew can be interpreted Grammatically correctly to say that. 33 00:03:33.550 --> 00:03:37.859 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Now, what'd it mean if God were created? Who created God? What is it? 34 00:03:39.370 --> 00:03:42.100 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): If God could be created, who created it? 35 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:43.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): -Oh. 36 00:03:44.330 --> 00:03:46.930 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So… biology. 37 00:03:47.040 --> 00:04:02.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): everything we understand about the genesis as told to us by Torah, is up for grabs in the very first sentence, to the point that Rashi, Rashi was one of the great commentators of the early Middle Ages. 38 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:17.480 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): says, look, I don't know what this verse says, but it doesn't say nothing if it don't also say, explain me. It draws you in, you've got to explain me. No longer is Torah just sort of sitting there waiting for us to read her. 39 00:04:17.930 --> 00:04:21.100 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I'm saying her because Torah is feminine. 40 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:33.459 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But rather, it's relational. It's saying, you, you have got to explain me. And this Dalshani, to explain me, the Hebrew root, shin. 41 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:43.599 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): is the source of the Hebrew word midrash, is what the explanation is, but it's done in a particular way, it's a storytelling. 42 00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:48.710 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's the same root, by the way, as the Arabic word for madrasa. 43 00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:51.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): A school. So this is how they learn. 44 00:04:52.820 --> 00:04:59.300 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Lest we think that this is just some nice exercise or a fun way to spend a Shabbos. 45 00:05:00.140 --> 00:05:09.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): one of the great commentators and teachers of the Middle Hasidic period, thought the following. 46 00:05:09.930 --> 00:05:10.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Matt. 47 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:12.560 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): the oral Torah. 48 00:05:12.710 --> 00:05:13.710 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): weird wash. 49 00:05:14.190 --> 00:05:35.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Things that we speak together about Torah, and the physical text of the written Torah together are one, and neither is separated from the other. Because oral Torah, this Midrash piece, reveals the hiddenness of written Torah, because there's no complete Torah without oral Torah. Midrash completes the Torah, and that's huge. 50 00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:40.239 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because no longer, just like Rashi was implying, can we look at 51 00:05:40.410 --> 00:05:51.750 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And say, oh, that's what Torah is, I'm not part of the story. That's what Torah is. It's my job just to read it and receive it. This is more interactive. This is more relational. 52 00:05:51.910 --> 00:05:53.339 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): He goes even further. 53 00:05:53.510 --> 00:06:00.280 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Scholars in each generation complete the Torah, and they interpret the Torah in each generation for the needs 54 00:06:00.530 --> 00:06:02.110 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): that generation. 55 00:06:02.810 --> 00:06:06.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Wow! That means Torah can continue giving. 56 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:14.180 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That means Torah can continue evolving, and that we in each generation have not just the right, but also the duty to 57 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.169 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Oh, create that land aura? 58 00:06:17.730 --> 00:06:20.819 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And by the roots of our souls in this generation. 59 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:26.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): God will illumine the eyes of the wives of this generation for it, for our Holy Torah. 60 00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:28.510 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And what it demands this. 61 00:06:28.850 --> 00:06:30.590 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): denies Torah itself. 62 00:06:31.710 --> 00:06:33.279 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is not possible. 63 00:06:33.610 --> 00:06:36.740 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): to look at Torah, to care about Torah. 64 00:06:37.940 --> 00:06:39.390 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And learn from Troy. 65 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:44.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Without doing this, For some of us, this is a… 66 00:06:45.790 --> 00:06:50.489 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Totally mind-blowing ideas. For all those of us, this is like ESO. 67 00:06:50.900 --> 00:06:52.249 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's what we're doing. 68 00:06:53.630 --> 00:07:08.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We're going to continue to push all of us to be in relationship with the text, just as our ancestors have been for a long time, what the Degiel was saying was really bringing forward some truths that have been hiding in places, which kind of is what Midrash does. 69 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:13.699 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You're looking right now at a timeline of Mirage. 70 00:07:13.840 --> 00:07:16.130 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is not going to be a history course. 71 00:07:16.270 --> 00:07:20.209 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But just to let you know that there have been what scholars would 72 00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:32.749 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): more or less classified as five different periods in the Gashik history that began around the time of the Second Exile in the year 70 of the Common Era. 73 00:07:33.570 --> 00:07:37.509 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): through various periods in Jewish history. 74 00:07:37.510 --> 00:07:57.139 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): into the Middle Ages and the creation of the printing press, and all the implications of that history for how well Jews assimilated, how well Jews thrived, whether Jews were persecuted, by whom were they persecuted, where were they persecuted, what was going on, what were they experiencing. 75 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:06.879 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): All of these texts… Have some imprints of the time in which they were composed. 76 00:08:07.250 --> 00:08:11.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Depending on how this year goes, we're gonna be picking up different pieces of it. 77 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:14.949 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You may hear the phrase rabba. 78 00:08:15.150 --> 00:08:21.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Genesis, rather, another way of saying it, Berishi Rabba, Vayikra Rava, Leviticus, rather, Shemet rabba. 79 00:08:22.170 --> 00:08:23.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Solus fara. 80 00:08:23.930 --> 00:08:27.129 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Et cetera, et cetera. These are… 81 00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:44.890 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): texts that were brought together in something called Midrash Rabah, a great Midrash. Others are not unimportant, but if you ever hear the phrase Midrash Rabbah, it pulls together some of these texts in a compendium of Midrash that you may hear us talk about. 82 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:47.599 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Just by looking at this history. 83 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:55.089 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): divine, unintended, a couple of things. One is that Midrash preceded Talmud. 84 00:08:55.880 --> 00:08:59.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Muhammad, that great book of Jewish law. 85 00:09:00.900 --> 00:09:14.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): distract some of Jewish law from the Midrash that existed, and you can look inside and find Midrash. Some of that Midrash directly informs Jewish law, halacha. Other types of Midrash 86 00:09:14.830 --> 00:09:24.369 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): are… Agadic. Agada. It's dream space, but its purpose is less than to set down law. 87 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:35.800 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): then to lay out moral themes, to open up the heart, open up the soul, doing most of that work this year. Midrash Agada will form a lot of what we do. 88 00:09:35.800 --> 00:09:43.049 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): well, the procedural Talmud, which happened in the first few hundred years of the Common Era here. 89 00:09:43.050 --> 00:09:59.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And it certainly preceded what we call the classical commentators, Rashi, whom we just looked at, and others like Rambam, Maimonides, Tosepho, Rashi's grandchildren, and on it goes. These were the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th centuries, and a lot of them 90 00:09:59.760 --> 00:10:05.949 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): know what they know, said what they said, in part because they were informed by the Midrashtun existing. 91 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:10.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So what we're going to be doing this year is laying out what they said 92 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:22.739 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then going underneath it and bringing forward the rash that helped shape them. Essentially, we're going to be spiritual anthropologists and archaeologists going down layer to layer. 93 00:10:23.390 --> 00:10:29.800 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But there's something missing Because… All of these excluded. 94 00:10:30.030 --> 00:10:30.730 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Winn. 95 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:32.820 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Woo. 96 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:34.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): not recorded. 97 00:10:34.780 --> 00:10:35.830 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): to write. 98 00:10:36.130 --> 00:10:37.989 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): English, for the most part. 99 00:10:38.460 --> 00:10:40.530 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so we've lost half the story. 100 00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:43.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We're gonna fix that. 101 00:10:44.250 --> 00:10:45.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It needs to be fixed. 102 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:50.050 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So what are we doing this year? We're going to complete the written Torah. 103 00:10:50.460 --> 00:11:03.959 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): our generation. We'll do that in two ways. Eisegesis is when we leave ourselves into the text, we'll talk more about that. Exegesis when we pull things out of the text. We always do both, there's no clean way to separate one from the other. 104 00:11:03.970 --> 00:11:17.010 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But in exegesis, we look at the text and say, there's a gap here. Huh, there's an inconsistency over here. Huh, this text said X, this text said Y. Why are those different? Let's tell a story about that. 105 00:11:17.030 --> 00:11:21.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So we're going to be doing both of those over the course of this year. 106 00:11:21.700 --> 00:11:40.009 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We are also going to give voice to the voiceless. That's what Nagrash does. Whether it's a minor character that isn't given a part in Torah, but it's there, or a spiritual entity like the angel said to God, even though it's not written in Torah, but the angel's there, how could the angel not speak? And the third is nature. 107 00:11:40.270 --> 00:11:47.409 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The rocks, the water, the animals. Rock said to God, water said to God, said to God. 108 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:51.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Candles write these stories. 109 00:11:52.050 --> 00:11:59.280 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And because humans wrote these stories, we know for sure that these are reflecting human hopes, human dreams, human aspirations, human struggles. 110 00:11:59.810 --> 00:12:01.489 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which may well speak to us. 111 00:12:02.850 --> 00:12:07.019 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We were doing all of this to develop moral and ethical themes. 112 00:12:07.300 --> 00:12:09.530 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Harofu carved out. 113 00:12:09.900 --> 00:12:11.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Of the receive text. 114 00:12:12.090 --> 00:12:13.650 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): of Torah, so we'll do that. 115 00:12:14.510 --> 00:12:20.690 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And we do this was one way to interact with the sacred, God, Spirit, meaning holiness. 116 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:24.250 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And some of what we will do may shift theology. 117 00:12:24.510 --> 00:12:35.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What does it mean if that created God? How could God be created? Who created it? What does that say about spirituality? We may have experiences here. Great. 118 00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:40.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And we're gonna do this by healing 119 00:12:40.540 --> 00:12:46.279 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): the Midrash, by including the excluded, which are women. And… 120 00:12:46.310 --> 00:13:05.349 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): feminist voices, whether feminine or not. We will do this using a series of texts that Rabbi Rachel will introduce now, including the Five Books of Miriam from whence this year's journey takes its name, Five Books of Miriam playing off the Five Books of Moses. 121 00:13:05.350 --> 00:13:11.250 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, this is a drinking from a water fountain, maybe even a fire hose. 122 00:13:11.690 --> 00:13:18.219 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): 5-10 minute introduction to Midrash. Thank you so much for being with us. I look forward to seeing you next week. 123 00:13:18.780 --> 00:13:24.099 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I'll return you now to your regularly scheduled time with Rabbi Rachel. Shabbat Shalom, everyone. 124 00:13:26.650 --> 00:13:31.000 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Shalom, everybody! Did not make it to start again. 125 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:32.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hi! 126 00:13:33.070 --> 00:13:42.470 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Let me… Quit out of the movie player, so that it's not on our screen any longer. 127 00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:46.830 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, with any luck, y'all are now seeing… 128 00:13:48.270 --> 00:13:51.620 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): the screen that shows what Rabbi David was just teaching on, yes? 129 00:13:52.640 --> 00:14:02.980 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Super. Alright. So, as he said, our learning in some way takes its inspiration from this book, The Five Books of Miriam. 130 00:14:03.130 --> 00:14:09.840 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which is by Ellen Frankel, and it's a terrific volume, and we will dip into it off and on over the course of the year. 131 00:14:10.210 --> 00:14:13.689 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But this is not a study session for this book. 132 00:14:14.220 --> 00:14:19.070 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's a study session for the larger project of Midrash. 133 00:14:19.290 --> 00:14:29.700 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Including, also, we will dip into this book, Dear Shuni, which is a new English translation of contemporary Midrash written in Israel. 134 00:14:30.140 --> 00:14:35.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Every now and then, we may dip into this book, Womanist Midrash. 135 00:14:37.040 --> 00:14:53.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): womanist being an alternative term to feminist that is preferred in some African American communities. And of course, we'll be dipping into the voices of the classical tradition, because sometimes the classical tradition is surprisingly feminist. 136 00:14:54.140 --> 00:14:55.130 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): 2. 137 00:14:56.460 --> 00:15:00.010 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And with no further ado, Let's… 138 00:15:00.980 --> 00:15:05.429 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Let's look at our Torah text for this morning and then see where it takes us. 139 00:15:05.610 --> 00:15:09.080 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Would somebody who is not me like to read? 140 00:15:09.690 --> 00:15:12.619 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): this excerpt from Genesis. 141 00:15:17.880 --> 00:15:21.630 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hang on just a moment, we're going to pause this screen share. 142 00:15:21.750 --> 00:15:27.739 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I'm going to share again in hopes that I can give us a better view 143 00:15:28.060 --> 00:15:29.950 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Of what we're looking at. 144 00:15:34.140 --> 00:15:43.069 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Can I make this? Can I embigen this? Alright, we're just gonna work with the size that we've got, and next week, Rabbi David will be driving the tech more smoothly. 145 00:15:43.250 --> 00:15:46.239 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Would someone like to read this passage from Genesis? 146 00:15:50.230 --> 00:15:55.640 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I cannot see all of you, because I've got the text in front of me, so somebody needs to just pipe up. 147 00:15:56.100 --> 00:15:57.060 Sherrill Cropper: I'll read. 148 00:15:57.060 --> 00:15:57.760 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you, Cheryl. 149 00:15:58.500 --> 00:16:03.850 Sherrill Cropper: Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, God, settled the… human. 150 00:16:04.290 --> 00:16:24.210 Sherrill Cropper: in the Garden of Eden, to work it and tend it. Yude-Heh-Vaveh God commanded the human, saying, Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, do not eat from it. For on the day of your eating it, you surely will die. 151 00:16:27.030 --> 00:16:28.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Somebody want to pick up the next graph? 152 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:35.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Corinne, thank you. 153 00:16:36.020 --> 00:16:42.720 Corinne: Yuriv said, this is not good for the man to be alone. 154 00:16:42.830 --> 00:16:45.840 Corinne: I will make a helper KnED. 155 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:51.449 Corinne: You'd have a God formed from the earth, all the beasts. 156 00:16:51.620 --> 00:16:54.809 Corinne: Of the field, and all the birds of the sky. 157 00:16:54.970 --> 00:17:06.010 Corinne: And brought them to the men to see what he should call it. And what the men called each living creature, so would be its name. 158 00:17:06.220 --> 00:17:15.110 Corinne: The men called names to all the cattle, birds of the sky, and beasts of the field, but found no helper. 159 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:18.400 Corinne: Canada. 160 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:20.040 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 161 00:17:21.030 --> 00:17:22.910 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Somebody want to take the last paragraph? 162 00:17:25.210 --> 00:17:39.610 Joan Green: Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, God, cast sleep on the man. He slept. God took one of his sides and closed the flesh under it. Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, God, built the side that God took from the human. 163 00:17:39.610 --> 00:17:50.990 Joan Green: into woman, and brought her to the man. The man said, this time, this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She is called woman. 164 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.859 Joan Green: For from man this one was taken. 165 00:17:54.550 --> 00:17:55.310 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 166 00:17:56.350 --> 00:18:05.190 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, so anything popping up for us, just reading this familiar piece of text again? Thoughts, questions, concerns? 167 00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:20.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So I don't have, in this moment, the capacity to mark up the manuscript the way that I wanted to do, but I want us to notice this phrase, helper connegdo. 168 00:18:21.330 --> 00:18:28.560 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right? Notice that that word was not actually translated. In the Hebrew, it's right here, it's ezernegdo. 169 00:18:29.270 --> 00:18:35.690 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is intentional that we have not translated that phrase. Anybody know how it… how it is often rendered? 170 00:18:36.080 --> 00:18:39.770 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): God says God will make for the Adam a… 171 00:18:40.470 --> 00:18:41.820 Joan Green: companion. 172 00:18:41.820 --> 00:18:43.490 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): companion, maybe? 173 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:46.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Help Meat? Anybody seen that one? 174 00:18:47.170 --> 00:18:57.450 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, conneged can mean opposite, or in relation to. 175 00:18:57.790 --> 00:19:01.939 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So maybe this is in some way God says God's making an opposite? 176 00:19:02.170 --> 00:19:03.520 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): To the human? 177 00:19:04.310 --> 00:19:12.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): None of these exactly translate the full Breath of the Hebrew. 178 00:19:12.690 --> 00:19:15.470 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So let's look at what Rashi has to say about this. 179 00:19:16.430 --> 00:19:21.050 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, Rashi says he slept, the human slept, and then God took. 180 00:19:21.170 --> 00:19:29.349 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So that Adam should not see the piece of flesh from which she was created, lest she be despised by him. Nancy, I see your hand. 181 00:19:31.930 --> 00:19:36.749 Nancy Goody: If you could get rid of the left side, which has the thumbnails. 182 00:19:36.750 --> 00:19:38.029 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And actually… 183 00:19:38.030 --> 00:19:38.890 Nancy Goody: this. 184 00:19:38.890 --> 00:19:40.930 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes, absolutely. Hang on. 185 00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:43.810 Nancy Goody: That may be why it's so tiny for the rest of us. 186 00:19:43.810 --> 00:19:52.129 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That might be. Please forgive the, technical difficulties here. No, I want the thumbnails to go away. 187 00:19:52.710 --> 00:20:00.109 Sherrill Cropper: You can also, if you're on a computer, you can make that side of the screen larger. 188 00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:02.729 Sherrill Cropper: So that it kind of eliminates. 189 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:04.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yep, I'm… hang on, I'm… 190 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.959 Nancy Goody: Then you lose everybody in the class, so, I mean, it's… 191 00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:08.969 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Well, hang on. 192 00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:13.580 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): please forgive these technical difficulties, folks. 193 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:17.070 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is funny how… 194 00:20:17.780 --> 00:20:23.300 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): how I can do this week after week and not realize all of the tech stuff I wasn't actually paying attention to. 195 00:20:23.710 --> 00:20:26.679 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What if I say enter full screen? 196 00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:28.060 Lilith Blackmoon: than I would. 197 00:20:28.060 --> 00:20:36.510 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Nope, nope, that's not gonna do it. Okay, we are gonna try this again. Hang on, I'm returning to the Zoom, I'm returning to the share. 198 00:20:37.290 --> 00:20:38.400 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But I don't… 199 00:20:38.760 --> 00:20:43.549 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): All right, well, I meant there, this is maybe a little better, that just got a little bigger, didn't it? 200 00:20:45.810 --> 00:20:46.870 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): All right. 201 00:20:47.080 --> 00:20:48.979 Sandy Ryan: We got there, folks. 202 00:20:49.050 --> 00:20:50.450 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So… 203 00:20:50.450 --> 00:20:51.340 Nancy Goody: You got it. 204 00:20:51.340 --> 00:21:03.249 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Rashi says… I don't think I can annotate it still, but I don't want to waste y'all's time with that. So this week, you will receive an unannotated manuscript, and we'll live with it. So, Elma, I see your hand. 205 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:12.249 elmas: Yeah, and I got the clapping hands up there, too, because I don't know the buttons. I was quite struck by, 206 00:21:12.510 --> 00:21:14.819 elmas: It's often Adam's rib. 207 00:21:15.490 --> 00:21:15.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sydney. 208 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:32.749 elmas: That is taken, and that's such a small part of Adam. Right. So you've got Adam, and then you got the woman made out of the rib. This says a side of… and I picture it as a full side, a full half of Adam, which is a nicer image for me. 209 00:21:32.750 --> 00:21:44.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm so glad that you noticed that. One of the Midrash we didn't bring with us, although some of you may have encountered this before, is a Midrash that takes that word, that the side and the… 210 00:21:44.850 --> 00:21:52.170 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The word here in Hebrew is azelah, right? Azelah, a side. 211 00:21:52.300 --> 00:22:04.019 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And that word is used elsewhere in Torah to mean, yeah, like a whole side of something. So there's a Midrash that says that, first, God created a being that was two beings, one facing this way, and one facing that way. 212 00:22:04.300 --> 00:22:10.840 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): a bi-gendered, bi-human, you know, with, like, Janice-faced. 213 00:22:11.520 --> 00:22:14.210 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then what God did was saw them in half. 214 00:22:14.510 --> 00:22:16.140 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Lilith, I see your hand. 215 00:22:18.270 --> 00:22:24.149 Lilith Blackmoon: I find it interesting that the quote starts with this time. 216 00:22:25.870 --> 00:22:28.259 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm so glad you mentioned that. 217 00:22:28.260 --> 00:22:31.290 Lilith Blackmoon: Because… I mean, there's… 218 00:22:32.540 --> 00:22:41.470 Lilith Blackmoon: in… in my studies, which is kind of vague, the concept of Lilith was not really… 219 00:22:42.310 --> 00:22:55.690 Lilith Blackmoon: like, a solid story, it was more, like, a myth, and so that really stood out to me as, like, this time. So, where is the evidence of a previous time? 220 00:22:55.960 --> 00:23:07.179 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for naming that. So, looking… looking here onto this, the Ibn Ezra, who was in Spain in the, you know, 10th, 11th century, it says, 221 00:23:07.730 --> 00:23:20.029 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This time, I have found a helper, Kenegdi. Oh, and actually, above, the man says, this time, this one is bone of my bone. So, there's something… it seems to imply that there was a previous time. 222 00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:26.319 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And looking back up at our original text, it doesn't say anything about a previous time. 223 00:23:26.530 --> 00:23:28.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right? There's no mention of that. 224 00:23:28.610 --> 00:23:33.520 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is one of those lacunae, a gap, a hole in the story. 225 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:43.229 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That doesn't quite make sense. Why would he say this time if there weren't also a that time? And that's exactly where… one of the places where the tradition goes. 226 00:23:44.900 --> 00:24:02.100 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So Ibn Ezra says, well, this time I have found a helper Knegdi, like me because… made from me, not like Lilith, which is drash, it's just storytelling. And of course, we've already seen that the storytelling is itself considered part of Torah. 227 00:24:02.770 --> 00:24:09.340 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So we have a passage here from the anonymous medieval text called the Alphabet of Ben Syrah. 228 00:24:10.350 --> 00:24:14.149 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Would anyone like to read this one out loud? 229 00:24:17.450 --> 00:24:24.110 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Actually, Lilith, would you be willing to read this one? There's just something so perfect about having a Lilith in our class, to read the story of Lilith. 230 00:24:24.110 --> 00:24:25.370 Lilith Blackmoon: Sure. 231 00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:39.800 Lilith Blackmoon: Before creating Eve, God created a woman for him, from the earth, like him, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to argue with each other, her saying, I will not lie below. 232 00:24:39.810 --> 00:24:49.469 Lilith Blackmoon: And he's saying, I will not lie above, since you are fit for being below, and I above. 233 00:24:49.540 --> 00:24:55.670 Lilith Blackmoon: She said to him, the two of us are equal, since we are both from the Earth. 234 00:24:56.320 --> 00:25:01.600 Lilith Blackmoon: But they would not listen to each other, since Lilith saw how it was. 235 00:25:01.860 --> 00:25:19.629 Lilith Blackmoon: She uttered God's infavorable, infallible name, and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Maker and said, Master of the world, the woman you gave me fled for me. 236 00:25:20.930 --> 00:25:30.560 Lilith Blackmoon: So, God took one of his sides and made a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, this time. 237 00:25:30.730 --> 00:25:35.380 Lilith Blackmoon: This one is bone of my bones and flash of my flap. 238 00:25:35.670 --> 00:25:36.220 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 239 00:25:37.800 --> 00:25:41.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, so what jumps out at us in this one? 240 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Anything surprising here? 241 00:25:50.080 --> 00:25:54.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What do we make of, the first argument we see between 242 00:25:54.970 --> 00:25:57.859 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Adam and Lilith. What are they arguing about? 243 00:25:58.490 --> 00:25:59.880 Lilith Blackmoon: Equality. 244 00:26:00.220 --> 00:26:01.810 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Quality, beautiful. 245 00:26:02.130 --> 00:26:03.510 Sandy Ryan: He's on top. 246 00:26:03.660 --> 00:26:10.179 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Who's on top? That is actually what the text… the flat meaning of the… right, the shot, the surface meaning of the text. 247 00:26:11.080 --> 00:26:12.480 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Who gets to be on top? 248 00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:17.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): She says, I'm not in favor of the missionary position. 249 00:26:18.350 --> 00:26:19.040 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): mate? 250 00:26:19.230 --> 00:26:29.230 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Just a reminder that our sages are always operating in an earthly and embodied context. They are not some kind of highfalutin… 251 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:40.659 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): you know, held up above the worldly concerns of regular humans, they're speaking from a very human vantage, and they're saying the first ever argument in the history of humanity 252 00:26:41.010 --> 00:26:43.239 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Was over sexual positions. 253 00:26:44.580 --> 00:26:47.159 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And Lilith says, 254 00:26:47.770 --> 00:26:52.459 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm not gonna be on… I'm not gonna let you dominate me, maybe. 255 00:26:52.660 --> 00:26:54.309 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Corinne, I see your hand. 256 00:26:55.060 --> 00:27:05.790 Corinne: I think it's the first time in this myth that a woman has a voice. You always hear about God making, God doing, and the man kind of… 257 00:27:06.750 --> 00:27:10.239 Corinne: But it's the first time that a woman speaks her. 258 00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:14.020 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I love that. And she, she, she disagrees with what… 259 00:27:14.390 --> 00:27:16.350 Corinne: It's been done to her. 260 00:27:16.920 --> 00:27:18.270 Corinne: is not passive. 261 00:27:19.310 --> 00:27:21.330 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Beautiful. That's a beautiful… and… 262 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:28.380 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm seeing hearts rising up from some of us on the Zoom. This… I think this may… maybe this is one of the… 263 00:27:29.290 --> 00:27:32.829 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): impetuses behind the creation of this Midrash. 264 00:27:32.930 --> 00:27:43.949 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Maybe in part. It's anonymous, we don't know who wrote it. Statistically speaking, it was probably written by a man, because generally men were literate, and women were not always taught to read. 265 00:27:44.130 --> 00:27:47.050 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But we don't know who wrote it. Susan, I see your hand. 266 00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:51.810 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yep, and you're muted, there you go. 267 00:27:54.180 --> 00:28:06.790 Susan Phillips: it said that God… regarding Lilith, it said God created a woman for him, from the earth like him, so she was not created from a part of him, if I'm understanding that correctly. 268 00:28:07.080 --> 00:28:14.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Absolutely, you've got that right. So, right, the first human being, the Adam, was made from Adama. 269 00:28:14.670 --> 00:28:17.090 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So we think of Adam as a name. 270 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:29.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is Geronimo, by the way, and he wants to come study Torah with us this morning. We think of Adam as a name, but Adam means something like earthling or earth being. 271 00:28:29.290 --> 00:28:31.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): A creature made from the earth. 272 00:28:31.830 --> 00:28:41.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And in this midrush, Lilith was also created from the earth, so in a certain way, they're equals from the get-go. They're made from the same substance. 273 00:28:43.460 --> 00:28:50.460 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, right, they have this argument about who… About, are they actually equal? 274 00:28:50.850 --> 00:28:53.789 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Elma, I see your hand again. 275 00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:07.030 elmas: This is a little bit off the actual, events happening here, but it just occurred to me, and I don't know why I never thought of this before, to ask whether the… 276 00:29:08.040 --> 00:29:13.030 elmas: the Hebrew, which I don't know well at all, 277 00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:25.309 elmas: gives… how do I want to say it? Does… when it talks of God, of Yahweh, of… of… of Adonai, does it say He? Is it… is it masculine? 278 00:29:25.560 --> 00:29:26.850 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's a great question. 279 00:29:27.800 --> 00:29:35.920 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So I'm scrolling… so the word we have… the name we have for God here, and there are many names for God already. 280 00:29:36.030 --> 00:29:41.929 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Here, we're getting a combination name, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh Elohim. 281 00:29:42.280 --> 00:29:47.550 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sometimes Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh appears alone, sometimes Elohim appears alone. 282 00:29:47.980 --> 00:29:52.350 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Elohim looks like a plural word, because it ends in em. 283 00:29:52.910 --> 00:29:57.139 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is not, it's a singular word, but that's just sort of a grammatical… 284 00:29:58.560 --> 00:30:08.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): surprise. Maybe it somehow implies an innate multiplicity in God that is then mirrored in the multiplicity of us, of humanity. 285 00:30:08.860 --> 00:30:16.380 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The name Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh seems to be a… a… Participal… it's… it's the… 286 00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:20.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's the verb to be in all of its forms at once. 287 00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:25.460 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so it manages to mean was, is, will be. 288 00:30:25.860 --> 00:30:30.619 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Or at least that's how it's understood. So, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh could be read as being. 289 00:30:30.740 --> 00:30:36.130 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): or as becoming. And Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh does not have a gender to it. 290 00:30:36.670 --> 00:30:44.790 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But usually, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh is replaced in our texts with the word Adonai, which you used earlier, which literally means my lord. 291 00:30:46.880 --> 00:31:01.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, the word Adonai is a masculine word, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh is not gendered, and Elohim looks like it's, plural, which it's not. So, our language for God is complicated. Alright, Cheryl and then James. 292 00:31:01.850 --> 00:31:02.400 Rachel Rudansky: Oh. 293 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:07.830 Sherrill Cropper: I'm wondering if… 294 00:31:08.070 --> 00:31:19.640 Sherrill Cropper: Elohim, in this understanding, if we look at it Kabbalistically, could refer to the various aspects of God, meaning the Sephirot, and therefore it's plural. 295 00:31:19.810 --> 00:31:21.070 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Beautiful, that's… 296 00:31:21.070 --> 00:31:22.789 Sherrill Cropper: Referring to AIMSOF. 297 00:31:23.610 --> 00:31:27.230 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That is a beautiful rendering. So for… 298 00:31:27.360 --> 00:31:33.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): anyone, probably folks from my community for whom some of these may be unfamiliar terms, I promise that we will… 299 00:31:35.830 --> 00:31:36.810 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Excuse me? 300 00:31:38.830 --> 00:31:41.530 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Unpack them a little more over time. 301 00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:45.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes, the, the, the apparent… 302 00:31:46.820 --> 00:32:01.409 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): many-ness, multiness that's hidden in Elohim could mean the multiplicity of the spherot, the qualities of God in which we also partake. I think I said James and then Joan. 303 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:12.869 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): So, did you put the study guide together, or did Rabbi David? 304 00:32:12.870 --> 00:32:13.640 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes. 305 00:32:14.760 --> 00:32:18.600 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Okay, I'll take that as a vote, then. That means you're gonna get the question. 306 00:32:18.690 --> 00:32:20.419 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'll do my best. 307 00:32:21.280 --> 00:32:33.940 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I have been told that Bensura is kind of frowned upon within rabbinic Judaism. It's not, it's not looked very favorably. I mean, it was omitted from the Hebrew Bible, generally rejected. 308 00:32:34.010 --> 00:32:42.439 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Anytime it's come up, the traditional ancient rabbis and such tend to kind of squash it a little bit. 309 00:32:42.440 --> 00:32:42.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yup. 310 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:47.539 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Especially since, I mentioned this in the chat, it was accepted by early Christians. 311 00:32:47.660 --> 00:32:52.020 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): So I'm kind of surprised to see this being used here. 312 00:32:53.470 --> 00:33:12.060 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): that… yep, you are correct about all of those things, and we could have a whole conversation about why it was disfavored by the early rabbis. One reason might have been that the early Christians thought it was great, and at that point in time, those peoples were butting heads and really trying to distinguish themselves from each other. 313 00:33:12.270 --> 00:33:17.819 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And another one may be because this piece of it, at least, looks kind of feminist. 314 00:33:18.250 --> 00:33:25.170 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Although I will note that the text goes on, then, to say that after Lilith flies away, she becomes a demon who eats people's babies. 315 00:33:25.600 --> 00:33:32.160 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And, so, it doesn't stay quite so positive about. 316 00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:38.659 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Oh, no, there's ample misogyny within Bensura, don't get me wrong. 317 00:33:38.660 --> 00:33:41.179 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): There's ample misogyny almost everywhere. 318 00:33:41.350 --> 00:33:45.360 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Oh, yeah, yeah. But I'm just curious to see you using it here. 319 00:33:45.360 --> 00:33:49.230 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): One… so, in part, it's just such a great 320 00:33:49.760 --> 00:33:59.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): encapsulation of the kind of thing that classical Midrash can do, and how radical classical Midrash can be, even when our tradition says this might be a little much for us. 321 00:33:59.730 --> 00:34:03.969 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It has also been embraced by 20th century 322 00:34:04.300 --> 00:34:19.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Jewish feminists. Some of us might be familiar with the magazine Lilith, which takes its name from this story. And one of the texts I didn't have time to bring is The Coming of Lilith by Judith Plasco, written in 1972, that is a… 323 00:34:19.780 --> 00:34:25.270 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): contemporary retelling of this whole story that makes Lilith the main character. 324 00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:32.669 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And it is fascinating and delightful and poses all kinds of other questions, and it's a link that you guys can click on. 325 00:34:33.230 --> 00:34:36.150 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In, in your own time. 326 00:34:37.570 --> 00:34:39.129 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Joan, I see your hand. 327 00:34:39.830 --> 00:34:41.670 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then I'm gonna move us along a little. 328 00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:50.519 Joan Green: I'm looking both at this Bensera and the conversation, and then go… I'm going back to the first 329 00:34:50.810 --> 00:34:59.350 Joan Green: portion that is on that page, and I'm curious, I don't know what Hughman 330 00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:11.869 Joan Green: Parentheses around Q means, and I don't have a dictionary, available. There's something about the notion of the way, 331 00:35:12.160 --> 00:35:13.770 Joan Green: Adam and Eve. 332 00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:15.529 Joan Green: were created. 333 00:35:15.990 --> 00:35:31.440 Joan Green: that clearly, was the… was the attitude that was the early or original notion of the people who wrote this material. And, 334 00:35:31.770 --> 00:35:43.140 Joan Green: I don't know what man's… what male nature was way back there, way back when, but I would assume that, 335 00:35:43.380 --> 00:35:52.229 Joan Green: that it has aspects that have carried on to the present, that are applicable. So, why is the hue in brackets? 336 00:35:53.160 --> 00:35:54.369 Joan Green: What does it mean? 337 00:35:54.620 --> 00:36:02.109 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Great question, and thank you, you've just beautifully laid the path for where our next text is gonna go, so thank you, the checks in the mail. 338 00:36:02.370 --> 00:36:10.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So the Hebrew here is eta Adam, the Adam, or the Adam, the earth being. 339 00:36:10.990 --> 00:36:14.149 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So here we have an Adam. 340 00:36:14.550 --> 00:36:26.519 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): an Adam made of Adama, an earthling made of earth, you might say. Earthling is another… Rabbi Arthur Waskow likes to render this as an earthling made of earth, or a human made of… 341 00:36:26.790 --> 00:36:33.259 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): hummus, not… Not the food, but the, you know, the, the… Potting soil, right? 342 00:36:33.800 --> 00:36:39.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): A little bit later, when the other person is created. 343 00:36:39.550 --> 00:36:46.050 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right, God says… it says God took the tzelah, the side that God had taken from the Adam. 344 00:36:46.690 --> 00:36:49.399 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Leisha, as a woman. 345 00:36:49.870 --> 00:36:57.640 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): and brought the Isha to the Adam. So suddenly, we started with an Adam, an earthling, an earth being. 346 00:36:57.950 --> 00:37:02.339 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And by the end of this passage, we have an Adam and an Isha. 347 00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:04.879 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): An earthling and a woman. 348 00:37:05.930 --> 00:37:22.799 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then at the very end, the man says, oh, we're gonna call her a woman because she came from manned. She's an Isha because she came from ish. So that there's a kind of wordplay, right? In the same way that an English woman has man hidden in it. 349 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:27.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In Hebrew, Isha has ish hidden in it. There's some kind of connection there. 350 00:37:28.140 --> 00:37:34.379 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But one of the things that we haven't really explained yet is what does it mean to be a helper connegdo? 351 00:37:35.930 --> 00:37:40.989 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Oh, I hear sounds downstairs. My new sukka is being delivered, that's so exciting. 352 00:37:41.300 --> 00:37:46.830 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So let's look at our next text here. This is from Dear Shuni. 353 00:37:47.360 --> 00:38:01.469 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): from, this book, Modern… Contemporary Hebrew Midrash, written by contemporary Israelis, and now translated into Hebrew. Would anybody like to read this text from Mary Westreich? 354 00:38:08.660 --> 00:38:09.950 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Any takers? 355 00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:15.350 David Green: And he woke from slumber and saw a self of his self. 356 00:38:15.520 --> 00:38:17.040 David Green: Bone of his bones. 357 00:38:17.330 --> 00:38:22.200 David Green: And he was hurrying to complete the work of assigning names, male and female. 358 00:38:22.540 --> 00:38:26.740 David Green: And said, this one will be called woman, for she was taken from a man. 359 00:38:27.370 --> 00:38:31.020 David Green: And the woman saw how he was saying, taken from a man. 360 00:38:31.250 --> 00:38:35.069 David Green: That she is a part and not a creature in her own right. 361 00:38:35.680 --> 00:38:39.520 David Green: And the serpent gazed into her, added a prohibition. 362 00:38:39.710 --> 00:38:46.280 David Green: Craftily opening Adam's sleepy eyes, and at the end of this opening, curses. 363 00:38:46.550 --> 00:38:50.489 David Green: Crawling dirt, childbirth pain, sweat of brows. 364 00:38:50.610 --> 00:38:55.520 David Green: And Adam sees 3 curses, serpent, woman, man. 365 00:38:55.860 --> 00:39:03.410 David Green: And understands separate curse, separate flesh, separate bones, and selfhood. 366 00:39:04.070 --> 00:39:07.260 David Green: This one is not just bone of my bones. 367 00:39:07.540 --> 00:39:13.000 David Green: Self of myself, flesh of my flesh. This one is a helping match to me. 368 00:39:13.710 --> 00:39:17.499 David Green: At that moment, the work of calling out names was complete. 369 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.989 David Green: Adam called the name of his woman Eve, Chava. 370 00:39:22.240 --> 00:39:24.879 David Green: For she was mother of all the living. 371 00:39:26.980 --> 00:39:27.860 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 372 00:39:28.860 --> 00:39:32.770 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, what, this middle paragraph here is… 373 00:39:33.030 --> 00:39:36.969 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Summarizing a whole nother chunk of the story that we haven't just read. 374 00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:40.959 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Can we crowdsource what that piece of the story is? What happens 375 00:39:41.450 --> 00:39:44.210 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What happens here that we haven't touched on? 376 00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:50.169 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It says the serpent added a prohibition. What's the… anybody remember what's the prohibition on? 377 00:39:54.410 --> 00:39:58.970 Sandy Ryan: This is the… this is even the snake thing, right? Like, this is the… yeah, this is… 378 00:39:58.970 --> 00:40:08.499 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Absolutely. Thank you, Sandy. Yes, this is right. God has said to Adam, of all the trees in the garden you may eat, except for this one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 379 00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:10.669 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You don't get to have that one. 380 00:40:13.190 --> 00:40:22.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then… Ultimately, the serpent says to this woman, who does not yet have a name, you know… 381 00:40:24.050 --> 00:40:34.430 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): there's this claim that if you eat from it, you'll die, but, like, how do you really know that that's the case? Maybe it's good to eat from, right? The snake is enticing her into this 382 00:40:34.640 --> 00:40:36.370 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Opportunity, maybe? 383 00:40:36.990 --> 00:40:40.619 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And she eats the fruit, Adam eats the fruit. 384 00:40:40.750 --> 00:40:43.489 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And at the end, what's this about curses? 385 00:40:46.750 --> 00:40:52.770 Sandy Ryan: God… God says that, women will… Bare children in pain. 386 00:40:52.890 --> 00:40:55.759 Sandy Ryan: The man has to labor by the sweat of his brow. 387 00:40:55.980 --> 00:41:00.430 Sandy Ryan: And they will… something like crawling in the dirt all the days of your life or something. 388 00:41:00.430 --> 00:41:03.480 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, I think that's that the snake wind… the snake will forever crawl… 389 00:41:03.480 --> 00:41:04.780 Sandy Ryan: strochrometer. 390 00:41:04.780 --> 00:41:06.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Snake's gonna crawl in the dirt. 391 00:41:06.790 --> 00:41:11.510 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Women are going to have pain in childbirth, and men are going to have to work to get food. 392 00:41:13.270 --> 00:41:19.909 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so this also, by the way, leads to an interpretation that maybe the original snake was something more like a salamander? 393 00:41:20.100 --> 00:41:26.920 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Maybe it was a creature with legs, until God said, nope, that's it, you're gonna slither on the ground, and the legs immediately went, poof! 394 00:41:27.530 --> 00:41:28.770 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which I kind of love. 395 00:41:28.970 --> 00:41:31.250 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Elma, I see your hand. 396 00:41:32.520 --> 00:41:38.170 elmas: I don't remember word for word the passage about the serpent, but… 397 00:41:38.890 --> 00:41:46.219 elmas: Wasn't the prohibition given by God? Why does it seem to say the serpent added a prohibition? 398 00:41:46.510 --> 00:41:50.350 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, you are right, the prohibition is given by God to Adam. 399 00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:58.609 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But when the serpent recounts it to Eve, The… the serpent… Embroiders a little. 400 00:41:58.850 --> 00:42:03.119 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And this is a common theme in Torah, right? Somebody… it's the game of telephone. 401 00:42:03.560 --> 00:42:09.800 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Something is said in one way, but then when it's repeated, it might be changed a little, and what are the implications of that? 402 00:42:10.630 --> 00:42:12.320 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Lilith, I see your hand. 403 00:42:13.100 --> 00:42:20.090 Lilith Blackmoon: My question has always been, why put the tree in there if they're not supposed to touch it? 404 00:42:20.090 --> 00:42:21.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's a great question! 405 00:42:21.410 --> 00:42:24.000 Lilith Blackmoon: Setting them up for failure. 406 00:42:24.510 --> 00:42:28.859 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That is a great question. You are not the first to ask this question? 407 00:42:29.610 --> 00:42:32.220 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And it's, it's a goodie. 408 00:42:32.690 --> 00:42:35.939 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right, why would… why on earth… 409 00:42:36.180 --> 00:42:43.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): would God put this tree in the middle of the garden, point it out, make sure it's really beautiful, and then say, oh, just don't… don't eat that one? 410 00:42:45.170 --> 00:42:54.219 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Was this some cosmic version of the marshmallow test? You know, if you can refrain from eating the marshmallows, then you have goodwill power? 411 00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:57.460 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Why was this even the setup from the start? 412 00:42:57.930 --> 00:43:03.860 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And some… Have argued that maybe this was all the plan from the beginning. 413 00:43:04.830 --> 00:43:14.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right? That may be… If eating the fruit gives us knowledge, and that enables us to mature and grow. 414 00:43:14.490 --> 00:43:17.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Maybe the whole thing is a metaphor for childhood. 415 00:43:17.850 --> 00:43:23.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And eventually, you get the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and you emerge from the Eden. 416 00:43:23.520 --> 00:43:31.330 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Of our… of human… of humanity's beginnings, of a given life's beginnings. And then, yeah, you have to work, and there's suffering. 417 00:43:31.790 --> 00:43:35.259 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And that's just what the world as we know it looks like. 418 00:43:37.090 --> 00:43:41.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, I want us to… to look a little bit at 419 00:43:42.100 --> 00:43:44.829 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I… there's… this is a long… 420 00:43:45.130 --> 00:43:50.390 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This next piece is from Tamar Biala, who is the editor of Dear Shuni. 421 00:43:50.530 --> 00:43:56.189 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And we're not going to read the whole thing, because it is long, and there are other texts that I want to get to. 422 00:43:56.670 --> 00:44:01.060 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I just want to name a couple of things that she points out that I think are helpful. 423 00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:07.660 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I mean… That Mary Westreich is illuminating this verse from the perspective of the woman. 424 00:44:08.290 --> 00:44:14.359 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And Westreich imagines that the woman can see that Adam views her as a part of himself. 425 00:44:14.760 --> 00:44:19.510 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You were part of me, because you were made from me, so actually, you're just an extension of me. 426 00:44:20.010 --> 00:44:22.110 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You're not your own being. 427 00:44:22.940 --> 00:44:24.080 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The snake! 428 00:44:24.330 --> 00:44:30.219 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Indistinction, hears these words, but can look at the woman and see that that's not working for her. 429 00:44:31.040 --> 00:44:39.569 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And the serpent adds an additional prohibition, declaring that they are forbidden from eating all the trees in the garden, not just the tree of knowledge. 430 00:44:40.280 --> 00:44:46.160 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because the snake adds that extra prohibition, that extra embroidering on top of what God had said. 431 00:44:46.550 --> 00:44:51.719 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It engages the woman and tempts her to this violation. 432 00:44:51.850 --> 00:44:58.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so maybe her act of eating was an attempt to act freely as an independent entity. 433 00:44:59.020 --> 00:45:07.599 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): James, I see your hand, let me just touch on two more things, and then you're up. So, right, the woman eats from the fruit, she offers it to Adam, all three of them get cursed. 434 00:45:07.990 --> 00:45:20.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And this results in heightened discernment, right? They understand that they're naked, and there's a whole thing about the fig leaves, but for the purposes of this Midrush, what's important is that Adam realizes 435 00:45:21.070 --> 00:45:32.700 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): oh, this other being is not just, you know, a tumor that was removed from me and started walking and talking. It's a whole person of its own. She's a whole person of her own. 436 00:45:33.950 --> 00:45:39.240 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And that's, in this Midrash, how Adam comes to understand, oh, she's a separate person. 437 00:45:40.050 --> 00:45:54.170 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so she gets a name that arises out of who she is and what she does. She's… her name is Chava because she's M. col-chai. Chai and Chava, right? Those words are connected. 438 00:45:54.350 --> 00:46:06.179 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so, that shows that Adam understands that she's separate, and that's the conclusion of this passage of Adam naming all of the animals, you know, this one's a squirrel, this one's a lemur, that one's a cat. 439 00:46:06.330 --> 00:46:08.269 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Oh, and this one is Eve. 440 00:46:08.980 --> 00:46:09.850 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright. 441 00:46:09.990 --> 00:46:12.090 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): James, and then Cheryl. 442 00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:23.529 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): So… You say that… Adam says that she's not her own person, she's a part of me, etc, etc. 443 00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:32.950 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I hear a Midrash there, but I don't see that that actually sticks with the original text. It's not in the Hebrew, it's not in… 444 00:46:33.290 --> 00:46:34.860 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): any of the translations I've seen. 445 00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:39.890 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I mean… He doesn't say that she's not her own person. 446 00:46:40.140 --> 00:46:50.680 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): But that she is a part of him, as in they are one. A very different take on that would be not so much that, you know, she's a part of me as much as we're a part of me. 447 00:46:50.780 --> 00:46:54.050 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): And there are some other traditions that have said that 448 00:46:54.420 --> 00:46:58.350 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): man and woman were whole, and then God split them. 449 00:46:58.470 --> 00:47:00.889 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right. Another interpretation and so forth. So. 450 00:47:00.940 --> 00:47:04.700 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Why do we necessarily have to jump to this conclusion that 451 00:47:04.810 --> 00:47:06.999 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Woman is being viewed as lesser. 452 00:47:07.210 --> 00:47:10.249 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): When that's not really in the text, other than, of course, the… 453 00:47:10.370 --> 00:47:14.300 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): the male Midrash that we see from, you know, ancient history and whatnot. 454 00:47:14.500 --> 00:47:20.900 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): why not go a different direction? Why is it that she's lesser? And then he realizes that she's not lesser. 455 00:47:21.140 --> 00:47:24.830 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): He knew from the very beginning she wasn't lesser, just that they were one. 456 00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:43.290 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): thank you for lifting that up. I'm just gonna scroll… can I scroll back for a moment? Right, so, he… he does say, right, she's bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, so does that necessarily mean that maybe that's the unity in some way, or the idealized unity? 457 00:47:45.270 --> 00:47:58.980 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): one of the things Rabbi David mentioned earlier is the tension between exegesis and eisegesis, right? Exegesis means we're reading something out of the text, we look for the holes and the gaps, and we… 458 00:47:59.050 --> 00:48:06.090 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We stitch midrash to tie it together. I easegesis means we're reading ourselves into the text. 459 00:48:06.680 --> 00:48:12.230 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And it is noteworthy that this… Mary Westreich is a woman. 460 00:48:12.650 --> 00:48:30.480 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): As is Tamar Biala, and so it's possible that what we see here is them reading their own experiences into the text, rather than reading material strictly out of the text. I would argue that exegesis and eisegesis are always… there's always a tension between them. 461 00:48:30.770 --> 00:48:34.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And we see the male rabbinic sages doing that, too. 462 00:48:34.780 --> 00:48:35.870 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Absolutely. 463 00:48:35.870 --> 00:48:42.469 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And, you know, so… So that's, that's a thing to be conscious of. Cheryl and then Joan. 464 00:48:44.620 --> 00:48:49.540 Sherrill Cropper: I just want to say I love what John… what, James just… 465 00:48:49.680 --> 00:48:58.099 Sherrill Cropper: brought to light. I think that's great. And what Lilith just put in the chat of yin and yang, you can't have one without the other, but 466 00:48:58.380 --> 00:49:00.519 Sherrill Cropper: My thought is… 467 00:49:00.970 --> 00:49:12.099 Sherrill Cropper: the term curse. Can… can you tell me what the Hebrew word here for curse is used? I'm looking in my Tanakh, and I… it's not coming up with the one I thought it would be, so… 468 00:49:12.100 --> 00:49:14.539 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, on half a second. 469 00:49:14.830 --> 00:49:17.110 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): See, this is… 470 00:49:17.670 --> 00:49:21.389 Sherrill Cropper: While you're looking, I'll just say my comment, which is… 471 00:49:22.220 --> 00:49:26.329 Sherrill Cropper: I… I almost take umbrage with the term curse. 472 00:49:28.890 --> 00:49:35.650 Sherrill Cropper: And, you know, as you said, maybe this was the plan all along, and of course, nothing happens by accident in the Torah. 473 00:49:35.960 --> 00:49:41.680 Sherrill Cropper: And so, it is not an accident that… Knowledge. 474 00:49:41.930 --> 00:49:46.220 Sherrill Cropper: And awareness and heightened discernment becomes a thing. 475 00:49:46.500 --> 00:49:47.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): How… 476 00:49:47.720 --> 00:49:53.480 Sherrill Cropper: Would these babies of mind and heart and spirit grow? 477 00:49:53.870 --> 00:50:00.260 Sherrill Cropper: and populate the Earth. Obviously, they weren't supposed to, they were just supposed to live there and benign neglect 478 00:50:00.460 --> 00:50:09.499 Sherrill Cropper: ignorance, but I'm thinking that It is not a curse to have heightened discernment. It is a gift. 479 00:50:11.220 --> 00:50:17.159 Sherrill Cropper: we, as a Jewish people, as a Hebrew people, as… 480 00:50:18.940 --> 00:50:30.750 Sherrill Cropper: As our community, find so precious the pursuit of knowledge and growth and elevation in Taking on and pursuing 481 00:50:33.840 --> 00:50:35.819 Sherrill Cropper: the qualities of God. 482 00:50:36.600 --> 00:50:40.469 Sherrill Cropper: And how does that happen without a heightened discernment? 483 00:50:40.700 --> 00:50:56.999 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for that, Cheryl. So, in some ways, I think that links back to Lilith's question of why did God put the tree in the garden if we weren't supposed to ultimately discover knowledge? Anybody… it makes me think a little bit of the Greek myth of Prometheus. Anybody remember that one? 484 00:50:58.300 --> 00:51:04.609 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You know, stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, and winds up, unfortunately, having his… 485 00:51:04.890 --> 00:51:13.210 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): innards eaten by, wild birds for the rest of all eternity, so the wild… the ancient Greeks were, kind of mean in their myths. 486 00:51:13.710 --> 00:51:20.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But the theme of, right, whether it's fire, knowledge, light, Wisdom, insight. 487 00:51:21.710 --> 00:51:29.179 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): is seen as something that belongs to heaven, and bringing it into Earth, into humanity, can come with consequences. 488 00:51:29.350 --> 00:51:38.740 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Then again, as human beings, I would say going from a state of blissful ignorance sometimes into knowing things. 489 00:51:39.150 --> 00:51:48.910 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): can be painful. Sometimes it hurts to learn things. And yet, hopefully none of us would choose to remain blissfully ignorant of the world. 490 00:51:49.060 --> 00:51:54.160 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Forever. And so there's a… that's a tension in the Garden of Eden story. 491 00:51:54.560 --> 00:51:59.819 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Also, the word that is used for curse is aroor. 492 00:52:00.530 --> 00:52:06.399 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I have also determined that my eyes are no longer good enough to use this mini Tanakh. 493 00:52:06.580 --> 00:52:09.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which is why 494 00:52:09.320 --> 00:52:13.589 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I will have a bigger one next week. I see your hands, Joe, in the elevator. 495 00:52:13.590 --> 00:52:17.019 Sherrill Cropper: John, can you just tell me where that word is? 496 00:52:17.210 --> 00:52:17.730 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes. 497 00:52:17.730 --> 00:52:19.190 Sherrill Cropper: and 3… 498 00:52:19.190 --> 00:52:26.810 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It is in 3… yes, I think so. It is in 3… 313, indeed, yes. 499 00:52:26.990 --> 00:52:35.480 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): God says, so this is God talking to the serpent. You are cursed. 500 00:52:35.830 --> 00:52:44.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): From among all the animals. And all of the… all of the beasts of the field. 501 00:52:44.690 --> 00:52:50.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then goes on to say, this is why you don't get to have legs. You're gonna crawl. You're gonna slither. 502 00:52:51.130 --> 00:52:53.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, elma. 503 00:52:53.780 --> 00:52:55.790 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): No, Joan and then Elma, sorry. 504 00:52:56.510 --> 00:52:59.250 Joan Green: I… I… Oops, yes. 505 00:52:59.390 --> 00:53:03.699 Joan Green: I would like to, follow James's. 506 00:53:04.620 --> 00:53:08.019 Joan Green: A remark with The fact that 507 00:53:09.130 --> 00:53:14.589 Joan Green: Although it's at the edge of it, it never says that man 508 00:53:16.170 --> 00:53:22.129 Joan Green: was uncomfortable, that he wasn't whole unto himself. 509 00:53:22.640 --> 00:53:23.560 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm… 510 00:53:23.560 --> 00:53:33.090 Joan Green: And I think this is a theme that has always existed, that… it's… 511 00:53:33.840 --> 00:53:41.619 Joan Green: Sometimes it's hard for people to accept the fact that we aren't An entity unto ourselves. 512 00:53:41.620 --> 00:53:42.150 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm… 513 00:53:42.150 --> 00:53:53.150 Joan Green: completely, and that we need, like, we need community. We need love and acceptance, we need involvement. We need God. We need things higher than us. 514 00:53:53.150 --> 00:53:54.020 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): N. 515 00:53:54.020 --> 00:53:56.359 Joan Green: This is… this is the struggle. 516 00:53:56.360 --> 00:54:00.150 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That this represents me, and never does it say. 517 00:54:00.650 --> 00:54:08.700 Joan Green: man… Was angry because He couldn't be whole unto himself. 518 00:54:08.700 --> 00:54:09.550 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm. 519 00:54:10.950 --> 00:54:13.780 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That… thank you. Thank you for that. 520 00:54:13.900 --> 00:54:18.209 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Elma and then Sandy, and then maybe we'll go on to our next test. 521 00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:21.479 elmas: Oh, I'm taking notes all over the place here. 522 00:54:21.640 --> 00:54:23.090 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm so glad! 523 00:54:23.090 --> 00:54:29.329 elmas: This is great. I think it's really, really important that 524 00:54:30.050 --> 00:54:37.540 elmas: Humanity, whether it was man or woman, but humanity chose To… take the apple. 525 00:54:37.780 --> 00:54:46.840 elmas: It was not Prometheus bringing fire from the gods and giving it to people. It wasn't just giving, even if it was by somebody that wasn't supposed to give, it was… 526 00:54:47.010 --> 00:54:48.460 elmas: It was a choice. 527 00:54:48.990 --> 00:54:55.730 elmas: And the… whether it was the man or the woman, I see it as humanity choosing to 528 00:54:55.990 --> 00:55:02.159 elmas: Move on and not be totally passive, but be able to make a decision and do something. 529 00:55:03.730 --> 00:55:04.940 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I like that a lot. 530 00:55:05.140 --> 00:55:10.319 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's a… that's a real… I have not heard that particular take on it before, and that's really neat. 531 00:55:10.530 --> 00:55:12.620 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sandy, you're up. 532 00:55:14.580 --> 00:55:18.019 Sandy Ryan: I really, really like what Elma just said, 533 00:55:18.300 --> 00:55:20.840 Sandy Ryan: Because, yeah, it's like, you could have… 534 00:55:21.130 --> 00:55:34.349 Sandy Ryan: like, humanity could have just been like, we're another mammal, we chill in the garden. And instead, they were like, we would like… actually would like to make decisions and have discernment and make choices, and some of those choices are terrible. 535 00:55:34.460 --> 00:55:38.060 Sandy Ryan: But, the thing I was thinking about before was the… 536 00:55:39.580 --> 00:55:46.529 Sandy Ryan: how myths have also… like, this is also an explanatory myth of why things are the way they are, right? So, like. 537 00:55:46.530 --> 00:55:47.330 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes. 538 00:55:47.330 --> 00:55:53.529 Sandy Ryan: Why… why is childbirth a terrifying thing that, you know, like… 539 00:55:53.530 --> 00:55:56.160 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): People die from, which was far more true. 540 00:55:56.160 --> 00:56:03.419 Sandy Ryan: Yeah, like, most of human history is, like, how do we let women have babies safely, right? So… 541 00:56:04.630 --> 00:56:12.450 Sandy Ryan: that's a whole bunch of why civilization exists. So there's that explain… and then, like, why do we have to work for all this bread, right? 542 00:56:13.570 --> 00:56:18.699 Sandy Ryan: You know, like, that… so we're… those are basically the two hardest things about being a person. 543 00:56:19.090 --> 00:56:19.520 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right. 544 00:56:19.520 --> 00:56:24.340 Sandy Ryan: And the myth explain… like, also helps explain that, right? So I think that… 545 00:56:24.340 --> 00:56:33.959 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Oh, thank you for naming that. I know there is a word for this kind of story, and that word is lost to me right now, but a story that… 546 00:56:34.290 --> 00:56:37.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That explains why things are the way we know them to be. 547 00:56:37.880 --> 00:56:39.489 Sandy Ryan: Yeah, it's a certain kind of myth, and I… 548 00:56:39.490 --> 00:56:44.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, no, I… it'll come to me at 2 o'clock this afternoon. 2 in the morning, I'll hit it, yep. 549 00:56:45.150 --> 00:56:45.660 Sandy Ryan: Thank you. 550 00:56:45.660 --> 00:56:50.379 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes, these are… these are realities of human life as we know them. 551 00:56:50.870 --> 00:56:57.499 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): One, we begin in a… we begin life in a state of blissful ignorance, dependent on 552 00:56:57.840 --> 00:57:03.849 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): our parents for everything. Eventually, we grow up and know things, and sometimes that's painful. 553 00:57:04.140 --> 00:57:09.369 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): We have to work for food, and childbirth is excruciating, and deadly. 554 00:57:09.780 --> 00:57:22.369 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right, so how… maybe part of this is our ancients… ancient ancestors were trying to make sense of those realities, and this is how they used Torah to help them understand the world that they lived in. 555 00:57:22.990 --> 00:57:25.970 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Corinne, I see your hand, and then I'm gonna take us to our next text. 556 00:57:26.220 --> 00:57:35.039 Corinne: Yes, just briefly, in terms of Midrash, what's the bigger picture meant to teachers? What's the story behind the story? 557 00:57:35.450 --> 00:57:41.900 Corinne: What… what are we… the way the myth is presented, what's… hmm… 558 00:57:42.490 --> 00:57:48.430 Corinne: What it's meant to teach us? What's… The end of it… 559 00:57:49.050 --> 00:57:49.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Beautiful. 560 00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:56.389 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right, what is the story behind the story? What is this text coming to teach us? 561 00:57:57.410 --> 00:58:13.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I think that's… that's actually a question I would love for y'all to answer instead of me. Let's get… let's hold that question, look at a few more texts, and then I would love to harvest from the room what we think these various texts are here to try to teach. 562 00:58:14.250 --> 00:58:16.329 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, Robert, Robert? 563 00:58:16.330 --> 00:58:17.650 iPhone: Rabbi, I told… 564 00:58:17.830 --> 00:58:19.000 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, Shell and Ruth! 565 00:58:19.350 --> 00:58:20.800 iPhone: Call on me, because… 566 00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:22.009 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yes, I'm so sorry. 567 00:58:22.010 --> 00:58:23.040 iPhone: proud. 568 00:58:23.040 --> 00:58:27.040 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I apologize, I couldn't see you from the way my screen is set up. Ellen Ruth! 569 00:58:30.820 --> 00:58:42.309 iPhone: I… I got the 5 bucks of Miriam, and I'm on page 200 and whatever, and… 570 00:58:43.130 --> 00:58:49.190 iPhone: the more I was reading it, and the more this discussion is going on today. 571 00:58:49.580 --> 00:59:02.760 iPhone: the further I'm getting from my connection to the spirituality of Judaism to… it's just another… it's just another myth, it's just another story. 572 00:59:02.910 --> 00:59:10.099 iPhone: And because my background is in literature and reading, I'm like… 573 00:59:10.590 --> 00:59:20.100 iPhone: Okay, we're analyzing the narrative, but where… what is it calling on my soul to connect with? 574 00:59:21.660 --> 00:59:23.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for naming that. 575 00:59:24.180 --> 00:59:28.870 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm hearing a few different things, but the main thing I'm hearing is that 576 00:59:28.990 --> 00:59:35.180 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Delving into that book is actually making you feel disconnected from the sanctity of the text. 577 00:59:35.490 --> 00:59:40.949 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Maybe because it's… This feeds into a kind of literary analysis 578 00:59:41.300 --> 00:59:48.070 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): that's done in the head, right? It's in briya, it's in thought, rather than in the heart and soul. 579 00:59:48.600 --> 00:59:50.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Am I hearing that right? 580 00:59:51.170 --> 00:59:53.409 iPhone: Yes, yes, correct. 581 00:59:54.660 --> 00:59:56.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for naming that. 582 00:59:56.760 --> 01:00:00.459 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I will bring that back also to Rabbi David. 583 01:00:01.280 --> 01:00:11.689 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because the last thing in the world that we want is for this learning to make any of us feel more distant from text, from tradition, from God, from the life of the Spirit. 584 01:00:12.150 --> 01:00:21.439 iPhone: at first when I was reading it, it was kind of exciting, because the characters in the Bible were coming alive for me. 585 01:00:21.560 --> 01:00:28.850 iPhone: And I was… and I was excited about that. I felt like I had a connection and a communication with him. 586 01:00:29.200 --> 01:00:42.140 iPhone: But the more I read, I was like, okay, there's this story, that story, the other story, and it's all based historically, and I was getting into the historical part. 587 01:00:42.440 --> 01:00:49.520 iPhone: And… and… missing what the essential Judaism actually is. 588 01:00:49.760 --> 01:01:01.709 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for that. So, two quick thoughts. One of them is, I want to say that this book, while it is valuable, is not our text for the year. Our text for the year is still Torah. 589 01:01:02.450 --> 01:01:10.039 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And that we will dip into this book. In some way, we borrowed the title, The Five Books of Miriam, because it's such… 590 01:01:10.570 --> 01:01:12.890 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): A succinct way of saying. 591 01:01:13.540 --> 01:01:21.019 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The five books of our tradition and lifting up the voices of those who have historically been voiceless. 592 01:01:21.920 --> 01:01:22.780 iPhone: Yes. 593 01:01:22.780 --> 01:01:31.170 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But not… it's not just… this book is a particular… Feminist Scholarly Enterprise, it's not… 594 01:01:31.370 --> 01:01:34.030 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's self the core of our work. 595 01:01:34.300 --> 01:01:39.070 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And off the top of my head, my thought is to say, no, off the top of my heart. 596 01:01:40.080 --> 01:01:46.899 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That in lieu of reading more in that book in this moment, maybe a thing for you would be to 597 01:01:48.100 --> 01:01:55.580 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): to write something in the voice of one of the characters in our Torah in this moment. 598 01:01:55.740 --> 01:02:02.240 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And in that way, write your own heart into the tradition, write the tradition into you. 599 01:02:03.190 --> 01:02:09.599 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That said, I do want to give us a little taste of the Five Books of Miriam, because I think this goes somewhere interesting. 600 01:02:09.830 --> 01:02:18.329 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is, from Ellen Frankel. One of the patterns that you'll see… we'll have an excerpt, probably, from this book every week, alongside other things. 601 01:02:18.980 --> 01:02:25.140 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): She divides her work up into these figures, or the daughters ask. 602 01:02:25.400 --> 01:02:35.740 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then different people… the elders ask, the Torah asks, and then different characters speak in the voice that she gives to them. 603 01:02:36.240 --> 01:02:41.400 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so she says, our daughters ask, who give names? Who gives names, and why? 604 01:02:42.370 --> 01:02:49.420 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sarah, the ancient one, answers, Before Eve comes into being, God and Adam are the sole namers. 605 01:02:49.950 --> 01:02:56.429 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): At God's bidding, Adam gives names to all the cattle and the birds of the sky and all the wild beasts. 606 01:02:56.870 --> 01:03:03.869 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): After a woman is created, she shares in the process. Eve, for example, names her firstborn son Cain. 607 01:03:04.500 --> 01:03:07.760 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): From that point on, fathers and mothers take turns choosing. 608 01:03:07.990 --> 01:03:11.149 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And use names to identify their children's destiny. 609 01:03:11.400 --> 01:03:16.430 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): For names are seldom meaningless in the Bible, in fact, they are often remarkably freighted. 610 01:03:17.630 --> 01:03:24.950 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Dina, the wounded one, asks, But why are women granted this privilege when so much else is denied us? 611 01:03:26.380 --> 01:03:34.539 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hold of the preacher answers, the Bible recognizes that parrots cooperate by different roles than the clan, tribe, or nation. 612 01:03:34.930 --> 01:03:40.200 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In the intimate society of the family, power is negotiated, rested, or seated. 613 01:03:40.570 --> 01:03:44.959 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And the children play out the consequences of their parents' bargains. 614 01:03:45.950 --> 01:03:49.529 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thoughts, questions, reflections on this little text? 615 01:03:55.300 --> 01:04:00.590 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): If I could see all of you, I would ask for a show of hands. Who here has heard of Holda before? 616 01:04:03.230 --> 01:04:09.330 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I'm… among the handful of… okay, so I'm seeing a little… some yes and a lot of no. 617 01:04:09.710 --> 01:04:19.180 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Right? So, some of the figures that we made over the course of this book are figures from our tradition that we may not know well. Hulda is one of the seven women prophets. 618 01:04:19.460 --> 01:04:27.799 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): classically identified, is descended by the… identified by the rabbis as a descendant of Rahab and Joshua. She's a relative of Jeremiah. 619 01:04:28.070 --> 01:04:31.469 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And, she was gifted with prophecy. 620 01:04:33.740 --> 01:04:39.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Other… any other reactions to… This little piece from Ellen Frankel. 621 01:04:41.180 --> 01:04:48.660 Sherrill Cropper: This part, this section… I'm sorry, the line that says, and the children play out the consequences of their parents' bargains. 622 01:04:48.770 --> 01:04:54.999 Sherrill Cropper: It a little bit… made me chuckle as I thought, this is why our kids go to therapy. 623 01:04:57.560 --> 01:05:03.969 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You know, but I think it would be a great midrash, actually, would be a therapy session with any one of our biblical forebears. 624 01:05:03.970 --> 01:05:05.080 Sandy Ryan: Trying to make files clear. 625 01:05:05.080 --> 01:05:06.290 Sherrill Cropper: Great idea. 626 01:05:06.290 --> 01:05:08.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Isaac goes to therapy! 627 01:05:09.430 --> 01:05:10.659 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Goes to therapy. 628 01:05:10.660 --> 01:05:13.280 Sandy Ryan: I want to put this on my wall, honestly. 629 01:05:14.220 --> 01:05:19.340 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, right, Sandy is a therapist. I expect she's not the only therapist in this room. 630 01:05:20.020 --> 01:05:24.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But yet, the family dynamics of our traditional stories 631 01:05:25.530 --> 01:05:29.919 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): are a little complicated. Anybody here have feelings about, 632 01:05:30.180 --> 01:05:33.520 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The binding of Isaac that we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah? 633 01:05:33.820 --> 01:05:35.500 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Great parenting, right? 634 01:05:38.230 --> 01:05:42.699 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, the choices that our ancestors made play out 635 01:05:42.840 --> 01:05:49.890 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): in the lives of their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, all the way down to the present day. Lilith, did you have a hand up? 636 01:05:50.930 --> 01:05:56.229 Lilith Blackmoon: I was gonna just point out the same thing that Cheryl did. 637 01:05:58.370 --> 01:05:59.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Yeah, so the… 638 01:06:00.120 --> 01:06:07.000 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): One, one of… I'm intrigued here. I actually hadn't noticed that Eve is the one who names Cain Kain. 639 01:06:07.530 --> 01:06:25.029 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And of course, names almost always have meaning, and kain means, like, it comes from… she says kaniti, like, I have acquired… I have taken… I have acquired a child from God, or, like, I have acquired this child, and so kain comes from that word that means acquired. 640 01:06:27.150 --> 01:06:37.949 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): peeking in the chat. Oh, yeah, thank you, James, for noting that Isaac might have been 33. Yep, in one of the classical Midrash, it says he was 37 when he was bound to the… 641 01:06:38.270 --> 01:06:40.029 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): To the altar? 642 01:06:40.220 --> 01:06:45.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which feels entirely different to me than, here's a 5-year-old… 643 01:06:45.200 --> 01:06:53.349 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Getting carted up the hill on his father's shoulders, right? Story's totally different if he's 37 than if he's 5, although maybe he's so messed up. 644 01:06:53.350 --> 01:06:55.219 iPhone: Oh, God, I don't know. 645 01:06:58.220 --> 01:07:03.129 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And again, Our goal here is not to make us like the tradition less. 646 01:07:03.850 --> 01:07:06.019 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I want to be really clear about that. 647 01:07:07.520 --> 01:07:12.960 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): When I was in college, as a religion major at Williams. 648 01:07:13.390 --> 01:07:16.580 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I took a class called Eve and the Snake. 649 01:07:16.970 --> 01:07:21.460 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It was a semester-long class studying this story. 650 01:07:21.880 --> 01:07:26.589 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And all kinds of commentary on it, and all kinds of philosophy. 651 01:07:27.190 --> 01:07:32.139 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And the fundamental piece that I took away from that class… 652 01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:39.869 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Is that this has always been a contentious story that has always lifted up complicated themes. 653 01:07:40.350 --> 01:07:43.909 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And they are complicated themes as old as humanity. 654 01:07:45.700 --> 01:07:55.439 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): To me, this is part of the beauty of a story like this one, is that it gives us a way to grapple with fundamental questions of who we are and what we're here for. 655 01:07:55.720 --> 01:07:57.579 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And to me, that's really beautiful. 656 01:07:57.850 --> 01:08:03.669 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And so I hope that that… can inform Our learning this week. 657 01:08:04.050 --> 01:08:10.739 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Another little piece from the Five Books of Miriam. Anybody want to read Eve Receives Her Name? 658 01:08:12.940 --> 01:08:15.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is a tiny, just little two-paragraph. 659 01:08:16.359 --> 01:08:17.359 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Teaching. 660 01:08:21.100 --> 01:08:21.910 Sandy Ryan: I'm good. 661 01:08:22.220 --> 01:08:22.990 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 662 01:08:23.740 --> 01:08:27.889 Sandy Ryan: Our daughters ask, the Torah states that Eve's Hebrew name, Chapa. 663 01:08:28.340 --> 01:08:32.409 Sandy Ryan: Denotes from Chai, meaning life, because she is the mother of all the living. 664 01:08:32.560 --> 01:08:36.350 Sandy Ryan: If Eve is the mother of all life, does that make Adam the father? 665 01:08:37.080 --> 01:08:41.669 Sandy Ryan: Leah the Namer answers, Adam's name derives from Atama, Earth. 666 01:08:41.899 --> 01:08:52.850 Sandy Ryan: The source of material being. Chai refers to the source of spiritual being. Or to avoid an unnatural dichotomy, Adam and Eve have birthed each other in complementary ways. 667 01:08:52.960 --> 01:08:57.040 Sandy Ryan: From Adam's sleep emerges Eve, from Eve's awakening, Adam's future. 668 01:08:59.510 --> 01:09:02.910 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Alright, alright, I can see Cheryl making jazz hands. 669 01:09:03.250 --> 01:09:05.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Anyone else have a reaction to this one? 670 01:09:06.510 --> 01:09:07.719 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Including Cheryl. 671 01:09:10.770 --> 01:09:17.189 Sherrill Cropper: So, I… maybe it was Lilith earlier in the chat, but it… yin-yang. I mean, it is so… it… 672 01:09:17.430 --> 01:09:24.110 Sherrill Cropper: it… it is impossible to have one without the other, and I so love… 673 01:09:24.600 --> 01:09:33.229 Sherrill Cropper: Apologies to the men in the room, but I so love that the men do the earth part, and the women do the spiritual part. 674 01:09:33.490 --> 01:09:35.790 Sherrill Cropper: You know, that, to me. 675 01:09:35.910 --> 01:09:50.720 Sherrill Cropper: But it's also taking… taking away from male, female, and putting it back to yin and yang. This coin side and that coin side, there is nothing that can be existing 676 01:09:50.830 --> 01:10:02.670 Sherrill Cropper: Without both sides. We cannot experience true joy and awe without experiencing true pain and deficit, loss of that. 677 01:10:03.060 --> 01:10:12.449 Sherrill Cropper: Awe, that experience, that… We need that heightened awareness. I love that. That, you know, discernment. 678 01:10:12.550 --> 01:10:15.460 Sherrill Cropper: And that means both sides. 679 01:10:16.320 --> 01:10:26.050 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I love that. I really do. And I want to note maybe one of the things that Cheryl was just lifting up there is that it's a little surprising and unusual to say that 680 01:10:26.390 --> 01:10:33.700 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): The man in this story represents what's earthly and embodied, and the woman represents intellect or spirit. 681 01:10:35.110 --> 01:10:44.260 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Not because there's anything innate in either of those realms that is gendered, or should be gendered, but because so much of human history 682 01:10:45.280 --> 01:10:51.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): and this is particularly a Christian problem, although Jews have done it too, associates men with… 683 01:10:51.810 --> 01:11:10.030 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): being, you know, thinking, praying, doing the kind of higher level stuff, and women get sort of relegated to the birthing and cooking and the material, right? Women are fleshly, men are intellectual, right? One is from Mars, one is from Venus, whatever. 684 01:11:10.620 --> 01:11:13.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's not inherent in Torah. 685 01:11:14.950 --> 01:11:16.320 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In my opinion. 686 01:11:17.290 --> 01:11:24.390 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It has been, if not inherent and embodied in a lot of human culture and thought. 687 01:11:24.730 --> 01:11:28.150 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But it's not inherent in Torah. It doesn't have to be. 688 01:11:28.520 --> 01:11:32.600 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That lens that says that mind is better than body. 689 01:11:33.390 --> 01:11:42.169 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): or that male is better than female, or vice versa, is one that we can lay on the text, but it's not innately in the text, to my mind. James, you're up. 690 01:11:44.570 --> 01:11:47.779 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I would direct us back to the very beginning of our discussion. 691 01:11:47.980 --> 01:11:49.010 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Negdo. 692 01:11:50.140 --> 01:11:52.110 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Corresponding opposite. 693 01:11:52.550 --> 01:11:56.450 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I mean, this is… this is yin-yang, just like, you know, Lilith put in the chat. It's… 694 01:11:57.000 --> 01:11:58.099 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): You can egg, though. 695 01:11:58.100 --> 01:12:01.769 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Love it. As opposed to seeing it as being, you know. 696 01:12:02.190 --> 01:12:08.200 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): somehow… Not controversial, but, in contrast. 697 01:12:08.580 --> 01:12:09.570 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's… 698 01:12:10.220 --> 01:12:14.040 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): It's together, it's unity, but it's two parts of the unity. 699 01:12:14.180 --> 01:12:31.789 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): And, you know, that's why, you know, a man needs a woman, woman needs a man, we need community, you know, we've got Earth versus sky, and so on and so forth, however you want to take it. These things are all corresponding. They're opposite, but not opposite as in against each other, just opposite as in facing. 700 01:12:31.790 --> 01:12:43.149 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Beautiful. Thank you. I was hoping that this text, when you said what you said earlier, I was hoping this text would speak to it in some way. Yeah, there's a sense of the binary 701 01:12:43.430 --> 01:12:45.859 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And then what bridges the binary? 702 01:12:46.110 --> 01:12:53.219 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And what bridges the binary is the connectedness between the two opposites, but it's not opposites like good and evil. 703 01:12:53.330 --> 01:12:58.799 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's opposites… Yeah, like Earth and Sky. There's not a, 704 01:12:59.370 --> 01:13:07.829 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): there's not a morality that says one of them is good and the other one is bad. They're, you know, like two magnets. 705 01:13:08.500 --> 01:13:11.569 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): In some way. Rachel, I see your hand. 706 01:13:12.890 --> 01:13:21.939 Rachel Rudansky: Thank you. My imagination goes and quest… goes to questioning when will we rise above this? 707 01:13:22.090 --> 01:13:35.200 Rachel Rudansky: If we keep reinforcing these divisions between men and women, and we start with these early texts, at what point do we evolve into something greater than this? 708 01:13:35.200 --> 01:13:35.800 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm… 709 01:13:35.800 --> 01:13:38.530 Rachel Rudansky: Just keep going around and around. 710 01:13:38.920 --> 01:13:47.780 Rachel Rudansky: And that, disturbs me. Like Ellen Ruth was saying, it's disturbing, because we keep reinforcing it. 711 01:13:47.780 --> 01:13:48.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Mmm. Yep. 712 01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:50.400 Rachel Rudansky: Every year… 713 01:13:50.950 --> 01:14:07.310 Rachel Rudansky: And I do love Judaism, and I love being Jewish, and so forth, but I don't know if we're… especially with what we've gone through in these past two years, and of course before the two years, when are we going to be something greater? 714 01:14:07.310 --> 01:14:08.250 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm… 715 01:14:08.250 --> 01:14:12.660 Rachel Rudansky: And so, I'm a… Peeling that. Thank you. 716 01:14:12.660 --> 01:14:15.290 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's a really big, deep question. 717 01:14:15.770 --> 01:14:17.540 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Cheryl, I see your hand. 718 01:14:18.350 --> 01:14:26.790 Sherrill Cropper: Rachel, I am so happy to see you, and always listen to what you say, because you… 719 01:14:27.570 --> 01:14:31.000 Sherrill Cropper: I haven't… well, Rabbi Rachel, but Rachel Radansky. 720 01:14:31.000 --> 01:14:32.509 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): No, I, I knew who you meant. 721 01:14:32.970 --> 01:14:39.120 Sherrill Cropper: Because, you always make me think. 722 01:14:39.370 --> 01:14:40.780 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And… 723 01:14:40.780 --> 01:14:46.920 Sherrill Cropper: that's… that's huge, you know, in my world, and how I want to… how I wanna live, and how I want to grow. 724 01:14:47.020 --> 01:14:50.630 Sherrill Cropper: And so, from what you said, I realized that 725 01:14:51.490 --> 01:15:03.809 Sherrill Cropper: That's exactly what I think this whole class is about, because in Judaism, there is so much that feels male-oriented. 726 01:15:03.820 --> 01:15:20.320 Sherrill Cropper: And yet, when we elevate that, and I think it's why I also refer back to Kabbalah and Kabbalistic things so often, is because it doesn't exist there in the same way that male, female… 727 01:15:20.360 --> 01:15:25.290 Sherrill Cropper: It becomes an energy versus a sexism. 728 01:15:25.810 --> 01:15:30.830 Sherrill Cropper: And so, having this class feels to me like it's an… 729 01:15:31.010 --> 01:15:34.400 Sherrill Cropper: It's a way to explore how women 730 01:15:35.210 --> 01:15:47.969 Sherrill Cropper: can start to feel a little more balanced in what always feels so male-oriented in our Torah, but doesn't have to be if we can open our minds, and then again. 731 01:15:48.420 --> 01:15:54.920 Sherrill Cropper: we… can move and grow away from that sexist view, at least 732 01:15:55.240 --> 01:15:59.749 Sherrill Cropper: individually, and hopefully we can share that. Does that… 733 01:15:59.750 --> 01:16:00.840 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you both. 734 01:16:01.280 --> 01:16:09.490 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I also want to lift up the fact that we're a little unbalanced this week, because Rabbi David isn't here alongside me. 735 01:16:09.830 --> 01:16:15.249 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I actually think it's very important that Dhavka, this class, be taught by… 736 01:16:15.630 --> 01:16:22.169 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Two people with different genders and different experiences of the world, based on the genders that we live in. 737 01:16:22.430 --> 01:16:29.899 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I just want to name that sort of as an elephant in the room. 738 01:16:31.030 --> 01:16:34.980 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because my hope is also that delving into this 739 01:16:35.260 --> 01:16:38.089 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Helps the men in the room 740 01:16:39.770 --> 01:16:50.879 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): develop a deeper and richer appreciation of our texts and traditions. This is not… this is not a class to make the… to make the women feel better, right? 741 01:16:51.160 --> 01:16:59.369 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): This is, hopefully, a learning journey that can help all of us connect into the tradition in deeper ways. 742 01:17:00.160 --> 01:17:11.230 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And one of the things we decided we didn't have time for today, but I hope to have time for next week, is beginning to talk about Shehina, about the Divine Feminine. 743 01:17:11.340 --> 01:17:14.220 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Or the imminent, indwelling presence. 744 01:17:14.340 --> 01:17:23.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): get into a little mysticism, get into what our Kabbalistic tradition has to say about gender and text. 745 01:17:23.890 --> 01:17:30.170 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And about that kind of yin-yang that Cheryl mentioned, right? Where we… where it's lifted out of… the… 746 01:17:30.490 --> 01:17:33.600 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Constructs or the categories of men and women. 747 01:17:33.930 --> 01:17:44.209 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And instead is maybe about… has something to do with energies. With complementary… right, that gets back to James's point about the congdo, complementary energies. 748 01:17:44.390 --> 01:17:49.160 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That… don't necessarily have to have anything to do with body parts. 749 01:17:51.120 --> 01:17:54.760 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Even though the, ben Syrah text. 750 01:17:55.060 --> 01:17:59.329 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Did have a little bit to do with body parts, because that's how our tradition is sometimes. 751 01:17:59.820 --> 01:18:06.739 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Any other thoughts and questions on this one? I'm mindful that it will soon be time to bring this in for a landing. 752 01:18:09.960 --> 01:18:11.620 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, there, 753 01:18:14.300 --> 01:18:28.589 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I had a poem… we have a poem that we could look at. We have a little piece of Womanist Midrush. There's a link to a fabulous 10-minute short story. I'm actually gonna stop the share here. When you get this… 754 01:18:28.630 --> 01:18:39.939 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): source sheet later. One of the things you'll see at the end of it is a link to a radio piece, I think it's from This American Life, by Jonathan Goldstein called Adam and Eve. 755 01:18:40.020 --> 01:18:46.299 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): It's from, ladies and gentlemen, the Bible, and it is a marvelous storytelling 756 01:18:47.080 --> 01:18:50.759 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): take on this passage that I think is really fun to listen to. 757 01:18:51.170 --> 01:18:57.519 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But instead of using that as our last 10 minutes, I would love to just harvest from the room 758 01:18:57.940 --> 01:19:02.799 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That question that was raised earlier of what 759 01:19:03.130 --> 01:19:09.229 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What are these texts coming to teach us? What are the questions that they're opening up in us? 760 01:19:09.640 --> 01:19:13.860 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I'd love to know… Where folks are at this morning. 761 01:19:14.890 --> 01:19:17.490 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What are the questions that are bubbling up for us? 762 01:19:17.620 --> 01:19:20.310 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And this can be out loud or in the chat. 763 01:19:20.780 --> 01:19:22.470 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): As folks prefer. 764 01:19:27.720 --> 01:19:29.249 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Mimi, now that I can see you all… 765 01:19:29.250 --> 01:19:33.029 Rachel Rudansky: I don't really have… oh, I'm sorry. Please. May I speak? Yes. 766 01:19:33.030 --> 01:19:33.430 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Please do. 767 01:19:33.430 --> 01:19:37.630 Rachel Rudansky: I don't really have anything of a… 768 01:19:37.750 --> 01:19:45.880 Rachel Rudansky: About learning, except that there was a piece that we read early on that Because Lilith… 769 01:19:46.400 --> 01:19:48.760 Rachel Rudansky: Wasn't the right match. 770 01:19:49.000 --> 01:19:52.989 Rachel Rudansky: she gets kind of pushed off. I mean, I know it doesn't… she left. 771 01:19:53.120 --> 01:20:02.260 Rachel Rudansky: But maybe she left because there wasn't an effort to bring that conflict together. And so another woman was chosen or created. 772 01:20:02.260 --> 01:20:02.880 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Mmm. 773 01:20:02.880 --> 01:20:05.290 Rachel Rudansky: And since it's No Kings Day. 774 01:20:06.480 --> 01:20:21.429 Rachel Rudansky: in New York City anyway, or around the country, of course, it just felt like, well, if we don't like this, well, we'll get rid of it, and then we'll get what we want. And I just think that was an interesting learning for me today. 775 01:20:21.650 --> 01:20:32.630 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That's really interesting. I'd not thought about the Lilith story that way, but I love… I love that read on it. Makes me wonder what a good couples counselor could have done with… with Adam and Lilith. I mean, maybe they could have made it work! 776 01:20:32.850 --> 01:20:36.930 Rachel Rudansky: Well, they had to make it work, because they were the two that were. 777 01:20:36.930 --> 01:20:37.940 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You're the only human being. 778 01:20:37.940 --> 01:20:49.549 Rachel Rudansky: world, but it doesn't say that. So, you know, that part of the story gets thrown out. But, yeah, so anyway, thank you very much for today, Rabbi Rachel. 779 01:20:49.550 --> 01:20:51.519 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sandy, do I see your hand? 780 01:20:52.910 --> 01:20:56.830 Sandy Ryan: Yes, I guess just answering more generally, like. 781 01:20:57.130 --> 01:20:59.669 Sandy Ryan: What do we hope to have to get from? 782 01:20:59.940 --> 01:21:01.329 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Ruth, you're next. 783 01:21:01.550 --> 01:21:05.920 Sandy Ryan: You know, as a… as someone who converted, right, like, one of my… 784 01:21:06.270 --> 01:21:11.469 Sandy Ryan: One of my struggles in that process was the historical way 785 01:21:12.140 --> 01:21:15.119 Sandy Ryan: That men and women have been separated in… 786 01:21:15.270 --> 01:21:23.289 Sandy Ryan: more traditional Judaism, right? So I was like, I'm only gonna be Reformed. Like, that… that was, like, there was no question, because I can't, like… 787 01:21:23.750 --> 01:21:27.610 Sandy Ryan: the rest of that is not for me, right? Which is fine, it's for other people. 788 01:21:27.810 --> 01:21:29.999 Sandy Ryan: But I guess… 789 01:21:30.580 --> 01:21:41.249 Sandy Ryan: Wrangling with the way that those things have been historically interpreted, the way that these things have been understood, how much of that is really in the text, how much of it has… gives us some, like. 790 01:21:41.630 --> 01:21:48.690 Sandy Ryan: wiggle room and play with the concept of gender overall, like, that's some of the stuff that I'm interested in, so… 791 01:21:49.140 --> 01:21:50.410 Sandy Ryan: I guess, like… 792 01:21:51.290 --> 01:21:56.960 Sandy Ryan: I get that it's a spiritual text, but it's also a historical one, and so I feel like holding that imbalance. 793 01:21:57.910 --> 01:21:59.640 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hang on, I just lost you. 794 01:21:59.920 --> 01:22:00.820 Sandy Ryan: Oh. 795 01:22:00.820 --> 01:22:01.810 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): There you are, you're back. 796 01:22:01.850 --> 01:22:10.840 Sandy Ryan: Say that last thing again. It's a… it's a spiritual text, but it's also a historical one, right? Like, it comes out of a context, and so looking at that is really important for me. 797 01:22:11.270 --> 01:22:20.069 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you for that, and maybe that speaks a little bit also to Ellen Ruth's point earlier about how looking at it in a historical way or a literary way 798 01:22:20.230 --> 01:22:32.479 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): can sometimes get in the way of looking at it in a devotional way, and we want to try to be careful not to… not to inscribe that. Ellen Ruth, you're next, and then Susan, I see your hand. 799 01:22:35.290 --> 01:22:41.650 iPhone: If I was thinking about what James said before, can you hear me? 800 01:22:45.980 --> 01:22:58.539 iPhone: about this idea of binary, and then I was thinking of dualism, which we want to avoid, and then I was thinking we're made in God's image. 801 01:22:58.540 --> 01:23:08.069 iPhone: So this idea that Jews discovered of God is one, not a whole bunch of different things, I wanted to apply it 802 01:23:08.370 --> 01:23:13.029 iPhone: to… also, what Rachel was bringing up. 803 01:23:13.140 --> 01:23:27.030 iPhone: that if we look at it from a binary, dualistic point of view, I don't believe we're looking at it correctly. And if we keep on talking about yin and yang, when they make that symbol. 804 01:23:27.230 --> 01:23:31.509 iPhone: And each part of it is a dot of the opposite. 805 01:23:31.510 --> 01:23:32.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Hmm. 806 01:23:32.120 --> 01:23:35.669 iPhone: And the unity of the whole in that symbol. 807 01:23:35.960 --> 01:23:46.610 iPhone: So I think it's much more complicated than presenting it in a binary way. And I wish I was more intelligent to explain it better. 808 01:23:47.150 --> 01:23:48.580 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I think you've explained that beautifully. 809 01:23:48.580 --> 01:23:51.850 iPhone: I came to, deeply for myself. 810 01:23:52.500 --> 01:24:01.200 iPhone: If we're made in God's image, it's about unity, it's not about dualism, it's not about binary. 811 01:24:01.730 --> 01:24:05.529 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you, thank you for that. Susan, I see your hand. 812 01:24:06.030 --> 01:24:07.430 Susan Phillips: Yeah, I guess… 813 01:24:07.830 --> 01:24:19.670 Susan Phillips: For me, I feel like it's really important to connect with what is the Torah telling us about how we want to live, and you sent that beautiful poem about Eve, and I guess what I 814 01:24:20.460 --> 01:24:26.109 Susan Phillips: One of the things that made… I found beautiful is that, 815 01:24:27.820 --> 01:24:34.740 Susan Phillips: Eve's wanting to know, kind of opened things up, and it's… 816 01:24:35.010 --> 01:24:39.090 Susan Phillips: So I'm looking at it more on a spiritual level, like, 817 01:24:40.510 --> 01:24:44.880 Susan Phillips: Because of what happened, and the way it ensued. 818 01:24:44.930 --> 01:25:03.790 Susan Phillips: We have a breadth of possibilities in our life, both joys and challenges, and we have the opportunity to look at Torah and be inspired. And there are a lot of women in Torah who are very inspirational role models, and I just wanted to lift that up. 819 01:25:04.220 --> 01:25:05.120 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you. 820 01:25:05.290 --> 01:25:11.350 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): So, for anyone who doesn't know, Susan mentioned a poem that I sent out on my blog, Velveteen Rabbi. 821 01:25:11.570 --> 01:25:14.829 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I shared a new Torah poem this week. I'm… 822 01:25:15.040 --> 01:25:19.650 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): entering into a process, again, of writing Torah poetry this year. 823 01:25:20.040 --> 01:25:29.740 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): exploring gaps in the text, and the poem that I wrote this week, and this was very much informed by working with Rabbi David on this set of source texts. 824 01:25:29.970 --> 01:25:34.440 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): One of the poems that I worked on this week was about Eve choosing 825 01:25:35.190 --> 01:25:40.279 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): the fruit of the tree, because Eve perceived that God wanted to be known. 826 01:25:41.050 --> 01:25:43.979 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And there again, right, that's not something that the text says. 827 01:25:44.370 --> 01:25:52.079 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): But it… and maybe this is more ejetical than exegetical. It's me reading my own heart and soul into the character. 828 01:25:52.780 --> 01:25:55.640 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because there's nothing in the text that says one way or the other. 829 01:25:57.420 --> 01:26:13.259 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I also want to lift up in the chat, James is noting that socio-political, cultural, powers that be perspectives tend to become the focus of interpretations. We need to get away from that, and instead see it for what it is, remove the dressings we've applied to see what's underneath. 830 01:26:13.560 --> 01:26:19.239 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Which makes me want to say, James, you come across as very intellectual, but I think you might actually be a mystic? 831 01:26:19.660 --> 01:26:21.459 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Sorry if that's news to you. 832 01:26:22.180 --> 01:26:39.250 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Because, right, this is one of the primary ways our mystics speak about Torah, right? And that Torah, in fact, is… that the essence of Torah is God, asterisk, whatever we understand that to mean, garbed in words. The words are garb, and the essence is something… 833 01:26:39.320 --> 01:26:43.579 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That we need to take away the garb and see the fundamental essence that's beneath. 834 01:26:43.760 --> 01:26:46.680 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): That metaphor gets used for Torah, and it gets used for God. 835 01:26:46.900 --> 01:26:54.820 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I think one of our challenges is both Studying the garments. 836 01:26:54.950 --> 01:26:59.750 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): For what they have to teach us about who we've been, and who we might become. 837 01:27:00.000 --> 01:27:12.240 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And also, Looking underneath the garments to see the fundamental… Beauty, or light, or… imminence that's underneath. 838 01:27:12.530 --> 01:27:14.410 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): You also have your hand up, so… 839 01:27:15.900 --> 01:27:21.340 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): So… My kind of personal mantra has become. 840 01:27:22.270 --> 01:27:28.759 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): To start seeing things for what they truly are, as opposed to what we expect they are. 841 01:27:28.990 --> 01:27:31.380 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): To try to take away the biases. 842 01:27:31.520 --> 01:27:42.570 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): And I applied that both in my studies, but also to just my general observations. And I really wish that there were a way to get people to do this more often, because when you stop 843 01:27:43.080 --> 01:27:45.400 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Looking for something in particular. 844 01:27:45.660 --> 01:27:47.779 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): And just start seeing. 845 01:27:48.040 --> 01:27:49.110 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What is… 846 01:27:49.110 --> 01:27:50.120 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): What is? 847 01:27:51.070 --> 01:27:52.889 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): that comes very differently. I mean. 848 01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:55.669 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): We talk about things like, you know, do you believe in God? 849 01:27:56.200 --> 01:27:57.120 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Well… 850 01:27:57.580 --> 01:28:00.199 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): What does belief mean, and what does God mean? 851 01:28:00.200 --> 01:28:04.620 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): What is IS? What is IS, okay? Yeah. But… 852 01:28:04.960 --> 01:28:07.099 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I look, and I see that there's something. 853 01:28:07.890 --> 01:28:12.390 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I don't know what it is. I don't understand it. But I know that there's something 854 01:28:12.770 --> 01:28:21.609 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Why do I have to apply a framework to it? Why does it have to have a definition, and why do I have to somehow encapsulate it? 855 01:28:21.830 --> 01:28:24.620 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): No, it… it simply is what it is. 856 01:28:24.880 --> 01:28:28.659 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): I observe it, interact with it, it interacts with me. 857 01:28:28.980 --> 01:28:42.580 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): That's it. And the same thing goes for these texts, for our relationships with each other, with our relationships with nature, with the universe. Just let it be what it is, observe it, and be a part of it. 858 01:28:43.140 --> 01:28:44.569 James Nerlinger (Cincinnati, Ohio USA): Don't put it in a box. 859 01:28:45.140 --> 01:28:49.360 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I love that. Let it be what it is, observe it, and be a part of it. 860 01:28:49.510 --> 01:28:53.790 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): is I love that you're not separate… observing something 861 01:28:53.940 --> 01:28:57.779 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Doesn't mean we can't also be in it and within it. 862 01:28:59.730 --> 01:29:02.530 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And I'm seeing from Corinne in the chat. 863 01:29:02.720 --> 01:29:19.519 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): that this Midrash is not about duality, antagonism, division, but rather that Eve was created to reveal their complementary roles. That's beautiful, and that also seems to get back, James, to what you were saying earlier. It's about mutual growth and development, synergy and unity. 864 01:29:20.300 --> 01:29:24.720 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Corinne, I'm gonna take that as a closing blessing for our class. 865 01:29:24.890 --> 01:29:31.630 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Today, our learning together, Because I think, arguably, this is what we're here for as human beings, is to… 866 01:29:32.040 --> 01:29:37.150 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Is to complete humanity and reveal divinity through the diversity of creation. 867 01:29:37.420 --> 01:29:41.689 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And our mutual growth and development together. I can't think of… 868 01:29:41.980 --> 01:29:45.059 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Anything any better to strive for in all the world. 869 01:29:45.180 --> 01:29:58.430 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Thank you all for learning with me today. This has been a joy. Thank you for bearing with my tech difficulties. I can promise you that next week, Rabbi David will be back in charge of the tech, and God willing, that piece will flow a little more smoothly. 870 01:29:58.530 --> 01:30:08.059 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): And it's just a joy to be spending Shabbos with y'all and learning with y'all. I am going to stop the recording, and then those who wish can stick around to chat. 871 01:30:08.410 --> 01:30:09.760 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): Let's see, how am I… 872 01:30:09.760 --> 01:30:13.890 Rachel Rudansky: Thank you, Rabbi David. Thank you, everyone. Shabbat Shalom. 873 01:30:13.890 --> 01:30:14.819 Rabbi Rachel (she/her): I stopped. 874 01:30:14.820 --> 01:30:15.830 Nancy Goody: alone. 875 01:30:16.730 --> 01:30:17.750 Susan Phillips: Shabbat Shalom. 876 01:30:17.750 --> 01:30:19.320 Joan Green: About Shalom. 877 01:30:19.480 --> 01:30:20.490 Sandy Ryan: Oh, of course. 878 01:30:20.490 --> 01:30:21.240 Sherrill Cropper: Wow.