On Wednesday, I was quite exhausted, not having slept much. Again, I crawled out of bed at six, slept on the train to the city, and staggered my way to Drisha. There was a lot of learning action: Abby and I struggled through the end of the second page of Talmud that we're learning, around a quarter of which was censored out, and contained some interesting passages. We ended up cross-referencing the sugyot with other mishnayot, as well as extensive Biblical citations. I noticed that one of Ulla's statements in the censored section seemed to contradict, or at least create an exception for, one of Abbaye's statements made towards the end of the censored section, regarding the reasoning behind the need for public announcements of convictions of capital crimes. I kind of hoped that there might be something brought down in the halakhah about this, but there wasn't, which either means that Ulla wasn't saying what I thought he was saying, or that the law is not in accordance with his statements. That's just Talmud for you, I guess. Also, on the third page, I really didn't understand one of Yehoshua ben Levi's statements. Again, I suppose that that's just Talmud.
During lunch (which Drisha provided), the vice-dean of Drisha gave a talk on the week's Haftorah's heroine, Rachav. I thought that it was kind of dull, but this might have been because I was tired. Throughout the whole day, in fact, I was rather lethargic. Following Minchah was my afternoon lesson on honor of death in Judaism, which was my most painful class at Drisha yet, because I was losing focus so quickly, and barely understood what we were reading, despite spending a fair amount of time poring over it. There were several quasi-contradictory opinions in the midrash, the Mishnah, and the Bavli concerning tzitzit and the dead. I at least partially understood the quotes from Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, but the sections from the Tosafot, the 12th-century French commentators, were rather opaque to me. I was very glad when that class ended, and I could return to some solo study reviewing the day's Gemara, as well as continuing to read the Mishnayot of Bava Batra (I finally finished the third chapter). At 7:00 pm, the Beit Midrash opened to the community at large, and some speakers gave some very interesting talks. One was about Judaism-as-art, which I thought was just a little bit hokey, but still OK (it brought up some significant details of the narrative of Alexander the Great's encounter with Shimon ha-Tzaddik that I hadn't heard before). Much better, though, was a very tightly-organized and well-delivered class on the clout and judicial significance of community rules and regulations, which brought up a series of very interesting medieval sources that I had never seen before. After Ma'ariv, it was around 9:30 pm, and Eli (who attended the community learning night) walked to Penn Station together, much to my pleasure. I took the train back, and did my laundry in preparation for the next few days.
Thursday was a long day. It began with my falling asleep on the train to Penn Station again, but managing, somehow, to make it through my Torah reading with only one error in pronunciation (perhaps a few more in cantillation). I survived -- and then had one of my best Talmud lessons yet. We sped through more than a page, reading through the Talmudic description of the episode of Achan and Yehoshua, and wound up in a certain episode that I recognirzed from the opening pages of tractate Megillah; as far as I could tell, the two passages were identical. I've heard about such repetitions in the Talmud before, but I've never encountered any before. The purpose of the story was to midrashically (exegetically) prove that the study of Torah is more important than the daily sacrifices made in the Temple, through a cryptic conversation that Yehoshua has in Yehoshua 5:13-15. Abbie and I also reviewed the relevant Biblical narratives.
In the afternoon, I had my Mishnah class with Yafah, in which we read the third chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin (the tractate that all of Drisha is studying in our separate Talmud classes). The third chapter discusses the qualifications for judges, witnesses, and evidence. Talia and I worked together studying this chapter -- her Hebrew is much better than mine, but I think that we made a fairly good team. Something that rather surprised me is that various kinds of gamblers (dice-players, pigeon-racers, etc.) were singled out as being ineligible, not for any concern that they might have vested interest in the trial (for example, betting on the outcome), but, demonstrably, because the Rabbis considered them to be morally corrupt people. The theme of the day was Tosefta; we discussed whether the Tosefta can be read as an alternative Mishnah compiled by another Rabbinic school, a pre-existing Rabbinic codex of laws, or even an early commentary on the Mishnah (Yafah seems to agree with this list opinion). The evening's classes ended with Rabbi Silbur, Drisha's head instructor, giving another lecture to the students.
Afterwards, my classmate Daniel and I took the subway, through the rain, to 100th street, to the Anschei Chesed synagogue, where we were participating in service learning, i.e. volunteering. Anschei Chesed runs a homeless shelter for ten carefully-screened employed men working their way out of homelessness. It is the job of two volunteers to be there to ensure that they go to sleep and wake up on time (5:00 am), and are all outside waiting for the bus by 6:00 am. It was really a very easy job, and Daniel and I had a chance to speak to each other for a time, and, a little bit, to the men, although I was hesitant to distract them. They were very gracious and grateful people, but had also clearly been through more hardships in their lives than we two volunteers could probably imagine. It isn't easy being down-and-out in city, in this country, or anywhere, for that matter. Right as our shift began, three of the men walked into the volunteers' room, and began to have a serious talk with the previous two volunteers, who apparently had nearly begun a fight, because they had taken a very accusatory tone when inquiring about something that one of the other men might (or might not) have done. The problem had been that, after voicing open accusations, they tried to speak to some of the other men privately, making it seem as if some of the men had been acting as tattletales. This was our introduction to Anschei Chesed, but nothing negative came of the encounter, for us, anyway. Daniel and I couldn't turn off the lights, and the men were awake before us, but we made certain that they had everything that they needed, helping them put their bunks back, disposing of dirty laundry, etc.
On Friday morning, it finally looked as if everything was going to end smoothly at 6:30 am, until, while locking up, the loft key became jammed in the lock, and would not budge. We had no choice but to explain to the janitorial staff what had happened, and leave. Daniel left for his apartment, and I left for Drisha (where else was I going to go), where I fell asleep reviewing the previous day's Talmud lesson, and then we had the morning lesson taught by D'vorah, who explained the Achan narrative, and why the Talmud reads it the way it does (Achan as the worst human being possible, but also with very particular misdeeds ascribed to him). We then packed our bags onto the bus, and left for Camp Moshava, where we stayed for Shabbat. I sat next to Raffi on the bus, but fell asleep over my Kindle (I was reading Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France) while "V for Vendetta" played on the bus's video system. Falling asleep at inopportune moments seems to be a motif of this blog post, doesn't it?
When we arrived, it was raining; it continued to rain all through the afternoon and evening, and remained in the 50s all day. Camp Moshava is an overnight Jewish summer camp with a very religious-Zionist bent. I've never been to camp, and was in the minority. Throughout my stay, the other students referred to their summers at overnight and day camp, some of them spent at Moshava.
After some much-needed lunch, I ended up playing dodgeball and, later, basketball with a few of the other students. Ariel was particularly amused when, stepping off court for a moment to take off my hoodie, I had my back turned when a teammate passed the ball to me. I've never gotten to be particularly good at basketball, mostly because I play so infrequently (same goes for soccer and baseball), but I was impressed with how good some of my classmates were. I expected Raymond to be good, but I hadn't expected Ariella or Aviva to have as much speed and agility as they displayed. before I took a welcome hot shower (I was getting chilly), and dressed for Shabbat. We welcomed in Shabbat, and then had a communal Shabbat dinner, somewhat reminiscent (to me) of dinners in 104 West! I sat in the corner, near Lani, Ahuva, Raymond, Batsheva, Sharona, and Ariel (who seems to be in all of my classes, and around me all the time). After dinner, we all all congregated in the camp's Beit Midrash, where some people shared divrei Torah that they had prepared, alternating with singing of traditional songs, and where we ended up sharing name stories. I told the story behind my double name, and heard some very fascinating accounts of the legacies and expectations many of my classmates inherited with their names. I stayed up a little bit later learning a few Mishnayot in Bava Batra (finishing chapter 5), and then went to bed around 1:00 am. I was warm thanks only to the excellent sleeping bag provided to my by the Feldmans.
I woke up on time on Saturday for 8:30 am prayer. I did not need to read Torah or lead, Wendy, Raymond, and Rabbi Silber did an excellent job reading. We also recited a very fun communal Pesukei D'zimra, in which each person led one or more of the Tehillim; I read 148, which, thank goodness, I at least quasi-know. I also lifted the Sefer Torah in Hagbah; it was easily the heaviest Sefer Torah I've ever lifted, and I nearly dropped it (thank you to everyone who physically supported it). Wendy led an Aggada class before lunch on the accounts of Yehudah ha-Nasi's death given in the Talmud Yerushalmi and Talmud Bavli, respectively. Wendy is the reason that I'm studying at Drisha right now, is really a fantastic instructor. We ate together, and were encouraged to sit with instructors with whom we don't have any classes. So I sat with Esther, who lives in Israel, and, coincidentally, Abbie was at the same table. Neesa joined us, too; we talked a little bit about ourselves, our educations, our plans for the future, etc. Throughout the entire Shabbaton, I got to know my classmates all a little bit better.
Throughout the afternoon, we alternated between free time, and time spent in fairly relaxing lessons in the Beit Midrash, and, because it was sunny, on benches outside, too. At one point, when Jon was talking, Stu walked over with his baby, and I could feel the thirty-some pairs of eyeballs around me all swivel in their sockets to follow the baby. I ended up with a little bit of time in the Beit Midrash, where I used a Steinsaltz Talmud to review the opening pages of Megillah, which I studied with Rav Ami last semester. I thought that I would be able to read through it without difficulty, but ended up needing to refer to an Artscroll study aid for a few passages whose meanings I just couldn't recall. Late in the afternoon, we had a panel discussion from some of Drisha's instructors about approaches to study of Torah. Because of the nature of the program, we spoke about the (closing but still extant) gap between men's and women's Jewish education in the (Orthodox) Jewish world. However, Rabbi Silber also had an opportunity to discuss his motivations for founding Drisha. Much to my surprise, he complained of a lack of foundation in Mikra, explaining that he had mostly just studied Talmud in his early year. Which is fascinating to me, because although I rarely hear him reference the Talmud, he (and D'vorah) seem to know Mikra backwards and forwards! Following this was se'udah shlishit, where there was, as I have come to expect, more singing and divrei Torah.
After a musical Havdallah, Shabbat was over, and some people watched a movie, and other of us found other ways to occupy ourselves. We were scheduled to have a bonfire later that evening and, tired as I was, I realized that it would be stupid and antisocial to act on my impulses and go to bed early. So after finding the (well concealed) bonfire with Amy, the two of us directed the rest of the Drisha group to its location, I ended up staying up until around 2:00 am or so singing with my classmates, Raffi and Shoshana accompanying on their guitars. It was a medley of pop songs, traditional Jewish melodies, and Zionist songs. Some of these songs I knew; others I did not. I had a good time, though, and walked back to my bunk with Lani, who is staying in one of the two women's bunks.
I was up for 7:15 am morning prayer on Sunday, and opened the ark for the Torah service (it was Rosh Chodesh Tammuz). After a quick breakfast, we packed ourselves back on to the bus (except for those driving, such as Lani, who drove Meir and some others to a friend's wedding). We arrived at Drisha a little bit before noon. I dropped off some belongings, then walked to Penn Station. It was significantly warmer in New York City than it had been in Pennsylvania. I arrived back at Victor's house in Summit, and Peter let me in. Within an hour or so, after a shower, I had fallen asleep, waking up briefly between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm, and then falling asleep again until I got out of bed at 5:45 am Monday morning. Very welcome rest!
I'm now living in a new location; I have my housing figured out. However, now I need to get to bed! Again, apologies to any typos due to my lack of proofreading.
~JD
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