Black Noise

Before all else: Please keep the well-being of Ariel ben Devorah foremost in your thoughts and prayers.

This isn't what I was planning on posting about today, my 1-year bloggiversary (yes, technically I could've been in one of the 'new blog' categories, as well as the Godol, but we've been around long enough that we seem too veteran. Perhaps the awards should be more often, like dog-years). This is too good, though.

Can I get a CD of a nightclub so that when I have a beer at home it feels like I'm out partying?

And the truth remains, as ever, far stranger than fiction.

8th Candle: Broader Horizons

So as not to give any sense of closure, the final installment of this Chanukah series will be a list for further reading. Foremost, R’ Lichtenstein has some great essays on the topic, one in particular which takes a contrast between the figures/books of Job and Prometheus as a starting point for a contrast between Judaism and Hellenism. It can be accessed here. R’ Aharon’s writing is both proponent and paradigm of fruitful coexistence between Jerusalem and Athens. I’d also recommend this essay by R’ Lichtenstein, on a similar topic, but there’s a bunch to choose from if you go here.

Amongst the sources that R’ Lichtenstein refers to, there’s a well-known (the same was that certain Rashis are ‘well-known’) chapter called ‘Hellenism and Hebraism’ in Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (I love free books). Arnold bears no relation to the protagonist of the Chanukah story who bears the same first name.

If I haven’t plugged Levinas enough, here goes again. READ LEVINAS. His three volumes of Talmudic Readings (which I linked to in this post) are wonderful examples of how the ongoing collision between Judaism and Hellenism yet bears fruit, as Levinas himself wrote, “The Septuagint is still incomplete”.

There are some wonderful books in English and Hebrew about themes of Chanukah, some of which are truly wonderful. My goal was to draw attention to the way that the mythic clash between these two civilizations has been understood and applied in different generations.

Next year, who knows? There’ll still be what to blog…

7th Candle: Miracles of Medicine

This seventh installment of my Chanukah musings won’t contain a comparison of a Rabbinic and philosophic text, though, for me, it has a very strong symbolic meaning.

My home if full of medical equipment. I have mentioned this before (like when writing about why I think that poskim who discourage ultrasound are being irresponsible; I guess that theme has some overtones apropos of Chanukah), but my oldest child, about 5 years old, was born with some very severe medical issues. Last week, she underwent a minor surgery to close a gastrostomy that was necessary until relatively recently, when she began taking enough food orally. Most of the equipment that we’ve accumulated over the years is related to the g-tube, its maintenance, cleanliness, and how to move food through it. The ADDeRebbetzin and I should be able to skip a year or two of med school should we ever choose to become ADDoctors. One item in particular that we have many of and really made extensive use of is syringes. Any size or shape, we’ve got ‘em.

Well, this evening, I ran out of the little pre-filled glasses of oil (I save from year to year, so there’s no telling what I’ve got when). I had a bunch of empty ones, but couldn’t figure out how to get the oil into the little hole in the metal glass-covers. The ADDeRebbetzin suggested using one of the now-superfluous syringes, which worked like a charm. I know that there’s a custom to recycle items that were used for one mitzvah for another (I roast my hadassim after Sukkot and use them for besamim year-round), but this application of the principle was a very meaningful one.

“and I will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks…”

Baruch she-hecheyanu ve-kiyemanu ve-higi’anu la-zeman ha-zeh

5th and 6th Candles: Part II

Continued from here.

Alexander set out to conquer to world. Like conquerors before and since, his goal was not simply world domination; he wanted to spread a certain message. He was motivated by a vision. More famously, the Roman Emperor Constantine beheld a vision of a Crucifix emblazoned with the words “in hoc signo vinces” before a major battle with a rival, in an episode which moved the Roman Empire toward embracing Christianity.

Alexander had a different vision. He had absorbed the best that Greece had to offer (Aristotle was his private tutor; not bad), and set out to introduce this anthropocentric worldview to the rest of humanity, overwhelming indigenous culture wherever he could.

The Jews, on the other hand, feared that they would meet the same fate as the rest of the world’s cultures: overwhelmed and all but eradicated by Hellenism. Shimon Ha-tzaddik dressed – enveloped himself in – the garb of priesthood. The garments of priesthood, for God’s ‘honor and splendor’, announce God’s presence within this world. They bespeak of a guardianship that the Jewish people share, that God’s Name, in this world, is dependent upon them; that they must carry themselves in a manner consistent with their mission. Israel’s role amongst the nations is indeed that of priest – to be a ‘kingdom of priests’ – and this, more than anything else, must survive the confrontation with Greece. It’s hard to know what the plan was when confronting Alexander, or if there was a plan, but it doesn’t seem terribly important.

Alexander, representing the best of Greece, and Shimon Ha-tzaddik, representing the Jewish priesthood, the meaning and role of the Jews amongst the nations, and the vision articulated by the ancient Jewish prophets, are on the road to confrontation, yet neither knows what to expect from the other; all are ‘in the dark’, though antagonism is presumed. As they near each other, once they can see each other, attitudes can begin to soften. Darkness can begin to lift. Daylight begins when each truly beholds the other.

At that moment, Alexander bows before Shimon, and recognized that Shimon, all along, is the vision that motivates him to conquer. Shimon represents that which is most noble about man, most godly about man, and it is this vision of man that truly motivates Alexander.

It must be noted that Chaza”l’s vision doesn’t really reflect any actual relation between Judaism and Hellenism; it’s their articulation of an ideal hierarchy, where Greek culture would acknowledge the Divinity that underlies Humanity and the Jewish role in bearing that message of Divinity.

b) Shimon Ha-Tzaddik, the Nazir, and the Narcissist: A reading of Nedarim 9b

[The Halakhic scenario that the Gemara presents is the subject of a dispute amongst the Rishonim; ayen sham, ve-acamo”l]

Simeon the Just said: Only once in my life have I eaten of the trespass-offering brought by a defiled nazir. On one occasion a nazir came from the South country, and I saw that he had beautiful eyes, was of handsome appearance, and with thick locks of hair symmetrically arranged. Said I to him: ‘My son, what [reason] did you see to destroy this beautiful hair of yours?’ He replied: ‘I was a shepherd for my father in my town. [Once] I went to draw water from a well, gazed upon my reflection in the water, whereupon my evil desires rushed upon me and sought to drive me from the world [through sin]. But I said unto it [my lust]: "Wretch! why dost thou take in a world that is not yours, with one who is destined to become worms and dust? I swear that I will shave you off [his beautiful hair] for the sake of Heaven."’ l immediately arose and kissed his head, saying: ‘My son, may there be many nazirites such as thou in Israel! Of you the Torah says, “When either a man or a woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a nazirite, to separate themselves unto the Lord.”

This story recalls the Greek myth of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, and tragically dies because he can’t pull himself away. There are a number of versions of the myth, and though it seems likely that Chaza”l would have been familiar with some version of it (after all, they knew of Homer – see Mishna Yadayim 4:6). The myth of Narcissus describes a fatal inability to understand others in any way but as a reflection of one’s self. Narcissus, in many versions of the myth, is not even aware that the image that he is enamored with is his own. He is unable to break out of a mindset in which one loves the other only to the extent that he can see himself in the other.

In the Gemara, the youth succeeds in overcoming the fatal cycle of self love, by destroying his own beauty. Forcing himself to come to grips with a world that is ‘not his’.

The appearance of Shimon Ha-tzadik in a tale which closely parallels a Greek myth once again suggests that Chaza”l are trying to communicate an element of their attitude toward Hellenism.

The great sin of Western culture, the progeny of Greece, has been narcissism. There is an unwillingness and inability to evaluate others – other nations, other cultures, etc. – except to the degree that it sees itself within. It attempts to digest and reduce the whole world to the categories of its own thought. There’s no room for anything ‘other’. It can only contemplate itself.

Shimon is wary of this trend, wary even of nazirites who hold themselves aloof, who take upon these vows not for God, but because of self-consciousness (cf. this Gemara’s parallel on Ta’anit 10a and Nazir 4b). This Nazir demonstrates his disinterestedness in his own world by vowing to shave his beautiful hair. He sublimates his own beauty to God’s world, releasing himself from the self-destruction that would have resulted from his continued occupation of his own world. Shimon Ha-Tzadik is thus affirming disinterestedness, un-self-consciousness, and other-awareness as the antidote to the Narcissism inherent in Greek culture.

For further explanation, see the chapter entitled "The Youth of Israel" in Levinas' Nine Talmudic Readings, especially pp. 126-7.

5th Candle: Shimon Ha-Tzadik and the Encounter with Greece, Part I

According to the Gemara (BT Megillah 11a) Shimon Hatzaddik was instrumental, along with Matityahu and the Hasmoneans (see the Gemara and Maharshal, ad loc, for some interesting textual variants), to God’s salvation of the Jewish people during the Ionian (=Yevanim – Fred will like that) domination. This is curious because Shimon lived at least a century before the events of Chanukah occurred.

[Note: All chronological references to the times of the 2nd Temple in this post will presume Chazal’s memory of that chronology. The goal is to understand how Chaza”l themselves related to and memorialized those events, and the historicity of the actual events is a moot point. In other words, I’m concerned with how Chaza”l viewed Shimon Ha-Tzadik, and not at all concerned about the actual historical figure. This shouldn’t be a shock to regular readers of this blog]

According to the genealogy in the first few mishnayot of Avot, Shimon Ha-tzadik is the link between the era of the Prophets and the Hellenistic era. His main pupil, Antigonus of Sokho, betrays Greek influence by his very name (not that Antigonus was himself a Hellenist – insert requisite # of ‘chas ve-shalom’s here – but that Jewish culture was already being penetrated by Ionian culture). Chaza”l therefore saw him as a crucial figure in shaping the Jewish response to Hellenistic penetration.

There are two Talmudic narratives that involve Shimon Ha-tzaddik. Both narratives have parallels in non-Rabbinic sources. By constructing these narratives around the figure of Shimon Ha-tzaddik, Chaza”l teach us something about the collision between Jewish and Ionian culture and an appropriate Jewish attitude/response to that collision.

a) Shimon Ha-tzadik and Alexander: A Reading of BT Yoma 69a

[When the Samaritans had obtained permission from Alexander to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, messengers] came and informed Shimon Ha-tzadik. What did he do? He dressed in the Priestly vestments, and wrapped himself in the priestly vestments. Some of the distinguished men of Israel were with him, and they had torches of light in their hands. All night, these were walking in this direction, and those were walking in that direction, until the dawn broke. Once the dawn broke, he asked them, “Who are they?” They replied, “The Jews, who have rebelled against you.” When they reached Antipatris the sun rose, and they confronted each other. When he saw Shimon Ha-tzadik, he descended from his chariot and bowed before him. They said to him, “A great king such as yourself bows to this Jew?” He replied, “The image of this man’s visage triumphs before me when I go into battle!”

This narrative was a later addition to the early Rabbinic work ‘Megillat Ta’anit’, a list of ancient Jewish holidays (which, incidentally, is the earliest record of the celebration of Chanukah). The original text, in Aramaic, consisted of a date and a very brief description of the date (like January 1st – New Year’s Day; February 6th – Groundhog’s Day; June 14th – Flag Day, etc.). Later, much longer narrative descriptions of the significant events which occurred on those days were added to the work. This excerpt is the later addition to the original, which simply stated “The 25th [of Tevet] is Mt. Gerizim Day, and it’s forbidden to eulogize on it.” This narrative is clearly a literary construction, as will be demonstrated, first of all, by comparing it with Josephus Flavius’ account of the same event in “Antiquities of the Jews”:

Now Alexander, when he had taken Gaza, made haste to go up to Jerusalem; and Jaddua the high priest, when he heard that, was in an agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience… whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences… And when he understood that [Alexander] was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations…Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, "I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind."

While the central elements of the stories – the High Priest and the Priestly vestments, Alexander at the head of a conquering army, threatening Judea, and Alexander’s dream and it’s role in the salvation of Judea – are identical in both, there are significant differences. It’s within these differences that Chaza”l’s contribution lies.

Whereas Josephus writes like a chronicler, giving names of people and places and vast amounts of detail (much of which I left skipped with ‘…’), the Gemara is much more terse. The Gemara employs literary devices – the interplay of night and day and darkness and light chief amongst them. In Josephus, the Jews of Jerusalem passively await Alexander’s arrival, whereas in the Gemara, the two groups are marching toward each other. Finally, the High Priest in Josephus’ account is Jaddua, whereas in the Gemara it’s Shimon Ha-Tzaddik. If I’m correct that Shimon, for Chaza”l, is a paradigm for encounter with Ionia, then his appearance in this narrative is more than simply a miracle-tale of salvation; it’s an account of the initial collision between these two great civilizations. It’s no longer an historical or quasi-historical story; it’s mythic.

To be continued – it’s 4 minutes before licht bentchen…

4th Candle: The Problem of Translation

It once happened that five elders wrote the Torah for King Ptolemy in Greek, and that day was as ominous for Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made, since the Torah could not be accurately translated

Minor Tractates, Soferim 1:7

When the work was completed, Demetrius collected together the Jewish population in the place where the translation had been made, and read it over to all, in the presence of the translators, who met with a great reception also from the people, because of the great benefits which they had conferred upon them. They bestowed warm praise upon Demetrius, too, and urged him to have the whole law transcribed and present a copy to their leaders. After the books had been read, the priests and the elders of the translators and the Jewish community and the leaders of the people stood up and said, that since so excellent and sacred and accurate a translation had been made, it was only right that it should remain as it was and no alteration should be made in it. And when the whole company expressed their approval, they bade them pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom upon any one who should make any alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of the words which had been written or making any omission. This was a very wise precaution to ensure that the book might be preserved for all the future time unchanged. When the matter was reported to the king, he rejoiced greatly, for he felt that the design which he had formed had been safely carried out. The whole book was read over to him and he was greatly astonished at the spirit of the lawgiver. And he said to Demetrius, 'How is it that none of the historians or the poets have ever thought it worth their while to allude to such a wonderful achievement?'

From "The Letter of Aristeas"

Here we have two texts describing the same event: the original translation of the Torah into Greek, the Septuagint. The first account is from a beraita, a work of the Rabbinic Tannaim. The second is from an apocryphal work which was produced by the Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt, and was not included in the Jewish canon.

[Linguistic sidenote: the Latin word apocrypha and the Aramaic word Beraita mean basically the same thing – a work that remains ‘outside’ a canonized text]

Taken together, these texts present the basic problem of translation. The translation issues recently discussed by Gil and Krum (esp. in the comments) touch the tip of the iceberg – the difficulty in finding the right words to convey the literal sense of the original. In every act of translation, something is left behind and becomes inaccessible to the new audience. At the same time, that audience gains access to a previously unintelligible source of wisdom. I discussed some of these elements in a post about the relationship between translation and mysticism here.
Translating from Hebrew into Greek has much higher stakes. On one hand, it’s an attempt to bridge an unbridgeable gap, to convey the language of revelation in the terminology of reason. On the other hand, it made the Torah into something that the entire world could access (see F. Rosenzweig quotation here). Greek translation occupies a special Halakhic status as well, according to the Mishna in Megillah. The Greek language, the beauty of Japeth, belongs in the tents of Shem.
This task, the translation of the Torah into Greek, continues in our day. As a Rabbi in the USA, I often think of my job as that of a translator, and still from Hebrew into Greek, just Greek today happens to be English (unless you ask the French). It’s still hard to capture the Torah in English, but it’s something we must do if we are to open the hearts and minds of contemporary Jews (and I’m not talking about “kiruv”). I’ve often considered accepting the 8th of Tevet, traditionally the day that the Septuagint was completed, and not observed as a theme of the 10th of Tevet, in order to reinforce the tension inherent within the awful but necessary task of translation.

Rather than continuing to (poorly) articulate this challenge myself, I’ll recommend three essays by Emmanuel Levinas, for whom this is a major (if not THE major) philosophical theme. The first is his introductory essay to Nine Talmudic Readings. The second is called “On the Translation of Scripture” and appears in a book called In the Time of Nations. The Third is called “The Pact” and appears in both Beyond the Verse and The Levinas Reader.

3rd Candle: R' Nachman's Dreidel

I’ve only got a few pages left of Arthur Green's book “Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav”, and I hope to post a more thorough review when I finish and digest it. There’s one passage, Chanukah-related, that i really liked. It’s part of a segment on R’ Nachman’s critique of medieval cosmology, and is taken from Sichot HaRan #40, and p. 309 of Green’s book, whence the translation:

Their books contain questions as to the order of Creation: How is it that a star merited to be a star, or that a constellation deserved to be a constellation? What was the sin of the lower creatures, animals and all the rest, that consigned them to their lowly state? Why not just the opposite? Why is a head a head and a foot a foot?...

This entire pursuit, however, is a vain one. One should not ask such questions of God, who is righteous and upright. For in truth, the entire universe is a spinning top, which is called a dreidel. Everything moves in a circle: angels change into men and men into angels; the head becomes a foot and the foot a head. All things in the world are part of this circular motion, reborn and transformed into one another. That which was above is lowered and that which was below is raised up. For in their root all of them are one.

R’ Nachman locates the flaw of philosophy in its being static and bounded. In the real world, boundaries between objects are fluid, artificial, and often non-existent. Though R’ Nachman refers specifically to the cosmological world and its hierarchies, the same can be (and has been) said about social hierarchies. Medieval philosophy spent much time and ink justifying why kings are kings, nobles are nobles, serfs are serfs, women are women, and Jews are Jews. The real reason that nobles were superior to serfs is that a man on a horse can kill ten men on foot, but that wouldn’t pass muster with the morally-attuned folk, so a hierarchy had to be invented. This type of thinking (called essentialist in philosophical terminology) was the hallmark of philosophy from Plato onward, until it faded with the advent of modernity. Thus, R’ Nachman, a contemporary of Napoleon, is an early critic of essentialism.

A later but very well-known critic of essentialism in the social sphere wrote a passage which is strikingly similar to R’ Nachman’s in both content and literary power, though he saw an end to the non-stop ‘spinning’ that does not include God’s Unity:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

-Karl Marx, “The Communist Manifesto”, 1848

2nd Candle: Chanukah and Commercialism

These thoughts aren’t fully articulated, but I feel like I’m on to something, and would be grateful if anyone can help me flesh this out. Two quick stories:

• Last week, in one of my proudest moments as a Jewish parent, my wife took my 5-year-old daughter to shop for a Chanukah present for a cousin with whom she ‘exchanged’ gifts. She couldn’t understand why we were buying a gift. After all, this cousin’s birthday wasn’t until the summer. I was very proud that, for my little girl, Chanukah hadn’t yet been commercialized.

• Earlier today, I bought a 21-oz. bag of Reese’s Tree-shaped milk-and-white chocolate peanut-butter cups for a mere 99 cents. Comparing that to the buckfitty (thanks, Fred) that the qualitatively and quantitatively inferior chocolate coins cost, one is tempted to consider baptism.

Of course, the sale is directly linked to the fact that the hyper-commercialization of the American/Christian (let’s not be fooled by wishes for ‘Happy Holidays’; the sales start of the 26th) holiday season has passed its climax, and stores are purging whatever they have left (so stock up on Sukkah decorations).

It got me thinking that there are elements of our celebration of Chanukah which have a particularly anti-commercialist bent. The notion of ‘pirsumei nisa’, so central to the mitzvah of lighting candles, seeks to counter the adverse effects of hyper-commercialization which is endemic to our culture, and perhaps to the urbane and market-centered Greco-Roman world (see my discussion of R’ Shimon b. Yochai’s critique of ‘marketplaces’ here).

Two points from the Gemara in Shabbat 21b-22a, which discusses the lighting of Chanukah candles, reinforce this point. The first relates to the time of lighting, which is formulated as ‘until the feet are done at the marketplace’. Indeed, ideally the lights themselves should be as close to the public domain as possible. It almost as though the candles are intended to stand in opposition to the market, to serve as a reminder to those who traverse it that there is something else, something beyond, that ought to be kept in view.

The second point is a strange reiteration of Rav’s position that it’s forbidden to make use of the Chanukah lights. R’ Assi formulates it thus:
“It is forbidden to arrange (i.e., tabulate) money by the light [of the Chanukah candles]”
The Gemara concludes that this would be a disgrace of the mitzvah (and not because of any inherent sanctity of the candles, to the contrary of what we say in the ‘Ha-neirot Halalu’ paragraph after candle-lighting). Of all activities that can be performed by candle-light, the Gemara singles out the counting of money as being most incongruous with the theme of the Chanukah candles.

Fame and Ambiguity

The JIB nominees are out and it seems I've been nominated for 'Best Religion Blog'. Here I ask, what does the word 'best' modify? 'Religion' or 'blog'? I already know that I blog about the best religion. I think it means that someone thinks that this is the best blog about the Jewish religion. I mean, someone besides me. And the ADDeRebbetzin denies that it's her. It's nice to be loved, though I need MONEY more than glory.