National Scholar Updates

I.

The topic of kol ishah, the halakhic prohibition on men from listening to a woman's singing voice, is obviously a matter of concern for religiously observant Jews. Yet, there are various interpretations as to what exactly constitutes the prohibition. The present essay aims to clarify the prohibition, demonstrating that it is far less restrictive than is commonly believed.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg ruled that it is permissible for a man to hear a recording of a female singer when the singer is not visible to the listener. Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin held similarly. Rabbis J. David Bleich and Haim David Halevi indicated that the use of electronics for the audio alone does not mitigate the prohibition; the listener must not be able to see the singer at all. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Haim David Halevi both ruled that electronic recordings mitigate the prohibition only if the listener has never once glimpsed the woman singer, and Rabbi Yosef applied this even after the woman singer is deceased. Going still further, Rabbi Yaakov Breish, Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, and Rabbi Binyamin Silber all ruled that even audio-only electronic recordings of women may not be listened to, with no mitigations or leniencies whatsoever. According to them, listening to a woman sing is simply prohibited. Rabbi Menashe Klein disagreed with Rabbis Breish, Wosner, and Silber, and argued that electronic records are not the woman's "real" voice, and that listening to recordings ought to be permitted. Even he, however, stated that it is "distasteful" to rely in practice on the leniency."[1]

All these recent authorities took it for granted that listening to women sing is categorically forbidden for men, and that only select and specific factors may mitigate this otherwise absolute prohibition. It is understandable, then, that so many Orthodox laymen assume that men listening to women sing is categorically forbidden. It is taken as almost axiomatic that kol ishah is strictly and absolutely forbidden; few if any compromises are brooked, and leniencies are offered reluctantly if at all.

II.

However, the preceding understanding is in need of careful anaylsis. On three separate occasions in the Talmud (Berakhot 24a, Kidushin 70a, and Sota 48a), statements are made about the sexual (`erva -or peritzuta) nature of a woman's voice. The one which will concern us is the primary one, in Berakhot 24a, where we read,

"Shemuel said: The voice of a woman is nakedness ( kol b'isha `erva) as it says (Song of Songs 2:14) 'for your voice is sweet and your countenance comely.'"

This passage occurs during a discussion of reciting Shema in the presence of `erva. One might interpret Shemuel as continuing that discussion, or as beginning a new one about just what is `erva irrespective of Shema. As is apparent from the discussion, a woman's exposed handbreadth (tefah) is forbidden to be seen during Shema, while her little finger (etzba ketana) is forbidden to be gazed upon with sexual intent at all times. Thus, kol ishah must be like either of these two paradigms. There is a range of authorities on either side of this dispute, but the Rambam and Tur-Shulhan Arukh rule that kol ishah is a general prohibition, not linked to Shema. This is thus the practical halakha to be taken for granted in this essay. It is an undeniably clear principle that gazing upon a woman's little finger is prohibited only where there is sexual pleasure, as is shown in Avodah Zara 20a-b. If kol ishah is like a little finger, then the implications are obvious. (Also note that Shemuel says only kol, "voice", with no mention of singing per se.)

It was my friend Dowid Mosha who first pointed out to me that kol ishah's being a general prohibition is actually potentially a leniency, not a stricture. He quoted the Rambam, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 21:2, which says [2],  "And he who looks at even the little finger of a woman to take pleasure in it is like one who looks at her private parts, and even to hear a voice of an erva or to see her hair is forbidden."

As Dowid then explained, "it is apparent that the focus is on the intent and the result. If an individual wishes to be aroused, is likely to be aroused, or is aroused inadvertently, then he or she must take the necessary measures to protect themselves." Rambam equates looking at a woman's etzba ketana, her little finger, with hearing the voice of a woman. And there is no prohibition of gazing at a woman's finger per se; the prohibition is only when one so gazes specifically for the sake of sexual pleasure.

Furthermore, Rambam speaks of scrutinizing (mistakel) her little finger (etzba ketana) with intent to take pleasure in it (v'nitkaven leihanot). He uses the word mistakel, which carries the implication of intense scrutiny, as opposed to the word ro'eh, which would imply simple ordinary sight. According to Rambam, the prohibition surrounding etzba ketana is that a man is forbidden to intensely scrutinize (mistakel) a woman's little finger with the express intention of deriving sexual pleasure thereby (v'nitkaven leihanot). Since Rambam links this discussion of etzba ketana with kol ishah, it seems apparent, as Dowid expressed, that kol ishah is likewise prohibited only when there is sexual pleasure involved.

Similarly, the Tur (Even ha-`Ezer 21), writing about different tzeniut-related prohibitions, relates them all to shema yavo l'harher bah, "lest he come to reflect (or muse) [sexually] on her". Regarding etzba ketana and kol ishah specifically, the Tur quotes the Rambam nearly word-for-word, as does the Shulhan Arukh (Even ha-`Ezer 21:1). It is clear that the Rambam and the Tur-Shulhan Arukh held that kol ishah is like etzba ketana, meaning that to listen to a woman's voice is prohibited in the same way that it is forbidden to scrutinize (mistakel - not to merely see, ro'eh) upon her finger in order to take sexual pleasure (v'nitkaven leihanot). And thus, Rabbi David Bigman rules:

"From the equation of the prohibitions regarding voice and hair to the general prohibition of looking [i.e. mistakel at an etzba ketana], we can infer that their presence does not necessarily imply sexual stimulation - rather, what is problematic is the inappropriate interaction with them by the looker or the listener. ... There is no prohibition whatsoever of innocent singing; rather, only singing intended for sexual stimulation, or flirtatious singing, is forbidden. ... The prohibition applies only to listening in a manner similar to looking at a woman for sexual pleasure."

Rabbi Avraham Shammah lists several grounds for leniency in kol ishah, indicating that "the essential one, in my opinion, is that the prohibition is specifically for one who intends to enjoy a forbidden pleasure."

Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg (Seridei Esh 2:8) defended the German-Jewish custom of mixed-sex zemirot, as well mixed sex Jewish youth groups (similar to Benei Akiva and NCSY).[3] He interpreted the Rambam that the prohibited form of "gazing" and listening is only that which entails sexual pleasure. Rabbi Weinberg also relied on the Sedei Hemed (section Kuf, kelal 42), who ruled that a man's listening to a woman sing funeral dirges does not violate kol ishah, as no sexual pleasure is entailed in such songs. The Sedei Hemed was relying on the Divrei Heifetz (113b), who "stated that as long as a woman is not singing sensual love songs, and as long as a man does not intend to derive pleasure from her voice, there is no prohibition, such as if she is singing praises to God for a miracle, or is singing a lullaby to a baby, or is wailing at a funeral." [4] Rabbi Weinberg also cited the Sefer ha-Eshkol (Hilkhot Tefillah sec. 4 or 7), that listening to a woman sing is prohibited only where there is sexual pleasure. Rabbi Weinberg reasoned that if the Sedei Hemed could permit funeral dirges due to their lacking sexual pleasure, then he could permit Shabbat zemirot on the same grounds. It is obvious that we today can likewise permit by the same logic any song which does not lead to sexual thoughts. Thus, this interpretation that kol ishah is like etzba ketana, i.e. permitted where sexual pleasure is absent, is not only apparent from the simple meaning of Rambam's words, but is also endorsed by Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg.

Rabbi Weinberg also relied on the opinion of the Ritva and Rema, "that all is for the sake of heaven" (to be discussed later in this essay). In general, if one knows that he himself is capable of a certain act without incurring sexual thoughts, then this act becomes permitted for him.

III.

Some may react to this interpretation as brilliant casuistry, but nevertheless reject it as being against traditional Jewish practice and belief. It behooves us, then, to see whether this lenient understanding of kol ishah could stand up to non-textual (mimetic) traditional Jewish behavior and practice.

In Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel's Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire, we find an amazing piece of testimony. There, on page 125, discussing the singing of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) romances (ballads), with their often emotional if not downright sensual lyrics, Rabbi Angel says, inter alia:

"Although there were religious pietists who objected to singing love songs, the romances were very popular throughout all strata of Sephardic society. Men and women often sang these songs together. It was not unusual for women to sing solo parts in the presence of men. [Emphasis added.] People participated in the singing and enjoyed the songs in a natural, easygoing way."

Rabbi Angel offers personal testimony in note 6:
"I [Rabbi Angel] was raised in the Sephardic community of Seattle, Washington, and well remember our many family gatherings where romances were sung. Jews of great piety sang right along with those of lesser piety. I do not remember anyone ever objecting to the singing of love songs by men and women. In the early 1980s, Haham Dr. Solomon Gaon, himself a Judeo-Spanish-speaking rabbi, taught classes in Sephardic folklore at my Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. I well remember him singing love songs, enthusiastically and nostalgically. Both of us participated in a program of Sephardic culture sponsored by the Hebrew College of Boston. A female soloist sang a selection of romances, after which Haham Gaon not only applauded loudly but rose to speak in praise of the singer for her beautiful rendition of the songs. Haham Gaon, who served as chief rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregations of England and as head of the Sephardic Studies Program of Yeshiva University in New York, was a very prominent Orthodox Sephardic rabbi and a man of impeccable piety."

Rabbi Shammah similarly testifies:
"I did not grow up hareidi, and I was not educated according to hareidi principles. From my childhood [under his parents, traditional immigrants from Syria to Israel] until my adulthood I do not remember closing my ears, nor was I instructed to do so, and I heard the best music, both from the Orient and the West, even when performed by female singers, and even at live performances. Apparently, the principle is based on the fact that there is no intent here for some forbidden pleasure. [People] have testified to me that there were Torah-observant Jews at the performances of the famous Egyptian singer, Umm Kulthum [considered by some to be Egypt's most famous and distinguished twentieth-century singer], and even more than that, they listened to her songs and learned them well, even though some of the songs had inappropriate words. Prayer leaders (among them scholars) used her tunes [in the prayer services], until this day, with the approval of halakhic authorities, who knew quite well the source [of these tunes]."

There is also firm evidence that Cochini Jewry (the Jews of Kerala, the southwest coast of India), known to be dedicated to Torah and traditional religious observance,[5] allowed women to sing in the presence of men (Wikipedia, "Cochin Jews"). According to K. Pradeep:
"Here, unlike other Orthodox communities, the Jews did not follow the Talmudic injunction against women singing in public. For centuries, the Cochin Jewish women have been singing Jewish songs in Malayalam. There was a rich tradition of women's liturgical music sung on public occasions - weddings, circumcisions and holidays. ... The social life of the Jewish community in Kerala had centered on rituals in the synagogue and festive meals at home. The women sang during these celebrations."

Similarly, according to Martine Chemana, in her article "Women Sing, Men Listen", notes:
"... On the religious level, even though their participation in rituals remained marginal, in the space reserved for them they held a complementary role in the singing of liturgical texts. ... Originally, the opportunities for performances were, as said earlier, during family celebrations associated with ceremonies which preceded and marked weddings, which in the past lasted as long as 2 weeks; name-giving for newborns (akin to Hindu custom); berit-milah; bar mitzvah; before or after religious holidays and festivals such as Passover, Purim, Hanukkah, Succoth, Simhat-Tora; related to the construction or inauguration of synagogues.... The Malayalam songs are thus only performed by women, but the men who listen to them also know the songs, as was evidenced during the memorization process. The men who were present remembered the words or the tunes when the women had forgotten them. The Cochini women also take part in liturgical singing in Hebrew in the synagogue - as I was able to hear in the Cochin synagogue during Yom Kippur in September 2001... In Cochin, apart from folk songs, some women also take part in the chanting of liturgy. Women from Yemen also sing during wedding ceremonies."

Barbara C. Johnson's description in "Cochin: Jewish Women's Music" is very much the same:
"Though Malayalam Jewish songs have always belonged to the women, men in their community often heard them performed in Kerala ... At times they sang for all-female events, such as a women's party for the bride, but generally they performed in mixed gatherings, where the men of the community listened respectfully. ... In Kerala, Jewish women sang in Hebrew together with men, joining in full voice to sing piyyutim in the synagogue, at the Shabbat family table and at community-wide gatherings to celebrate holidays and life cycle events. In contrast to many other traditional Jewish communities, it was not their custom to prohibit men from hearing women's voices raised in song."

We have already discussed the German Neo-Orthodox practice of women singing zemirot in the presence of men. However, our previous discussion was around the technical halakhic justification; let us now examine the general sociological and historical details. According to Professor Mordechai Breuer's Modernity Within Tradition (p. 6):

"Rabbi Yehiel Jacob Weinberg (1885-1966) tells the following story on that subject [in Shu"t Seridei Eish]: arriving in Berlin from Lithuania in 1914, he noticed that, in Orthodox families, men and women sang the table hymns [zemirot] together at Sabbath meals, even though, according to religious regulations, men were forbidden to listen to the singing of women. When he expressed his astonishment about that, it was explained to him that leading Orthodox rabbis had sanctioned such conduct on the basis of halakhic considerations. In some families, domestic singing was even led by the women, a practice that, at times, embarrassed a guest who was unaccustomed to it. Such a lack of restraint was permitted - mainly in the family circle - but was often censured when efforts were made to apply it to society at large."

But the footnote to that final sentence reads (ibid., p. 411):
"However, see Jeschurun (1885), 18:11, for a report of a public function at the Orthodox school in Frankfurt am Main [Rabbi Hirsch's community] at which a teenager from the girls' Lyzeum [the girls' section of the Orthodox day school founded by Rabbi Hirsch] sang in the presence of a crowded audience."

Further, in Modernity Within Tradition, we read (p. 150):
"Attendance at the theater, the opera, the concert hall, and even the cabaret was no longer a rarity among Orthodox families after the end of the century. In 1882 the Jüdische Presse already carried a rather long, well-disposed review about Saint-Saëns's opera Samson and Delilah. ... The Israelit praised an observant female opera singer as well as a strictly observant male concert vocalist. Social evenings in Orthodox organizations of various kinds featured stage performances or music. In 1906 the board of the Jewish youth group Livyath Hen [Wreath of Grace] in Mainz sent out invitations to a talk by Rabbi Dr. J. Bondi that was followed by evening entertainment consisting of music, a comedy (played by a lady and three men), a vocal quartet, and singing by five ladies and four men."

Even though neither Rabbi Hirsch nor any other rabbis attended the opera (contrary to the regnant "common knowledge") [6], it appears that plenty of German Neo-Orthodox Jews did. It appears quite safe to say that to one degree or another, German Neo-Orthodoxy sanctioned men listening to women singers.
According to our evidence, then, it was considered natural and acceptable by traditional Jews that men hear women sing, in the Judeo-Spanish lands (Turkey, the Balkans, Greece, etc.), in Egypt, Syria, Germany, and Cochin (India). Thus, aside from textual authority in the traditional halakhic literature, we find that we also have the support of traditional Jewish practice for our lenient interpretation. This may not be the interpretation of the majority of historical Jewish communities and traditions; what is clear, however, is that both a significant textual basis for leniency exists in the primary halakhic sources, and that a number of significant and important Jewish communities relied on this leniency in practice.

IV.

Until now, we have explained the matter from one perspective, by showing that according to the Rambam (whom the Shulhan Arukh accepts as the primary law) kol ishah is prohibited like etzba ketana, i.e. only where there is sexual pleasure involved. But we may investigate the matter from another direction, and come to the same conclusion.

Rabbi David Bigman quotes the Maharshal (Yam Shel Shelomo, Kidushin 4:25 no. 4) as saying:
"... And we do not hold according to Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrahi, who forbids talking to women, even to ask her where her husband is, ... and the ruling that one does not use a woman at all, adult or child, we shall write, God willing, ... that nowadays we rely on the opinion opposed to Shemuel, who said that ‘everything done for Heaven's sake is permitted.'"

This statement by the Maharshal has a storied history, and deserves greater elaboration than is possible here. [7] Briefly put, in the Gemara, there are several stories of rabbis who seem to have committed various infractions of the laws of tzeniut, explaining to others that for individuals of their level of piety, the women were like geese or wooden beams, i.e. not sexually enticing, and that "all is for the sake of heaven" (ha-kol le-shem shamayim). Sefer ha-Hinukh (188) says that no one today may apply these rationalizations for himself, but by contrast, the Tosafist Rabbi Yitzhak of Corbeil in Sefer Mitzvot Katan (30) and Ritva (end of Kidushin) hold that if any individual knows himself to be capable of looking at women without impure thoughts, then he is permitted to so do. In the Ritva's words:
"... and so is the law that everything is according to what a person knows about himself, if it is appropriate for him to maintain a distance [from women] because of his sexual urges, he should do so, ... while if he knows that his sexual urges submit to him and are under his control ... he is permitted to look and to speak with a woman who is forbidden to him and to ask the well-being of another man's wife ..."
Rabbi Hai Gaon expressed similar logic, as Rabbi Henkin shows ("Hirhur and Community Norms"). Most importantly, the Maharshal, relying on the Ritva, says in his Yam Shel Shlomo (Kidushin, 4:25 no. 4), that
"Everything depends on what a person sees, and [if he] controls his impulses and can overcome them he is permitted to speak to and look at an erva and inquire about her welfare. The whole world relies on this [emphasis added] in using the services of, and speaking to, and looking at, women."

What is particularly noteworthy about this Maharshal is that whereas Rav Hai Gaon and the Semak and Ritva spoke of individuals who know themselves, the Maharshal speaks of "the whole world", i.e. an entire community or society being collectively inured to women. The Maharshal is following Tosafot in Kidushin 82a:
"On ‘all is for the sake of heaven' [i.e. the justification these rabbis in the Gemara offered for their apparently immodest acts] we rely nowadays [in] that we make use of the services of women."

Tosafot speaks of "we"; like Maharshal, Tosafot is going beyond the individuals spoken of by the Semak and Ritva, and instead speaking about an entire society. Additionally, the Ramah (Even ha-Ezer 21:5) follows Tosafot [8], and the Levush (the Maharshal's student) and Arukh ha-Shulhan both rely on this "whole world" extension made by the Maharshal and Tosafot. [9] The upshot is that apparently immodest acts are permitted if the individual knows himself (Rav Hai Gaon, Ritva and Semaq) or his society (Maharshal, Tosafot) to be on the level that he will not have impure thoughts. This provides us a basis to permit kol ishah, along with any other particular acts which were once considered sexually immodest, but which we today know we are inured to. Whether listening to women sing, or shaking their hands, or anything else, the permission is hereby granted as long as we know that we are truly able to engage in these acts without impure thoughts.

We still need to explain why the Maharshal did not apply kol ishah to a woman's speaking voice. The phrase kol ishah literally indicates a woman's voice, and not her singing voice per se. As we see from the Maharshal, other rabbis (Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrahi) indeed held that speaking to women in general was prohibited, and the Rambam [10] and Sefer ha-Hasidim (sec. 313) held similarly. [11] Why, then, does the Maharshal interpret kol ishah as being limited to singing? And why did other authorities also limit kol ishah to song?

The significance of this point should not understated. Countless Orthodox authorities take it for granted that kol ishah is limited to singing. But many early authorities did in fact include speech in the prohibited category of kol ishah. Rabbi Saul Berman makes a similar complaint, arguing that the Aharonim forgot what the real reasoning behind kol ishah was, and turned it into a blanket prohibition. Because of this, the Aharonim took one position of some Rishonim for granted, viz. that kol ishah is limited to singing. Why?

One could offer a historical-sociological-psychological argument that Maharshal was limited and influenced by his own practical experience, and this argument has indeed been put forth before. The Rashba (Hidushei ha-Rashba, Berakhot 24) says [12], regarding the handbreadth of a woman being `erva during the recitation of the Shema, that,
"the Raavad of blessed memory explained that it is possible that this refers to a normally covered part of her body ... but her face and hands and feet and the non-singing voice of her speech, and her hair that comes out of her braid that is not covered, one need not worry about these as he is used to them and not disturbed."

In other words, a "handbreadth" (which according to the Talmud is prohibited only during Shema, whereas an etzba ketana is prohibited at all times) means not that just any handbreadth-sized area of the woman's body is erva, but that only an area that is normally concealed is erva.[13]  According to the Ra'avad, then, "the non-singing voice of her speech" is not erva because it is not normally "concealed", because it is ordinarily "exposed", so to speak. Since her speaking voice is ordinarily heard, her speaking voice is like her face or her hands, and only her singing voice is seldom heard, making normally concealed and thus erva. The Ra'ayvah (Berakhot 76) [14] voices what could be said to exemplify a general Ashkenazi approach:
"All the things mentioned above as sexually stimulating are only to be treated as such when they are not customarily exposed, but [for example, with regard to] an unmarried woman whose hair is customarily exposed [15], we need have no concern, for there is no arousal, as with regard to her voice, for one who is accustomed to hearing it.

Based on this, Maharshal dismissed the possibility that kol ishah prohibited mere speech; such speech is customarily uncovered, as it were, and only song is customarily concealed.

But all this provides a basis for leniency as well: if, in the times of the Ra'avad and Maharshal, a woman's singing voice was seldom heard and was thus like the concealed parts of her body, perhaps today, her singing voice is not seldom heard, making it no longer "concealed". Perhaps today, her singing voice, being commonly heard (at least on the radio), is just like her speaking voice, i.e. like an ordinarily-exposed part of her body, like the face or hands, and subject to fewer (if any) prohibitions.

And in fact, Rabbi Joshua Falk (Perisha on the Tur, Even ha-`Ezer 21:2) stated precisely the Maharshal-ian habituation thesis with regard to kol ishah![16]  Rabbi Falk introduces the concept of regilut, "regularity", as relevant to kol ishah. Apparently, any voice to which one is accustomed is no longer prohibited by kol ishah. According to the Ramah (Shulhan Arukh, Orah Haim, 75:3), "a voice to which one is accustomed is not considered erva." [17] Also, the Ramah (ibid. Even ha-`Ezer 21:5) held that "all is for the sake of heaven." [18]

Let us consider another halakha relating to male/female relationships, to see how halakhot "change" based on changed circumstances. Rabbi Shammah notes that according to Mishnah Kidushin 4:13, a male bachelor may not teach children, and women may not teach children at all. The Gemara explains (82a), that these prohibitions stem from fears of sexual impropriety i.e. that the teacher (either an unmarried man, or any woman, married or not) will become engaged in forbidden relations with the childrens' parents. Rambam (Hilkhot Issurei Biah 22:13 and Hilkhot Talmud Torah 2:4) and the Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 245:20-21 and Even ha-Ezer 22:20) both rule in this way. Rabbi Shammah exclaims that no one even attempts to keep these laws anymore! Furthermore, the Shulhan Arukh issues a stern warning (Even ha-Ezer 21:1) to "keep very far from women", and it prohibits a man to walk behind a woman in the marketplace. Rabbi Shammah points out that those who strictly forbid kol ishah are never as strict regarding mixing in the marketplace. Even the Hareidim go to shopping centers and markets frequented by men and women!

Since we see that religious authorities no longer uphold the prohibition for male bachelors and women to be schoolteachers, or for men walking behind women in the marketplace, then why cannot we apply the same leniency to kol ishah? Rabbi Shammah caustically remarks on the hypocrisy of those who are lenient in some areas but stringent in others. According to Rabbi Shammah:
"... It seems to me, and this should be said as a generalization, that what is being considered is not really a matter of [women's] modesty. Rather, halakha is being used as a religious marker. That is to say, in a situation where it is quite impossible to be stringent, such as distancing oneself from women very, very much, people aren't careful. But it is very easy to be stringent in forbidding hearing a woman's voice, while - in the best case - the added value of an internal sense of religiosity is great. In a less positive light, it is a minute effort for a huge return of being able to externally demonstrate one's religiosity. This phenomenon, that generally is quite widespread, is worthy of penetrating criticism, and the words of the prophets are brimming with such [criticism]."

Rabbi Shammah cites the Ritva and Maharshal which we discussed earlier, viz. regarding how being inured and habituated to women and resistance to having sexual thoughts permits certain otherwise immodest activities. Rabbi Shammah continues, and notes that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, following the Levush (who in turn followed the Maharshal), also permits many examples of what was once a violation of tzeniut but which is nowadays customary and ordinary. Rabbi Shammah notes that Rabbi Yosef rejected applying this logic to kol ishah. But, as Rabbi Shammah continues, we have nevertheless learned the relevant basic principles, and we may apply them to kol ishah, even if Rabbi Yosef himself did not.

V.

Until now, we have been discussing what we have been calling a "leniency," i.e. the permission for men to listen to women sing based on the fact that kol ishah is prohibited only where sexual pleasure is entailed. However, we must emphasize that this leniency is not absolute; kol ishah is in fact prohibited where sexual pleasure is present. Rabbi Shammah says:
"... the wise person... should know that no two situations are exactly alike and therefore should use good judgment with integrity and honesty, because the essence of these laws is not to observe them literally and formally, but rather their purpose is to improve society."
This is not an absolute heter; but a conditional heter, based on what one knows he or she is capable of.

Similarly, according to Rabbi Bigman:...
"It is permitted to be lenient with regard to listening to the voice of a woman singing when there is a clear sense that the listening is innocent and the singing is innocent. Such an assessment is dependent on five conditions: 1. Context and appropriate atmosphere, 2.The lyrics of the song, 3. The musical style, 4. Dress, 5. Body language. ... do not make concessions of the refined foundations of Torah culture, and do not cooperate with the vulgar, commercialized aspects of the culture surrounding us."

VI.

Since kol ishah is forbidden only if it causes immoral sexual pleasure, shouldn't women be forbidden to hear kol ish if mens' singing gives them improper pleasure? Rabbi Bigman states: [19]
"In an approach that is not accepted as halakha, the Sefer Hahasidim (614) held that there is a parallel prohibition on women to listen to the voices of men. Even though this is not practiced halakha, it is ideal to pay attention to the five conditions I have outlined even in the case of a man singing in the presence of women."

According to Rabbi Bigman, anything sexually immodest is forbidden, regardless of which sex is singing and which is listening. Similarly, in a personal communication I had with Rabbi Marc Angel, it was axiomatic to Rabbi Angel that "by logical extension, male singers who intend to be erotically stimulating to females should also be prohibited from singing in the presence of women." If the halakha speaks only of men listening to women singing, it is likely that this is only because that was the most common situation of sexual immodesty.

When one becomes sympathetic to the feelings of women [20], something else will become apparent. As Rabbi Angel said to me in the course of his advising me on this present essay, "If males are stimulated by hearing women singing zemiroth or anything else, then this is the male's problem, and the male should leave the premises. The burden of responsibility devolves on the listener, not the singer. ... It's the responsibility of listeners to know what they can or can't handle; the burden of responsibility is not on the singers." Similarly, Rabbi Shammah said, "Even more, this formulation does not attempt to 'defend the purity of men' at the cost of hiding the women and covering them."

VII.

According to Rabbi Cherney:
"In our own generation, R. Ovadia Yosef has expressed the opinion that ‘you should not let your heart seize the argument that nowadays, since we are accustomed to the voices of women, we need not be concerned that [the voice arouses lewd thoughts], for we may not say these things out of our own understanding if it is not mentioned by the authorities.' (Responsa Yabia Omer vol. 1 sec. 6.) ... In conclusion, we should view this prohibition of the sages as well as others of its genre as protection against a breakdown of sanctity, a measure incumbent upon us as sincerely observant Jews."

According to Rabbi Howard Jachter:
"Both Rav Ovadia Yosef (ibid. [ Yabia Omer 1:6]) and Rav Yehuda Henkin (Teshuvot Bnei Banim 3:127) reject the claim that this prohibition [of kol ishah] does not apply today since men nowadays are accustomed to hear a woman's voice. These authorities explain that since the Gemara and Shulhan Arukh codify this prohibition, we do not enjoy the right to abolish it. The Gemara and its commentaries do not even hint at a possibility that this prohibition might not apply if men become habituated to hearing a woman's voice. Thus, all recognized Posekim agree that the prohibition of kol ishah applies today."

But we have shown that one may disagree with this conclusion. Rabbi Bigman states:
"There is no prohibition whatsoever of innocent singing; rather, only singing intended for sexual stimulation, or flirtatious singing, is forbidden. Although this distinction is not explicit in the early rabbinic sources, it closely fits the character of the prohibition as described in different contexts in the Talmud and the Rishonim, and it is supported by the language of the Rambam, the Tur, and the Shulhan Arukh."
Although Rabbis Ovadia Yosef and Yehuda Herzl Henkin are correct that the prohibition of kol ishah is binding according to the literature, yet leniencies are implicit in sources such as Rambam and the Tur-Shulhan Arukh. In fact, these leniencies were already drawn upon by rabbinic authorities, whether to permit speaking to a woman (Maharshal, classifying only singing as kol ishah) or to permit funeral dirges and mixed-sex zemirot (Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg, Sedei Hemed, Divrei Heifetz). The problem is exactly that which Rabbi Saul Berman expressed: [21]

"For the Aharonim... kol b'ishah ervah is a declaration that a woman's singing voice, under all circumstances, is to be considered a form of nudity. In light of this proposition, it is understandable that the Aharonim virtually totally discard the limiting principle of accustomedness which the Rishonim used so extensively. [Rabbi Berman cites aforementioned Ra'avyah, Rashba/Ra'avad, Ritvah, Maharshal, and Ramah.] ...The importance of this position [of Rabbi Weinberg] lies in the fact that it constitutes a major departure from the treatment of a woman's singing voice as a form of [absolute inherent] nudity. It reinstates the tradition of the Rishonim, that the ban on a woman's voice is functionally motivated and is related to the likelihood of its resulting in illicit sexual activity."

Works Cited:

Angel, Marc. Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Jewish Lights Publishing, 2006.

Berman, Saul. “Kol `Isha”, in Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Memorial Volume, ed. Leo Landman. New York: Ktav Publishing, Inc., 1980. <http://www.edah.org/docs/Kol%20Isha.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDDJ8ptI&gt;.)
But see also the criticism on Rabbi Berman's article:
1) Henkin, Yehuda Herzl. “Kol Isha Reviewed,” in in Equality Lost, Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 1999/5759. <http://www.lookstein.org/articles/kol_isha.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDDXtQ2x&gt;.)
2) Student, Gil. “Kol Isha,” Hirhurim (blog). 5 May 2004. <http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/05/kol-ishah.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDDkmeSX&gt;.)
3) Student, Gil. “Kol Isha III,” Hirhurim (blog)., 6 May 2004. <http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/05/kol-ishah-iii.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDDn7X32&gt;.)

Bigman, David.
1) Cyberdov: Life in Riverdale, NY (Blog), 9 August 2008. (Hebrew original.) <http://www.dovweinstock.com/blog/kol-beisha-erva-hebrew&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDECU7zp&gt;.)
2) “A New Analysis of 'Kol B'Isha Erva'.” trans. Yedidya Schwartz. (English translation.)
2a) The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, 4 February 2009; <http://www.jewishideas.org/rabbi-david-bigman/new-analysis-kol-bisha-erva&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDEQ7KeW&gt;.)
2b) Torah in Motion, 8 April 2008; <http://www.torahinmotion.org/virtproglib/e-tim/download/Bigman_Kol%20BIsha%20_translation-FINAL.doc&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDEZOJgS&gt;.)
2c) Cyberdov: Life in Riverdale, NY (Blog), 4 August 2008. <http://www.dovweinstock.com/blog/kol-beisha-erva-english&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDENpfDi&gt;.)
(The Torah in Motion and Cyberdov editions have fuller footnotes than the Jewish Ideas edition.)

Breuer, Mordechai. Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany, trans. Elizabeth Petuchowski from Jüdische Orthodoxie im Deutschen Reich. Oxford, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.

Broyde, Michael. “Hair Covering and Jewish Law: Biblical and Objective (Dat Moshe) or Rabbinic and Subjective (Dat Yehudit)?” Tradition 42:3, 2009. <http://traditiononline.org/news/_pdfs/0095-0180.pdf&gt; Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDEqZZzK&gt;.)

Chemana, Martine. “Women sing, men listen: Malayalam folksongs of the Cochini, the Jewish Community of Kerala, in India and in Israel,” trans. from “Les femmes chantent, les hommes écoutent. Chants en malayalam (pattu-kal) des Kochini, communautés juives du Kerala, en Inde et en Israël,” in Bulletin du Centre de recherche français de Jérusalem, November 2002. English: <http://bcrfj.revues.org/index942.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDEyqa90&gt;.) French: <http://bcrfj.revues.org/index752.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDFSw8NF&gt;.)

Cherney, Ben. “Kol Isha.” JHCS 10, pp. 57–75. <http://www.jofa.org/pdf/Batch%201/0099.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDFMA910&gt;.)

“Cochin Jews.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, page version ID 340155258, last revised 26 January 2010 16:37 UTC. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cochin_Jews&oldid=340376341&gt;

Henkin, Yehuda-Herzl. “Hirhur and Community Norms,” in Equality Lost, Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 1999/5759. <http://bermanshul.org/frimer/SpireBW200_1S021.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDFozhSx&gt;.)

Henkin, Yehuda-Herzl. “Contemporary Tseni’ut”, Tradition 37:3, 2003.

Jachter, Howard. “The Parameters of Kol Isha.” Rabbi Jachter's Halacha Files (and other Halachic compositions): A Student Publication of the Isaac and Mara Benmergui Torah Academy of Bergen County. <http://www.koltorah.org/ravj/The%20Parameters%20of%20Kol%20Isha.htm&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDFwVBR4&gt;.)

Johnson, Barbara C. “Cochin: Jewish Women's Music.” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cochin-jewish-womens-music&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDG5jhqu&gt;.)

Pradeep, K. “Musical Heritage,” The Hindu (“Online edition of India's National Newspaper”), 15 May 2005. <http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2005/05/15/stories/2005051500300400.htm&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDGDaI4s&gt;.)

Shammah, Avraham,
1) Article in Kolekh. 16 January, 2007 <http://www.kolech.org.il/show.asp?id=25318&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDGc9o7G&gt;.)
2) Author's response to criticisms to the first article. Kolekh. 27 January, 2007. <http://www.kolech.org.il/show.asp?id=25484&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDGjN3e9&gt;.)
3) Both of the preceding Hebrew articles are translated together by Debby Koren as “Kol b’Isha with a Current Perspective: A halakhic opinion offered by Rabbi Avraham Shammah.” <http://www.jofa.org/pdf/uploaded/1529-GHKB8620.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDGN2Q9L&gt;.)

Shapiro, Marc. “Another Example of 'Minhag America'.” Judaism, 39:2, 1990, pp. 148-154. <http://www.jofa.org/pdf/Batch%201/0060.pdf&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDGuCCz9&gt;.)

Shapiro, Marc. “Obituary: Professor Mordechai Breuer zt”l.” The Seforim Blog, 11 June 2007. <http://seforim.blogspot.com/2007/06/marc-b-shapiro-obituary-for-prof.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDH2gcZT&gt;.)

Student, Gil. “Sources Regarding Kol Isha.” <http://www.aishdas.org/student/kolisha.html&gt; (Archived 1 Feb 2010 by WebCite® at <http://www.webcitation.org/5nDH7Hi7X&gt;.)

Endnotes:

1.   Precise citations, as well as more thorough discussion, of all these authorities is found in Jachter.  Berman and Cherney also offer detailed discussion of Aharonim.

2. Translation according to Rabbi Bigman.

3. Nearly every recent secondary source on kol ishah discusses Rabbi Weinberg, but the most thorough discussions are in Berman (pp. 63f. on pp. 10f. of the PDF), Cherney (p. 69 on p. 7 of the PDF), Jachter, and Shammah (pp. 5-9).

4. Quoted from Koren's footnote 21 in Rabbi Shammah’s article.

5. See Wikipedia, “Cochin Jews,” s. v. "The Jewish Encyclopedia states,..." In the specific revision of that article cited in this essay (viz. 340155258), that entire paragraph in Wikipedia was written by myself, under the Wikipedia pseudonym “Sevendust62”.

6.Professor Marc Shapiro, “Obituary: Professor Mordechai Breuer zt”l”. 7. For thorough discussion, see especially Henkin, “Hirhur and Community Norms” and idem. “Contemporary Tseni’ut,” sec. “C. The Sugyot in Kiddushin and Sota”, pp. 25ff. Also, Berman (p. 53 on p. 5 of the PDF; n. 89 on p. 62 on p. 10 of the PDF), Cherney (pp. 73f. on pp. 9f. of the PDF), and Shammah (pp. 4f., 11-13.).  

8. Cherney, op. cit.

 9.   Henkin, op. cit. 10. Blau (Jerusalem: 1960), vol. 2, pp. 398-400, no. 224, as cited by Berman (p. 53 on p. 5 of the PDF, p. 56 on p. 7 of the PDF) and Cherney (p. 60 on p. 3 of the PDF), and Bigman (n. 9).

11. Berman (op. cit.) and Cherney (op. cit.).

12.Quoted from Rabbi Bigman.

13.  Cf. Bigman (n. 9) and Shapiro “Another Example of 'Minhag America'” (p. 152 on p. 5 of the PDF) for quotations from the Beit Yosef and Tur (respectively) elaborating on customary concealment and exposure. This principle, of permitting the exposure (and sight) of what is customarily exposed, and prohibiting the exposure of what is customarily concealed, applies throughout the laws of tzniut, as do the principles of hirhur and hana'ah. Cf. n. 15 below on hair-covering.

14. Quoted by Berman (pp. 48f. on p. 3 of the PDF) and Bigman (last two sentences of the lengthy quotation ending with the anchor for n. 28), and paraphrased by the Maharam Alashkar, as quoted in turn by Shammah (p. 11).

15. The approach this entire essay takes on kol isha, could be applied to other areas of tzniut (cf. n. 13 above), including hair-covering, both of married and unmarried women. See Shapiro “Another Example of 'Minhag America'” and Broyde "Hair Covering and Jewish Law." However, the Arukh ha-Shulhan would reject this; see Shapiro (pp. 149-150 on pp. 2-3 of the PDF) and Henkin "Hirhur and Community Norms:" (p. 82 on p. 2 of the PDF). 

16. Cherney, p. 61 on p. 3 of the PDF.

17. Cherney, ibid.

18. Cherney, p. 74 on p. 10 of the PDF. 19. Cf. Berman, bottom p. 53 on p. 5 of the PDF, s.v. “A further fascinating...”; and Shammah p. 4, s.v. “It was my intent...”.

20.Much of Rabbi Weinberg's responsum deals with the personal subjective feelings of women - Rabbi Weinberg ruled leniently largely because he knew the women would be insulted and slighted if he ruled strictly; and Rabbi Shammah devotes particular attention to this aspect of Rabbi Weinberg's responsum. See also Chemana and Johnson, who note that the Cochini Jews were not only lenient in kol isha, but that also, they offered an education to women equal to that availed men.

21. Pf. 62f. on p. 10 of the PDF.

Post-Publication Addendum (4 Feb 2010):

In note 15, I remark that the leniency on kol isha can be applied to
other areas of tzniut, such as hair-covering. I found an additional
reference, an article by Rabbi Irving Greenberg making the same
argument, only in the opposite direction. I.e., the article shows
leniency in hair-covering and applies this to kol isha. Rabbi
Greenberg is also concerned with the dignity of women (cf. n. 20).

Dr. Charlie Hall of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine of Yeshiva
University told me that Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik held that the
prohibition of kol isha applied only in situations that would engender
improper thoughts. Dr. Hall told me that Rabbi Soloveitchik attended
the opera, and considered it to be “advanced culture”, and that far
from being prohibited (for containing kol isha), that its attendance
was actually to be encouraged. He added that Yeshiva University holds
an annual opera fundraiser.

I found that Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff of Yeshiva University gives

as kol isha only "sexual" or "sultry" singing.

Urim and Tumim
We live in times when the demands on intellectual conformity are increasing to the point where to challenge is to offend and to think in an unusual way is to court charges of heresy. This article is an invented midrash that presents uncertainty in a positive rather than a negative light.

One of the challenges in a modern world is how to make sense or find meaning in what look, on the surface to be primitive phenomena in the Torah. The central artifact, the Tabernacle, as described in detail in Exodus, is full of what look like syncretistic devices. The winged cherubs bring to mind the Assyrian winged animals or kings where wings bestow a supernatural quality to the subjects. The intricate and multi layered priestly garments appear to be based on earlier models. Uniquely, the Name of God upon various elements of the High Priest’s dress is what makes them specifically Jewish. And the Urim and Tumim, on his breastplate that were the ancient mechanism for consulting God, look very much like ancient oracles, auspices, lotteries that relied either on looking into entrails or leaves, casting dice or bones or priests or prophets speaking from trances or combining letters.

If we follow Rashi in his commentary on Exodus 31.18 that there is no necessary chronological order to the Torah and building the Tabernacle was a response to the Golden Calf, then it is possible to think of building a sanctuary as a post-factum decision, a response to a perceived need, rather than an a priori necessity. This might be one explanation of the adaptation of other motifs.

And in a similar vein, the phrase ‘the Torah speaks in human language’ as the Talmud says 30 times, or ‘the Torah spoke symbolically’ implies addressing an audience appropriately for its time and in ways that might be accessible appropriately for different intellects and temperaments. Of course one would need to distinguish between a legal instruction and a narrative that is intended to convey value and ideology.

The Divinity of Torah (or its Genius) lies in that it does indeed lend itself to constant re-interpretation and sophisticated ideas as well as very basic ones. But then the challenge is to know what interpretations are authentic and which are not. Different religions, let alone commentators within the same one, can look at a text and learn very different lessons from it. And although we have the principles of Rebbi Yishmael for deducing biblical laws, no such formula exists for confining interpretations of text and Midrash.

No one had more courage than Maimonides in trying to reconcile loyalty to ancient texts with current philosophical rationalism. So when we look at the sacrificial system or the contents of the Tabernacle, we can take a Maimonidean approach that he himself uses in ‘The Guide to the Perplexed’ and say they were temporary artifacts of a transitional stage from paganism to monotheism. Or we can agree with Philo of Alexandria that they were symbols. Amongst our post Talmudic ‘canonical’ texts, no book uses more symbolism or metaphors than the Zohar

It the use of metaphor and language that I want to explore in relation to the Urim and Tumim which as the Midrash says are named for ‘The Lights’ that illuminate that which is ‘Sealed.’ Commentators are divided as to how they actually worked. Hardly surprising since they disappeared during the First Temple times and were never replaced.

The Urim and the Tumim in public.

In Exodus 28 where the priestly clothes are described it says simply that “Aaron shall bear the names of the people of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, when he goes in to the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually. And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment, the Urim and the Tumim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before the Lord and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. And you shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue.”

On the face of it the Urim and Tumim seem to be the Twelve Stones mentioned specifically as inserted into the breastplate the ‘Choshen Mishpat’, the ‘breastplate of judgment’ and inscribed with the names of the tribes. They were worn over the Ephod, the outer gown that the priests wore.

Leviticus 8.8 says “And he put the breastplate on him; also he put on the breastplate the Urim and the Tumim.” The Urim and Tumim are placed on top or in the breastplate and indeed the breastplate was designed to have a fold. This is why some commentators think the Urim were some document placed within the breastplate.

Under what circumstances are they consulted? In Numbers 27.18“And the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is spirit, and lay your hand upon him; And set him before Elazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight. And you shall put some of your honor upon him, that all the congregation of the people of Israel may be obedient. And he shall stand before Elazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him according to the judgment of Urim before the Lord; at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the people of Israel with him, all the congregation.”

Moses does not appear to have had need of the Urim for he was in direct contact with God. But Joshua, the succeeding ‘secular’ leader did, and he consulted the oracle through the Priests.

The Urim are mentioned in passing by Moses on his deathbed as the mark of piety in the priesthood. And Samuel adds the Urim to a list of ways of Divine communication in addition to dreams and prophets.

In 1 Samuel 33.8 Kind David consults the High Priest and asks him to consult the Ephod. But why does the text imply it is the Ephod that needs consulting? Unless focusing specifically on the ephod is simply a way of describing the ‘fully equipped’ High Priest. When David much earlier, escaping Saul, visited the priests’ city of Nov and asked for food and weapons he is referred to the sword hidden behind the Ephod 1 Samuel 21 10. So the Ephod in David’s time seemed to be more than just a tunic.

This is all we have from the Bible apart from Ezra and Nehemiah’ desire to see the Urim reinstated. But in fact they never were. No wonder the later commentaries are so varied. In the Talmud the tradition was that a request would be submitted, such as ‘should we go to war’ ( Yoma 73b) and letters would light up giving the response which only the High Priest could decipher and according to tradition sometimes got wrong. The Talmud also suggests the etymological significance as Urim, lighting the way through the correct advice and Tumim, the completion of the Process. It is the Zohar that characteristically suggests a Male Female duality in the two words and associates them with the creation.

The Urim and Tumim in private.

There is altogether a very different dimension to the Urim and Tumim. Judaism, in common with many other traditions, contains the comparison, contrast and duality between public and private. There have always been the public spaces, Sinai, the Tabernacle, the Temple and the Synagogue. They stand for and emphasize the significance of and responsibility for community and people. Public is of course the opposite of private, the opposite of the personal. Yet at the core of religion is the personal encounter with God, the entirely subjective experience of God, according to mystics and intellectual recognition according to the rationalists. There exists constant tension between the two, the need for privacy and the need for the public and Torah requires us to do both and find time for both.

In Deuteronomy 33.8 Moses in his farewell speech turns to the tribe of Levi and says “ Your Tumim and your Urim are the sign of ( or help you become) a pious person.” This, in common with much of the last statements of Moses is poetry and contains a message that is not a legal one. In analyzing the qualities of the different tribes Moses, like Jacob before him, looks for a crucial characteristic for better or for worse that both defines the tribe and represents either a positive or a negative feature of the people in general.

Levi here of course includes the Priests as well as the Levites but notice too the inversion. Here the Tumim come before the Urim. The character of simplicity, goodness, Tam as used of Yaakov, is the inherited quality but it needs to be qualifies by the light of understanding. This balance between the passion of Pinchas and the sober responsibility of inherited Priesthood is a reiterated theme going back to the Rape of Dinah and Yaakov’s declaration that Shimon and Levi have to be separated ( Genesis 49.5). The Urim and Tumim therefore become symbols of ‘civilization’ of reining in unbridled passion and channeling it into kindness, mercy and consideration which should (in theory of course, it rarely was in reality) the ideal of the priest and the communal leader. On a personal as well as a communal level, the Urim and Tumim were designed to show the right way to live, to resolve conflicts and bring about resolution.

The unspecified nature of the Urim and the fact of their disappearance so early in the history of the Judaism, lent them a certain romantic aura. But if Judaism has survived for so long without them, the interesting question is what they came to signify in the religious tradition. And there is surprisingly little written about them.

The idea that one seeks, looks for resolution can be taken to be a command to conform, obey and suppress. But it can equally be an obligation to search, to discover and if possible to resolve. Is resolution the ideal state? To help clarify this problem I suggest we can make a connection between another well-known and obscure pair, Tohu VaVohu in Genesis 1.

Tohu Vavohu

At first sound Tohu seems to mirror Tumim. But whereas Tumim resonates with completion, Tohu is closer to ‘lost’ or ‘uncertain.’ Yet there is symmetry in the pairs of words. Urim, meaning light or enlightenment leads to the resolution or completion of a question or course of action, Tumim. Tohu also implies confusion, uncertainty that may eventually be resolved through something internal; Vohu can be inverted to read Hu Bo, 'It is in it.' Chaos has the means within it of being turned into constructive matter. This reversal of letters is a common device used in rabbinic literature. For example the letters of Shamayim, ‘Heavens’ are divided to read sham mayim, there is water ( Chagigah ch.12a) or in the Zohar they are juxtaposed to read Miy or Mah Sham, Who or what is there. On the other hand Vohu (Hu VO) implies there is something there. In both cases there uncertainty leads to resolution.

What is more, the main reference to Tohu VaVohu in the Talmud comes in tractate Chagigah which of course is the tractate that devotes most space to mysticism including the famous adventure of the four rabbis in the ‘Orchard.’
“Rab Judah further said that Rab said: Ten things were created the first day, and they are as follows: heaven and earth, Tohu [chaos], Vohu [desolation], light and darkness, wind and water, the measure of day and the measure of night.

Heaven and earth, for it is written: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Tohu and Vohu, for it is written: And the earth was Tohu and Bohu. Light and darkness: darkness, for it is written: And darkness was upon the face of the deep; light, for it is written: And God said, Let there be light. Wind and water, for it is written: And the wind of God hovered over the face of the waters. The measure of day and the measure of night, for it is written: And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

It is taught: Tohu is a green line that encompasses the whole world, out of which darkness proceeds, for it is said: He made darkness His hiding-place round about Him. Bohu, this means the slimy stones that are sunk in the deep, out of which the waters proceed, for it is said: And he shall stretch over it the line of confusion [Tohu] and the plummet of emptiness.” Chagigah 12a

The essential characteristic of a mystical approach is that objects in the material world are not as they seem. Hence of course Rebi Akivah’s advice in Chagigah 14b to the other three explorers of the Pardess, not to say that the pure marble stones were water. Appearances are deceptive. In other words Tohu VaVohu can be considered a mystical element as much as a physical one.

Chaos is in effect a necessary stage in the process of achieving order and content. In Genesis 37.15 Joseph, looking for his brothers, seeking direction, is lost in the field ‘ToEh basadeh’ when a man, or rather as Rashi suggests, an angel, directs him to his fate. Although it is not etymologically correct to make any association between ‘Toeh’ and ‘Tohu’ because Tohu is spelt with a Tav, Hey, Vav whereas Toeh is a Tav, an Ayin and a Hey, still there is an unmistakable association of sounds that would strike one living in an oral world. As in Exodus 23 with the obligation to return a stray animal, the word Toeh does not really translate lost so much as confused. Joseph is led from a state of confusion to one of resolution even if in the short term it seems to his detriment, as he himself says much later, “What you thought would turn out badly, God intended for good.”I can think of no clearer a statement that God’s way of looking at mankind and His plan for it, is unique and not necessarily in accordance with human thought processes. When we consult a Divine oracle it is precisely to seek a resolution that escapes us humans. The chaos of the world in its early stages, with uncertainty as to how it will develop is mirrored in the state that exists before we consult the Urim and Tumim.

The Tabernacle

The Tabernacle, the Mishkan, is another example of the Hidden and the Revealed. If God is everywhere what is the point of suggesting that He dwells in one specific place, even if that place is constantly on the move? And why is the Tabernacle divided up into three spaces, where everyone can go, where only priests can go and where only the High Priest can go? There are well known themes that several Jewish and non-Jewish commentators have pointed out relating both to the symmetry between the spaces on Noah’s Ark and the Tabernacle and more relevantly the levels on Sinai , Moses at the top, the Priests and the Elders in the Middle and the people at the foot. Mary Douglas ( Leviticus as Literature) also points out the parallel of how the animal parts of sacrifices are placed on the altar.

The importance of the curtains as indicators of Holy Space and the ‘space’ around and in the Holy of Holies signify space open and space closed, space accessible and space inaccessible. What appears to the naked human eye is superficial and not spiritual reality. The priests perform sacrifices as mediators between the people and God but priests are not always right (as in the case of Nadav and Avihu and later Eli’s family). Indeed the history of the Jewish people is proof if needed that humans no matter what their level of holy service or apparent dedication to religious ideals, consistently fail to live up to them on a personal level and equally, make the wrong decisions for the people.

The message that the Mishkan is giving seems to me to be twofold. God is indeed everywhere and nowhere specifically. This no doubt is why later the rabbis chose to use the term MAKOM, a place, everyplace, to describe God once the association with the Land had been interrupted. It is possible also why they preferred to use Ribbono Shel Olam ( Master of the Universe) and Hakadosh Baruch Hu ( the Holy One Blessed is He) precisely because of their universalism and also I should add to compensate for the exile of God and the loss of His Holy Name after the Temple was destroyed and High priests killed.

The Mishkan in the desert was also graced by the presence of the Pillar of Fire and the Pillar of Cloud. It was the visible presence, even if symbolically, of God that Moses required of God after the Golden Calf episode as the condition of his continuing to lead the people. But that presence did not guarantee that the people would respond correctly or appropriately. All the outward manifestations of God fail to achieve the desired goal.

The Mishkan symbolizes the failure of humans to understand the appropriate relationship. The same must be said for the Urim and Tumim. Anything that passes through the human mind is in danger of being distorted.

We humans seem to need and like certainty. It is I believe a natural weakness and the more complex and stressful life becomes the more we require stability and familiarity as well as needing quasi-parental security. But over time a new feature emerged to replace the Mishkan and then the Temple and that was study, derisha. Study required questioning and dialectic. Study required asking ‘Questions’ and sometimes leaving things unresolved, ‘Teyku.’

The antithesis of the human attempt to resolve uncertainty intellectually is ‘luck.’ Luck resolves, explains in ways we cannot understand and absolves us from eve trying. But that is a subject for another occasion.

Conclusion

In every aspect of Jewish thought and experience, under the overarching Unity of God, there is constructive dualism , Rational and Mystical, Priest and Prophet, God of a people and God of the Universe, Holy Land and the Globe, Holy( restricted) space and popular space, National and International, Male and Female, Human and Animal. This is most developed conceptually in the mystical idea of the Sefirot. Dualism provides options but also offers uncertainty.
The Urim and Tumim are the attempt to provide certainty in a world of Tohu VaVohu that can only be resolved by the direct relationship between Humans and God. In the early biblical period the function of the oracle was a necessary transition from the Pagan to the Monotheistic. In the end history, so to speak, decides what is effective and what is not, what remains in practice and what does not. Whereas the halachic process provides the human systemic way of progressing (Lo BaShamayim Hee, Not in Heaven ) to meet new circumstances, so history, Divine Intervention, such as the Exodus or the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temples, offers a different way forward. This explains the disappearance of Tohu VaVohu as much as the disappearance of the Urim and Tumim. Yet the narrative needs to remind us that ‘chaos’ and ‘confusion’ are indeed part of the Divinely ordained world we inhabit and trying to find certainty, predictions and forecasts instead of simply following the behavioral directions, might not be the way God wants us to live. Exploring the universe and the world of ideas is altogether a different matter. As the Mishnah in Chagigah also asserts, it may not be for everyone but it is the most legitimate way of progressing.

Review
By Israel Drazin

Maimonides
Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith & Ethics
The Book of Knowledge & the Thirteen Principles of Faith
Annotated & Explained
By Rabbi Marc D. Angel, PhD
Skylight Illuminations, 2012, 177 pages

There are divergent interpretations of the brilliant sage Moses Maimonides (1138-1204). Some scholars, such as Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago, are convinced that Maimonides wrote for two audiences, intellectuals and the general population, and that he frequently hid his true views from the non-intellectuals, convinced that the more philosophically-minded could mine what he wrote and understand what he really thought. Others, such as Menachem Kellner of the University of Haifa, believe that this is not true. Maimonides meant what he wrote and did not hide ideas so as not to disturb the common people or say things just to make people feel better. Rabbi Marc Angel, the founder and director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals (jewishideas.org) takes the latter approach and presents it well.

He includes his English translations of texts from Maimonides’ Book of Knowledge and from his famous Thirteen Principles of Judaism. He chose these two sources because they give a clear presentation of Maimonides’ teachings on morality, ethics, Torah study, idolatry, and the principles of Judaism. He places Maimonides’ words on the right side of the book, puts numbers where there are ideas he wants to explain, and he explains them on the left side.

For example, he quotes Maimonides’ teaching about when Jews should give up their lives for Judaism on the right and gives historical examples on the left. Similarly, he mentions Maimonides view that prophets must be philosophers on the right and explains on the left that people do not have to accept his view and gives his opinion why. Also, he quotes Maimonides that righteous people do more than what the law requires and deviate from the middle path on the right and describes the higher standard on the left. His explanations are clear and he frequently refers to other books that help clarify and supplement Maimonides’ thoughts, including other books that Maimonides composed.

Rabbi Angel starts his book with a thirty page introduction that introduces Maimonides, his history, and writings to the reader. He tells readers that Maimonides was both a rabbi and a philosopher, and how he attempted to harmonize these two worldviews. He describes the Book of Knowledge and the Thirteen Principles. He points out that Maimonides insisted that religion must have a sound intellectual foundation. “His approach (to religion) allows a person (of every religion) to be religious without turning off his or her brain.” He tells readers that Maimonides emphasized knowledge of God, rather than simple belief in God.

Rabbi Angel informs us that Maimonides felt strongly that there is no ontological distinction between Jews and other human beings; humans are humans. The Torah emphasizes this message when it states 36 times that we should love the stranger. Non-Jews know things Jews don’t know and everyone should learn from everyone else; the truth is the truth no matter what its source. One cannot be a true Torah scholar without deriving wisdom from all sources. Righteous non-Jews have a place in the world to come.

The book is filled with Rabbi Angel’s insightful interpretation of Maimonides and this great sage’s important teachings, such as the following: Maimonides believed in miracles, “but God does so very rarely.” People should not be ascetic, such as fasting when not required to do so. Contrary to the thinking of some ultra-Orthodox, Maimonides stressed that Torah scholars should work for a living and not depend on the charity of others.

In summary, readers will gain much by reading this book because Maimonides was the greatest sage since the biblical Moses and Rabbi Angel gives us a good explanation of his views.

Rabbi Marc D. Angel has come out with a new book, published by Skylight Illuminations, a division of Jewish Lights Publishers. Entitled: "Maimonides: Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith and Ethics," the book includes an introduction to Maimonides' religious philosophy; an English translation of most of Maimonides' Book of Knowledge and his 13 Principles of Faith; and a running commentary by Rabbi Angel. This book allows the reader not only to learn about Maimonides, but to study his essential teachings in his own words (translated into English).

The book is available through the online store at jewishideas.org Bulk rates are available by contacting [email protected] The book is valuable not only for personal study, but for group discussions and adult education classes.

In this accessible examination of Maimonides’s theological and philosophical teachings, Rabbi Angel opens up for us Maimonides’ views on the nature of God, providence, prophecy, free will, human nature, repentance and more. He explores basic concepts of faith that Maimonides posits must serve as the basis for proper religious life. He also examines Maimonides’ insights on reward and punishment, messianic days, the world to come and other tenets of Jewish faith.

“An invaluable new translation ... a valuable overview of Maimonides’s theological thought [and] a very helpful, lucid commentary that makes the work accessible.”
—Dr. Howard Wettstein, editor, Midwest Studies in Philosophy; professor of philosophy, University of California

"Accessible and authoritative....Gracefully traces the contours of Maimonides' attempt to liberate Judaism from particularism and obscurantism. A wonderful and refreshing achievement."
--Dr. Menachem Kellner, Department of Jewish History and Thought, University of Haifa

I cannot sing this place.

I stand on ash, balance
on the platform. The audience of ten
faces, hollow and ghostly, urges—
Try not to fall into those earthen jaws,
moats of dust mixed with rain.
Looking into the deep troughs, dizzy
from time-induced nausea, I think
of that lullaby, Sleep, sleep,
one day you will have raisins and almonds.

I try to make a song here.

The air drips with inky streaks,
bus fumes and burnt hair.
Charred scrawls on the station
wall condemn me to death,
Stars of David replace Xs, cross
out hearts, point to the letters in Polish,
need no translation: Gas the Jews.
I want to scream old songs, erase
these coal marks that smudge, but do not fade.

My voice is no vandal.

One small voice: I hate
the green narrow barracks
These icy beds, cracked,
gravel under boots. Bones
ache, thinking of boots,
and breaking bodies.
Bald and fleshless,
song keeps me human.

And another: Labor
at poems—no ink, no scraps of paper
bags, cardboard packaging. Try
to sing my words, help commit
them to memory. Others make simple
tunes, children's nighttime songs. I do not
want to lose my words. I cannot
lose them. They are all I own.

I do not always remember.

A raspy once-tenor: The tattoo on my
arm wrinkles as my body fades. I
listen to folk songs, rock
to jagged breathing. My fellow men,
dying, sing German songs with
dulcet words. They chant as though still
in taverns, men with real clothes,
reeking of ale-splotched wool.
Their songs transport me
to another town, to a place where one
need not stumble onto a crowded train
with suffocating grandmothers.

When I try the first note, my throat constricts,
closes around a small D.

And a voice like a tin bell: I drew a picture
yesterday, with two pieces of colored
wax. I snuck them in here, and
a few envelopes, and I drew a bird
with long feathers and lots of corn to eat.
I was told that if those men
find my envelope-bird they will take it
away. I have no pockets to hide, I want
to put it on the wall, by my splintery bunk,
where women sometimes sneak to tell stories and
sing quiet songs. My favorite one
is about a white goat that eats almonds.
My bird would like to eat almonds, too.

No lullaby is needed here, I think.
Everything already sleeps.
I am alone with my family of ghosts,
ready to sing to them:
Rozhinkes mit mandlen, shlof, shlof.
But the words are foreign.

(How can I sing these words?)

I grab the gnarled black fence,
rusted and thick. I do not care
that this border is sharp, I just want
to sing, to have a soft note leave
my body, some small solace—
a salve of words to cover these
bitter marks in my palms. Bloody lines,
here an alef, there a jumble
of burning crossroads.

And still my scarred throat demands:
Where is the song?

I.

A fellow art student—we’ll call him Tal—once described to me how it felt to wear a skirt for the first time—jubilant, liberated, correct, and uncomfortable. The skirt exposed a deep truth; but even as he felt whole, wearing a skirt meant sacrificing the convenient comportment he had once used as a shield. Since he had always been an unassuming person, the stares took some getting used to. Tal worried that wearing a skirt was overly flamboyant; he didn’t want to be a drag queen, he just wanted to be a gay man who wore a skirt. His conclusion, and I have thought of this often, was that joyously idiosyncratic behavior is almost always viewed as extravagant, whether it presents as a man wearing a skirt or a woman wearing a headscarf.

All this poured forth from Tal as we sat in a studio waiting for the model, spiderlike, to refold her limbs for the next pose. We were the only two in the class wearing skirts. Tal’s commitment to joyous idiosyncrasy lent his demeanor a peace I envied. I longed to feel as at ease in my skirt as he, his hairy leg propped up on the orange bucket of a plastic chair, apparently did in his. But I’m still coming out to the art world as Orthodox, and to the Orthodox world as an artist. So, on that particular day, I did not wear my skirt with aplomb.

I have failed to find a comfortable home for myself at the intersection of contemporary art and Modern Orthodoxy. Perhaps someday I’ll easily inhabit both realms, but most days I feel like a barely viable chimera. Until recently, I have kept art and religion as separate as milchigs and fleishigs. But in the past year, I have become involved in the Jewish Art Salon of New York and Jewish Art Now. Hesitantly, I look around and I see pockets of religious Jews, more hopeful than I, who desire a place for art within Orthodox life.

If they endeavor to carve out such a space, they may encounter some of the tensions I outline below. Or not. The challenges I list presuppose an orientation toward contemporary, secular, and liberal art, and there exist other art forms—beautiful ritual objects, folk traditions, and meaningful illustrations—that integrate with Orthodoxy far more readily. Further, these challenges only exist if the Orthodox world wishes to co-opt my work. I make no claims about the inherent Jewishness or Torah value within the product, process, or audience of my art. While I can try to convey the foundation for my work and the cultural prerequisites for its production, ultimately, the Orthodox community arbitrates which types of art they value.

II.

As an artist, my aim is fidelity to the thickness of experience, experience being the sine qua non of art making. Watching a pink towel flutter or a carp gasp for breath in the market can serve as the kernel for a piece, or the impetus can be something more dramatic, like driving through Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Inspiration depends only secondarily upon the material and primarily upon one’s mindset during the encounter. Now, I am too much of a structuralist to wait around for transcendent or ineffable experience. Although I despair of escape from Barthes’ ubiquitous web of meanings, I concede that one might bounce above that web briefly, like the kid who becomes momentarily airborne while jumping on his trampoline on shabbos afternoon. While aloft, the readjusted lens of perception renders anew the subject of encounter. One always returns to earth, but if you are an artist or a poet, you get pretty decent hang time.
I refer to these episodes as “getting hit” because they have a passive quality, and because they are often violent in their power. Salvatore Quasimodo wrote a few lines that capture the quality these experiences brilliantly:

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
Traffito da un raggio di sole:
Ed e subito sera.

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world
Pierced by a ray of sunlight,
And suddenly
It is evening.

The heart of the world represents the territory trodden most regularly by humanity, falling in love, giving birth, or simply watching a pink towel fly from an open window. People pass back and forth over essentially the same experiences, yet, paradoxically, they stand alone. The bounds of sense swell in reaction to being pierced, or hit. When that occurs there is a constriction of all but the subject of experience. Then the ray of sunlight. As a painter, I prefer to think of this not as an epistemological metaphor, but as a sharpening of the senses. “And suddenly it is evening.” One returns to the mundane, which is the matrix but not the location of this event, and finds it dim.

Frequently, but not necessarily, these episodes are correlated with states no polite religion condones, like drunkenness, lustfulness, shock, anger, or mania. Whatever else one might say about them, these states sometimes help launch the artist away from his demons: the verbal, the propositional, the prosaic, the linear, and the assumed. To the extent that Orthodoxy deifies these modalities, it becomes hostile territory for art making.

The Orthodoxy I know is fairly risk-averse, favoring replicable, consistent behaviors over sensual experience, which is neither predictable nor controllable. To be risk-averse is prudent when sin is the price of a bad gamble and, in light of the concept of commanded-ness, replicable behaviors make good sense. Unfortunately, being risk-averse is not a great way to approach art, and predictability does not tend to foster the seed experiences that produce art. However, once that seed experience is had and the artist sits down to draw or paint or sculpt, Orthodox culture dovetails rather nicely studio practice. The sense of personal responsibility for and dogged pursuit of meaning that Twyla Tharp describes in “The Creative Habit” is one of my favorite characteristics of religious life.

I do not believe that religious and artistic truths are fundamentally at odds. Although religious text might structure some experiences, there remain broad tracts of lived meaning that I have never heard a Jewish text or voice address. Torah does not usually answer questions such as, what did it feel like to give birth? (Not what should you feel like, but what did you feel like?) Or: why does a red wheelbarrow standing in the rain make me feel both full and empty? Or: what is the quality of this widower’s pain? Or: how do I experience space, fantasy, memory, fur, lust, displacement, meat, or glee? Torah may dictate that we experience this meat and not that one, but it is silent on the topic of the meat’s redness. All these are phenomenological questions and narrative truths that religion does not address and, perhaps, cannot answer.
The artist, however, does ask these questions and, while chipping, gouging, and shaping, he must continually recall the seed experience until it instantiates as form. As Dewey wrote, “while that initial thing is certainly experiences, it is not experiences in such a way as to be composed into experience.” To that end, the artist must spend long nights at the drafting table. The painting or sculpture she creates in the slow after burn of inspiration is the best answer to a question like, “how do I experience space?”

III.

I asked a student of mine, a talented painter from a kollel family, why she thought painting and frumkeit were compatible. She answered that learning something of perceptual painting gave her self-confidence and cultivated her appreciation of Hashem’s physical creation, so, nu, what was the problem? This is a legitimate, and quite beautiful, way to combine art and piety. But I remain dissatisfied with this answer because it treats art as therapy. What is the distinction between art as therapy and art as aesthetic experience? Audience. Art does not blossom into aesthetic meaning until someone other than the artist sees it. As John Dewey puts it, “expression is not merely a process of discharging personal emotion. It is a rhetorical stance, a technical stance.” And for a rhetorical stance, one needs an audience.

The scarcity of Orthodox gallery-goers hinders the cultivation of an Orthodox aesthetic culture at least as much as the dearth of Orthodox artists does. Capturing an audience requires compromise and subtly, the essence of rhetoric. For the sake of an observant audience, one might refrain from unnecessarily crass imagery. For the sake of a broader audience, one might abstract cultural particulars.

Sad to say, I have run up against this “audience problem.” I make paintings that are walls, not windows. This concept stands in counterpoint to the art historical notion of perspective as a metaphor for infinite space. My idea is not a purely “Jewish idea” anymore than Alberti’s original description of drawings as windows is not an unalloyed “Christian idea.” Even so, this formal concept has deep roots in my experience as an Orthodox Jewish woman, specifically in feelings of claustrophobia and containment. After getting married, but before the birth of my daughter, I made a drawing based on an old class portrait. While working through these drawings, I discovered that the neurotic repetition of childish faces reflected my ambiguous feelings about motherhood; these faces were hypnotic and compelling even as they overwhelmed me.

The first private creative space I ever had was my graduate school studio; dark perhaps, but utterly precious—Woolf’s paradigmatic room of one’s own. This cubbyhole became ground zero in my fight to protect the space for intense art-making. Within, I drew an infestation of the almost-children who threatened the boundaries of my creative practice. The work showed nationally and won a major prize, but more than one critic complained that the work was irrelevant because the art world had dealt—apparently conclusively—with these “women’s issues” 30 years ago. Within the contemporary art world, visual art emanating from a life predicated on a non-liberal religious tradition is almost impossible to pull off.

I regrouped and tried another version of this project. My original problem was partially one of audience. Few, if any Orthodox Jews saw the work, and secular gallery goers on whole could not relate to the experience of having limited access to birth control. My solution to the first half of this problem was to abstract. Instead of speaking about the commandment to procreate, I spoke of threatened interiority. Gaston Bachelard description of the process of abstraction is more eloquent and precise than I could ever be. While he speaks of language, his concept also applies to painting:

Words—are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in foreign commerce on the same level as the others as the passer-by who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house, is to withdraw, step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an etymology, looking for treasures. To mount and descend in the words themselves—this is a poet’s life. To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together.

Bachelard’s poet employs registers where looser bonds obtain between signified and signifier. The downside to abstraction as a rhetorical tool is that the piece often loses emotional and political urgency. In the case of this project, abstraction only solved half the problem. Although the second, abstracted, version of my project was more accessible to a secular audience, still, few observant Jews saw the work.

IV.

The first step toward making art and Orthodoxy friendly is to clearly demarcate the boundaries between phenomenology, the realm of art, and ethics and ontology, the territory of religion. Once we have avoided a turf dispute, there remains the issue of risk-taking behaviors and the cultural value of experience. But an even bigger source of friction is the texture, not the authority, of religious truth. Modern Orthodoxy imagines revelation as mainly proscriptive, rather than descriptive, logical rather than evocative, cerebral rather than sensual. From the Orthodox vantage point, then, so too must all truths be. This cultural bias does not welcome my particular brand of art making.

Finally, there is the problem of audience. From the standpoint of contemporary art, audience is key. Because the Orthodox audience for art is small, there is only a very limited possibility that a sculpture or painting will significantly impact the religious mind.

Some of these problems are potential fixable, but there are so many, and some of them are ponderously deep. I remain somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of a vital art scene welling up from within the Orthodox world. And yet, I’m not going to stop being an artist and I’m not going to stop being Orthodox. I might just have to ignore some of these obstacles, while trying to solve some and waiting for the cultural climate to change. In the meantime, I will focus on being joyously idiosyncratic.

Would you like to study Torah with a Rabbi who has mastery over the text, depth of understanding, and breadth of knowledge? Do you want a teacher who not only is steeped in classic rabbinic interpretation, but who is aware of and sensitive to the literary features of the text, the relationships of Torah narratives with ancient stories of the Near East, insights of modern biblical scholarship?

All of us should want such a Rabbi and Teacher of Torah.

We have such a Rabbi and Teacher of Torah: Rabbi Moshe Shamah.

Rabbi Shamah is a remarkable man and a remarkable scholar. He has been serving for many years as Rabbi of a Sephardic Congregation in the Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn. Over the years, he has taught and written about the Torah texts, and has engaged in lively conversations on the various interpretations of the words of the Torah. A close disciple of the late Rabbi Solomon D. Sassoon, Rabbi Shamah has learned from his teacher to study the Torah text with great care and exactitude, patiently extracting meanings that most readers would miss.

Rabbi Shamah has published a monumental commentary on the Torah: “Recalling the Covenant: A Contemporary Commentary on the Five Books of the Torah,” (Ktav Publishing House in association with the Sephardic Institute and Tebah Educational Services). This commentary takes the reader, patiently and thoughtfully, through the texts of the Torah. In its over 1000 pages, it reminds us of things we always knew (or always should have known!); and it opens new channels of information and interpretation that awaken our own intellectual faculties.

This is not a book that one could (or should) read in one quick sitting. Rather, it is a volume to be studied slowly and carefully; we need to imagine ourselves as students in Rabbi Shamah’s synagogue, listening carefully to his explanations and his methods of text analysis. Indeed, as we read his book, we feel that we can hear his voice—the book is a fine reflection of his style of communicating ideas.

This is a book to own. One shouldn’t buy it and then place it on the bookshelf. Rather, one should keep the book handy and study it week by week, reading the comments on each weekly Torah portion.

A RECEPTION IN HONOR OF RABBI SHAMAH AND HIS NEW TORAH COMMENTARY WILL BE HELD ON TUESDAY NIGHT, DECEMBER 13, AT 7 P.M., AT CONGREGATION SHEARITH ISRAEL, 2 WEST 70TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. COPIES OF THE BOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE.

THIS PROGRAM IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

“All who are thirsty: come for water…”

—Isaiah 55:1

As a poet, I am often asked to explain poetry. Webster’s defines it as 1. the art or works of a poet, and 2. writing in metrical verse.[1] Although this may be true, it is like trying to define Torah as a book of sacred writing. Such definitions do not do justice to either poetry or Torah. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defines poetry as “best words, best order.” To paraphrase Yvor Winters, a poem is a statement in words about a human experience with particular attention paid to the emotional connotations of language. Edward Hirsch, in Poet’s Choice, says that “poetry puts us in touch with ourselves. It sends us messages from the interior and also connects us to others. It is intimate and secretive; it is generously collective.”[2] Robert Frost asserts that “like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”[3] And poetry is as simple and difficult as that.

We don’t speak poetry in our daily lives. Poetry is manipulated language. The poet leads the reader. The word choice, the resonance(s) each word conjures, the line and stanza breaks, whether the poem is written as formal or free verse, and how much information the poet chooses to reveal all go into making a poem.

In Passwords – Teaching Wislawa Szymborska: In Praise of the “I Don’t Know,” Sarah McCarthy writes,

Wislawa Szymborska believes poets pursue truth by engaging in what she calls the continuous and unutterable, ‘I don’t know.’ In her Nobel Prize speech, Szymborska declared, ‘Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was absolutely inadequate.’ According to Szymborska this declaration of uncertainty ‘expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended.’ In this, she joins a long tradition of poets who engaged in what Keats called negative capability, or the state ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ For students, this can be terrifyingly difficult to grasp. In fact, it can be so overwhelming that teachers, writers, and students alike prefer not to acknowledge it at all. We rarely teach our students to embrace what they don’t know.[4]

As soon as I’ve completed one poem and start the next, I do feel “wholly inadequate.” I have nothing to say. I have no faith in my writing, in my abilities. But once I allow myself to write something, anything, I begin to be filled with wonder, and that allows me to keep finding out what I don’t know and to keep writing. If, at the beginning of a poem, I know exactly where I am going, exactly what the poem should be, there is no discovery, nothing to be learned.

I am not equating poetry with Torah, but I think my writing and studying poetry is much the same as studying Torah. Torah is so vast, has so much to show us, that a lifetime of study would not yield all it has to teach. “Just as water stretches from one end of the world to the other, as it says, ‘To him that spread forth the earth above the waters’ (Psalms 136:6), so the Torah goes from one end of the world to the other, as it says, ‘The measure thereof is longer than the earth’ (Job 11:9). Just as water is a source of life for the world, as it says, ‘A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters’ (Song of Songs 4:15), so the Torah is a source of life for the world…” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah, 1:19).  

Poetry, using metaphor and a variety of other literary techniques, gives the reader more than one way to view the text. Torah, with its seventy faces, gives us the opportunity to view the text from many different angles and points of view. Poetry and Torah employ some of the same literary techniques. They both invite us in, invite us to have that initial reading (p’shat) and then call us to dig deeper, to explore, and learn more (d’rash). Poetry has many definitions and so does Torah. Good poetry shows and doesn’t tell. Torah, even when it seems to tell, shows.

Martha Collins, in an interview in The Writer’s Chronicle, states “I’m from a family of musicians; I played piano and violin. But I hated to practice because I could always hear in my mind what I was supposed to be playing before I could play it. That was not interesting to me. What I discovered when I began writing poetry—unlike a term paper where you plan and then write it, unlike a sonata where you know what it sounds like before you can play it—was that I never knew what was going to happen when I started. That was exciting.”[5]

“Just as water is from heaven, as it says, ‘At the sound of His giving, a multitude of waters in the heavens’ (Jeremiah 10:13), so the Torah is from heaven….Just as [the downpour of] water is accompanied by loud thunderings, as it says, ‘The voice of the Lord is upon the waters’ (Psalms 24:3), so the Torah was given with loud thundering…” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:19). When I study Torah, I try to keep in mind that all I know is that Torah, like water, is a source of life and I don’t know what will happen, what I will discover. What an amazing gift Torah gives me—it folds and unfolds like origami before me and invites me to see more and more each time I engage with the text. Martha Collins continues, “I really believe that poetry is a dialogue between oneself and the poem….For me, it’s the poem on the page–it’s talking to me and I’m talking to it.”[6] There are times when Torah comes to me with loud thunder, and I have moments of great clarity and think I definitely understand, but mostly I have these quiet moments, ice melting slowly on the page, that elucidate a word or if I am lucky, a pasuk. Torah is talking to me, and I am talking to it.

In her essay “The Pen Has Become the Character: How Creative Writing Creates Us,” Sarah Porter writes,

To be a writer means, perhaps, exactly this: surrendering the defined, expressible self to the wider possibilities of the page. It means giving up the belief that you know who you are, in exchange for a chance at discovering who you are, again and again; after all, the self that jumps up at you from your writing might exceed anything you had previously imagined. For me, and I believe for most other writers, the exhilaration of writing comes exactly when the words pick me up and carry me with a will of their own: when I look back, dizzy with momentum, and can hardly believe that I’m the one who wrote the lines I’m reading….By giving us a new perspective on ourselves, a new point of view, the words we read are helping to create us: they promise to make us bigger, freer, more authentic human beings: What could be more truly loving than that?[7]

If I keep this in mind when I write, how much more so should I keep it in mind when studying Torah. Torah gives me the opportunity to discover myself over and over again, to be dizzy with momentum from wrestling with the text, to gain new points of view, to grow in ways I had not previously imagined.

Netziv says in Ha'amek Davar, his commentary on the Torah, poetry is not simply characterized by meter, rhyme, alliteration, etc. The essence of poetry is that it contains many deeper allusions packed into fewer, more powerful words. One who treats poetry as prose will gain only the most superficial understanding of the material, and will not catch all of the allusions that the author intended us to find. Similarly, the Torah contains much depth—one who just understands the basic prose meanings, will miss much of the intended meaning.

My study of Torah has been enhanced by seeing its poetry, and my poetry has been informed by Torah. Torah is sacred, and I believe that all great poetry reaches toward the sacred.

“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” (Christian Wiman).[8] I go to Torah for the same reason. I can still recall the exact moment I knew I wanted to join Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. During the kedushah of Shabbat Musaf, I was listening to the hazzan sing o’me’reem pa’a’mayim b’ahavah. In Ashkenazi services, it is o’m’reem pa’a’mayim b’ahavah shema o’m’reem. The word ahavah, love, carried me into the Shema. Once I heard that shift in the order of the words, the poetry in the prayer, I knew I was in the right place.

Mary Kinzie in A Poet’s Guide to Poetry writes, “The best poems satisfy by surprise, either because they reject something more familiar, or because they teeter on the edge of confusion in knowing something else. Understanding the poem we are reading is a process that moves from ignorance through partial insights to higher levels of understanding.”[9] Torah surprises, it invites and challenges me to live a fuller, more holy life. Poetry gives me another way to live a fuller, more holy life.

When I began this piece, I knew two things: 1. I am committed to Torah and believe poetry has much to teach, and 2. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write. It can be terrifying to be in a place of not knowing—it’s not how many of us are taught to navigate this world. But Torah and poetry are always there, inviting me to teeter at the water’s edge of knowing, of not knowing, and to be open to surprise, mysteries, and doubts, to stay in the not knowing for a while, and to be willing to listen to all Torah and poetry can show me. What could be more truly loving than that?

“It’s strange the way circles hook up with themselves.”

—Bob Dylan, Chronicles, p. 288

I

            When he begins to play we are transported to pre-war Europe, a world all but destroyed by the Nazis—outside, unsuspecting pedestrians are startled by each clear note as they stroll down West 4^th Street. The dilapidated room, holding an American flag and a threadbare parokhet, is filled with Village hipsters, pruriently dressed clubbers, a rag-tag group of local musicians and artists, Doc Marten-wearing bridge and tunnel folks, an NYU professor or two, three yeshiva students from Melbourne on holiday, and a group of curious onlookers who have stumbled in to see just what the sign bearing a blue imprint of a Lubavitcher Hassid beneath the large block letters “BLUEGRASS,” really foretells. Weaving in and out of all these questers, an impish-looking shamash, Herman Lowenharr, sporting a Yechah-style straw hat, carries a frighteningly large bottle of Jim Beam Rye tucked expertly under his right arm. I stand in the Charles Street Synagogue with a large group of West Texans—my students from the University of Texas at El Paso—adding yet another layer to this absurdly cosmopolitan mix of faces crammed into the tiny, well-worn synagogue. The place seems to be on the verge of collapse—until the first note escapes Andy Statman’s clarinet, and then the rickety contraption of a shul comes alive, shedding not just decades, but centuries, from its grimy façade. In that moment, Statman’s clarinet points our motley crew in the direction of the old country and into the future of Jewish imagination. [See Figure 1at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]

II

            For the past decade Andy Statman and the other inspiring musicians in his trio—Larry Eagle on drums and Jim Whitney on bass—have been playing a mixture of traditional Hassidic niggunim, Klezmer, Bluegrass, Jazz, and Country music to ecstatic audiences at the Charles Street Synagogue in the West Village of Manhattan. To hear Statman is to be immersed in the vitality of an imaginative culture that has borrowed and invented from every civilization Jews have called home before their eventual expulsion or murder. Statman’s clarinet is aural cosmopolitanism. Statman is a Lubavitch Hassid, which means he plays with a large black velvet yarmulke perched on his head, his tzitzith elegantly twisted and modestly tucked into his black pants pockets; he sports a trim Lubavitch-style beard above a tightly buttoned white shirt. In contrast, his two band-mates are not Hassidim—they, in fact, are not Jewish, and yet, they too, have imbibed the spirit of the Hassidishe music that they all transcendently play together.

As a great-grandson of the Modzitzer Rebbe, I always wait for the moment when Statman will segue into a Modzitzer niggun as part of his repertoire. This particular evening, on a painfully hot, early summer day in 2010, Statman begins the concert with the plaintive notes of the Modzitzer Rebbe’s niggun for Mizmor L’David—a mournful tune that the Rebbe, my grandfather’s grandfather, titled “The Song of the Homeless” after watching the thousands of refugees streaming through the streets of Radom, Poland[i] during World War I. Looking around the room, it seems as fitting a melodic place as any to begin. To my right is one of my students, who earlier that day uncovered his Jewish grandfather’s difficult immigration history at the Ellis Island museum and confided in me as we waited for the shamash to open the doors to the synagogue, that he couldn’t remember ever having stepped foot in an actual synagogue. Through Statman’s music my students and I, as well as the others in our eclectic group, experience not just a working, living synagogue and tradition, but each of us in attendance becomes a part of the musical tapestry of contemporary Jewish imagination. It is as if Statman himself is a sort of timeless, musical genizah—a repository of thousands of years of history and texts. His musical compositions are the shemos, the many pieces and fragments of a collective Jewish culture throughout the world in different eras bound into a meaningful whole.

The very texture of these almost lost cultures can be felt in each of Statman’s compositions. His version of the Modzitzer niggun for Adon Olam, known the world-over as a welcome song to the weekly Shabbos, day of rest, also, in Statman’s recasting, becomes an invitation to explore other realms of being—uncovering perhaps, just what Shabbos, ideally, should be about: experiencing another way of living.

Although Statman is a unique, almost legendary figure in the New York music scene, he is also, in many ways, a representative of the contemporary Jewish imagination.  It seems the further Statman digs into his own Jewish past and the roots of Jewish liturgical texts and rhythms, the farther ahead he surges within contemporary American culture. And, in this regard, Statman is not alone. In this essay I seek to answer biblical scholar David Stern’s challenge to literary scholars, issued in his pithy volume, Midrash and Literature (almost two decades old), to begin the real scholarly work of linking midrash to literature and contemporary literary theory. As Stern writes:

Now that the buzz and flurry of the initial excitement has passed, the time has arrived to reap the fruits of the original linkage and to begin the real work of reading midrash theoretically, as literary discourse—that is, to use the theoretical sophistication appropriated from literary studies to describe midrash’s literary forms in their specificity and full complexity; to use the language of midrash as the base from which to discuss its hermeneutics in the light of the history of interpretation, and perhaps, most importantly, to employ our growing knowledge of the social, religiopolitical, and gender constructions of literature in order to analyze the singular forms of Rabbinic writing. (9)

Indeed, this is precisely the issue I examine in my soon-to-be-completed book, Midrash and Modernism: The Making of the Jewish Imagination. What I seek to do here is to take up Stern’s analytical challenge by discussing several examples of midrashic storytelling in a variety of contemporary art forms. My aim is not only to connect midrashic modes of storytelling to literary criticism alone, but also to look at the myriad ways that midrashic modes of composition have infiltrated and empowered the contemporary Jewish imagination. From the music of Bob Dylan and Andy Statman, the stories of Isaac Babel and Gary Shteyngart, and, lastly, to the graphic art of Ahron Weiner and Tobi Kahn, midrash and midrashic modes of composition link all of this Jewish imaginative work of modernism through the beginning of the twenty-first century.

III

“The midrash says…”—how many memorable stories and lessons from my childhood days in yeshiva began with this deceptively simple declaration? From stories of Hassidic masters’ perfect faith and holy men performing miracles in the old country, to story-like interpretations of talmudic discussions, midrashic storytelling for generations of readers, has often filled in the many gaps and fissures encased within original biblical passages. In contemplating the current state of Jewish culture, I have found that the ancient biblical exegetical method of midrash surprisingly offers key insights in understanding the contemporary Jewish imagination.

            So just what exactly is midrash? Midrash is an exegetical tool of biblical scholarship that assumes that every word and letter of the Torah has meaning.[ii] In his study, Midrash and Literature, Stern says that the popularity of midrash has much to do with the “wayward antic features of midrashic interpretation that had often been considered scandalous in the past” (3). Rather than seeming disreputable in the postwar American academy—it was precisely this outlaw and subversive quality that drew proponents to midrash and midrashic interpretation. In his study, Stern defines just what this type of interpretative storytelling entails:

The typical midrashic predilection for multiple interpretations rather than for a single truth behind the text; its irresistible desire to tease out the nuances of Scripture rather than use interpretation to close them off; and most of all, the way midrashic discourse mixes text and commentary, violating the boundaries between them and intentionally blurring their differences, flourishing precisely in the grayish no-man’s-land between exegesis and literature—all these features that once had seemed (since the time of Maimonides at least) to be the most problematic and irrational aspects of midrash now became its most intriguing and fascinating qualities. (3–4)

This subversive quality that blurs boundaries and genres is, in my mind, a hallmark of much of contemporary Jewish American literature and culture.

In Reading the Book, Burton Visotzky says that once a canon is closed, the problem facing a person and a community is one of “searching out the meaning of a text before our eyes” (5). Put another way: how does one find a “useful reading strategy” (5) and method of analysis for making the biblical text personal and relevant? As Harold Bloom suggests in Kabbalah and Criticism, through the ages, what all Jewish writing attempts to interpret is the Bible, or more specifically all Jewish literature worthy of the moniker implicitly asks the difficult question, “How to open the Bible to one’s own suffering?” (xxiii). Ideally, this is precisely what Torah study should accomplish: through the stories and lessons of the Hebrew Bible, the full range of human experience is illuminated.

Contemporary Jewish American writers and artists—using midrashic interpretive and storytelling techniques—then, often make the ancient, foundational texts of Judaism relevant to our postmodern, contemporary American lives. According to Visotzky, midrash is a method of reading the Bible as an “eternal text,” and is the result of applying a set of hermeneutical principles evolved by the community to guide one in reading the canon, in order to focus one's reading. The ultimate goal of midrash is to “search out” the fullness of the biblical language. Visotzky explains that the word “midrash” refers to a “homiletical exegesis of Scripture—the ‘reading out’ of moral lessons,” (9) and that midrash means a “searching out” (10) of this biblical interpretation.

In analyzing biblical language there are two schools of thought: the first suggests that biblical language is no different from the language of regular human discourse, and is subject to the same redundancies that we all encounter in everyday communication; the second view, on the other hand, holds that since scripture is the word of God, not one word is superfluous. Every apparent mistake, or seeming grammatical error, has some encoded meaning. This is where midrash comes in to play. Midrash ultimately minimizes the authority of the wording of the text as normal language; instead it places the focus on the reader’s moral application of the text, allowing for an endless variety of interpretations.

            In his blending of poetry and criticism, modernist poet Wallace Stevens writes in “Of Modern Poetry”: “The poem of the mind in the act of / finding / What will suffice” (1–3). Although, he surely does not have Jewish American literary texts in mind when he writes these lines, Stevens’s ideas about the conflation of theory, criticism, and poetic diction woven together, bears much light on Jewish writers and artists steeped in the traditions needed to find a language that will suffice—a vessel capable of containing the thousands of years of textual history while being modern and contemporary in its outlook. For the writers and artists I will be discussing in this essay, midrashic storytelling is that sufficient language. Using midrash enables these Jewish writers and artists to uncover and illuminate their own culture, while deeply connecting to and extending the thousands of years of Jewish textual history as well.

            I would add to these definitions on midrash, my own ideas on the ways that modern or contemporary midrash functions.  I believe a key component of midrash is that it extends and completes[iii] an earlier (often biblical or medieval) text. A midrash fills in gaps and creates new meanings and understandings of difficult biblical stories. In so doing, midrashic storytelling not only makes these ancient stories relevant, but it also brings them immediately into our realm—recasting these stories on the contemporary stage of Jewish American culture. 

IV

            A wealth of literature and artwork has been created in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by people aspiring to create "Contemporary or Modern Midrash,” including music, poetry, prose, and painting. I begin here with an excerpt of the biblical story of the Akedah, or The Binding of Isaac, before analyzing a midrashic re-interpretation and extension of this story:

 ¹And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

 ²And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

 ³And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

 ⁴Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

 ⁵And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

 ⁶And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

 ⁷And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

 ⁸And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

 ⁹And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

 ¹⁰And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

 ¹¹And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

 ¹²And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

 ¹³And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. (Genesis 22:1–13)

This is, obviously, one of the most troubling and disturbing stories in the entire Hebrew Bible. It has consequently lent itself to literally thousands of midrashic reinterpretations, completions, and extensions. Recall the blurring of boundaries and the preference for multiple interpretations rather than a single truth that Stern spoke of in relation to midrashic texts. These same qualities are certainly true for the zeitgeist of the 1960s, the supposed “youth movement” or “counter-culture”—a movement that quickly anointed a baby-faced Jewish boy from Hibbing, Minnesota as its high priest. In 1965 Bob Dylan was looking for a way to capture the absurdity of the American political moment—he turned toward a midrashic interpretation of The Akedah, or The Binding of Issac to make his statement in “Highway 61 Revisited” [See Figure 2at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]:

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run.”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.”

Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose
Welfare Department they wouldn’t give him no clothes
He asked poor Howard where can I go
Howard said there’s only one place I know
Sam said tell me quick man I got to run
Ol’ Howard just pointed with his gun
And said that way down on Highway 61

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61

Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light, he says hmm you’re right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61

Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored
He was tryin’ to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61

(Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music)

There are numerous ironies and levels of meaning in Dylan’s midrashic reinterpretation of the ancient biblical story of The Akedah. Dylan’s deeply American, vernacular “translation” of this archetypal biblical story of faith and sacrifice is, in many ways, indicative of the contemporary Jewish imagination. As Robert Hass reminds us in his poem, “Meditation at Lagunitas”: “All the new thinking is about loss. / In this it resembles all the old thinking (1–2).

We should first notice the intense conflation of time in Dylan’s lyrics and song: in seven short lines, Dylan midrashically links several key biblical stories: 1) Genesis 17, the story of God’s changing Abram’s name to Abraham, 2) Genesis 18, the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 3) Genesis 22, story of the Akedah, or The Binding of Isaac.

In “Highway 61 Revisited,” the voice of God is still the voice of Yahweh from the Hebrew Bible, a fierce God of retribution, yet the voice of Abraham assumes the guise of a contemporary of Dylan—mid-1960s Greenwich Village hippie: “Man you must be putting me on,” Dylan’s Abe says. Yes, much like the story told in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis: 17, Dylan changes the Patriarch’s name. Even this aspect of the song is a rather humorous and ironic reversal (an extension through subtraction) of the original biblical story in Genesis: “Neither shall your name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee” (Genesis 17:5). In the Hebrew Bible story, God does not shorten Avram’s name, but rather lengthens it (by including the name of God, represented by the letter “heh,” to Avraham). Dylan’s shortening both Avram and Abraham to just an American-style “Abe” suggests an ironic reversal of the closeness to God and his watchful gaze here on Earth, and his promise that Abraham “will be the father of many nations,” that the patriarchal name Abraham represents. It is the reversal of the name Abraham, which contains God’s name within it, that Dylan alludes to throughout the apocalyptic lyrics and carnivalesque rhythms of “Highway 61 Revisited.” The song moves toward the indifference of authority figures to outright cruelty, sadism, and destruction by those in power (promoting a “next world war”) and not the birth of great nations as the God of the Hebrew Bible promises Abraham. Consequently, Dylan’s song might represent a terrifying state of hester panim, or a time when God has “turned away his face.”

Of course, in the context of warfare, it is also hard to hear the name Abe, either with the Vietnam war raging in the background, or the imagined “next world war” discussed in the powerful concluding stanza of Dylan’s song, without immediately imaging Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War—thus, “Abe” functions midrashically as yet another ironic reference embedded within Dylan’s song. Whereas Abraham Lincoln as “the Great Emancipator” represents freedom and justice—all is ironically reversed in “Highway 61 Revisited.” The name “Abe,” in the context of the 1960s underscores the lack of justice and the absence of freedom that the youth movement felt toward an increasingly militaristic American government.[iv]

            Another biblical story midrashically alluded to in Dylan’s song is the episode of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities that have come to be synonymous with evil. Through his midrashic storytelling in “Highway 61 Revisited,” Dylan seems to equate the consumer obsessed capitalism of America—(“I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings / And a thousand telephones that don’t ring” (16–17)—which hides behind patriotism with ultimate evil.

Soon after God changes Abram’s name to Abraham in Genesis, God reveals his plan to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah:

²²Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. ²³ And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? ²⁵ Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
²⁶ So the LORD said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
²⁷ Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord:

²⁸Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?”
So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.”
²⁹ And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?”
So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”
³⁰ Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?”
So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
³¹ And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?”
So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”
³² Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”
And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” ³³ So the LORD went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.(Genesis 18:22–33)  

The knowledge of this impending destruction and loss of life, leads Abraham to desperately bargain with God on behalf of the righteous among these cities. This tense back and forth bargaining between God and Abraham in Genesis Chapter 18 is midrashically alluded to in the opening lines of Dylan’s song, particularly lines 3–6, where Abe and God seem to bargain back and forth until Abe accepts God’s demand to “do the killing out on Highway 61.”

Like an aged prophet from the Hebrew Bible, Dylan sings his song from the depths of the counter-culture revolution sweeping America—in its numerous hidden allusions and allegorical meanings, it is a midrashic commentary on the state of America at war in Vietnam, the civil unrest at home, and the rising tide of violence, and indifference overtaking the United States.

V

In the first installment of his memoirs,Chronicles, Volume I, Dylan talks about his early method of song composition: “I could slip in verses or lines from old spirituals or blues… What I usually did was start out with something, some kind of line written in stone and then turn it into another line—make it add up to something else than it originally did” (228). One would be hard pressed to find a more exact definition of the act of midrashic storytelling—including its subversive element and its addition and completion of an original biblical story—the line, which was originally “written in stone,” that Dylan alludes to.

The Highway 61 that Dylan takes as the name of his album and this song from the collection has its own highly mythologized history. After the failure of Reconstruction and the development of the Jim Crow south, Highway 61, which follows the contours of the great Mississippi River, became a major migration route for African Americans heading north for opportunities they were barred from in the deep South. As they traveled the nearly seventeen hundred miles of Highway 61—stretching from New Orleans all the way to Duluth, Minnesota—right next door to where Dylan grew up in a Jewish home in Hibbing, Minnesota, these African American migrants brought with them their musical traditions. One such traveler was the bluesman Robert Johnson, who, as legend has it, sold his soul to the devil on Highway 61 at a crossroads near Clarksdale, Mississippi in exchange for his musical talents. Those who were privileged to hear Johnson play surmised that this story was the only way to explain such supernatural talent.

Many music critics interpret Dylan’s use of Highway 61 as a return to his roots—the musical roots of the Blues—and, suggest that Dylan’s songs showcased how Rock and Roll (and electric guitars) could actually incorporate the best of the Blues as well as the Folk music Dylan began his career singing and creating. While I would largely agree with this assessment, I would also suggest that “Highway 61 Revisited” conveys an even deeper significance and return for Dylan, a concomitant return to his Jewish roots along with his musical ancestry. The fact that Dylan uses the biblical story of the Akedah as a starting point—the “lines written in stone” that he will midrashically re-imagine and reinterpret in a contemporary American setting suggests a much larger, philosophical and thematic return. Dylan’s, “Highway 61 Revisited,” is both a commentary on a culture of violence that sacrifices the “best minds of his generation” (1) to warfare and slaughter, to quote another midrashic poem, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” as well as a re-interpretation of the biblical story of the Akedah. 

Highway 61 mostly parallels the great Mississippi River, its watery path forever linked to the heart of America through Mark Twain’s canonical novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

It was a monstrous big river down there—sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid day-times; soon as night was most gone, we stopped navigating and tied up—nearly always in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound, anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep… (135)

Through the many musical legends who migrated up north along the land route of Highway 61 (such as Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson), and the musicians who, years later, in search of those musical traditions traveled back down south along Highway 61 (including Bob Dylan), the highway itself, much like the Mississippi River, has just as impressive a mythical life—legends that Bob Dylan midrashically tapped into while writing “Highway 61 Revisited.” As Dylan suggests in Chronicles, Volume One:

Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I came from… Duluth to be exact. I always felt like I'd started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere from it, even down into the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors.  The Mississippi River, the bloodstream of the blues, also starts up from my neck of the woods. I was never too far away from any of it. It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood. (240–241)

Dylan’s musical exploration of Highway 61 along with his turn back toward the language and stories of the Hebrew Bible in 1965 signaled a seismic shift in Jewish American literature and culture. Many critics thought that with the passing of the immigrant generation Jewish art had lost its main theme. With Dylan pointing the way toward the future through re-invigorating the past, Jewish American culture was about to explore exciting new developments in art, culture, and representation.

VI

Lenny Abramov, a Jewish Russian immigrant to New York City, is the unlikely hero of Gary Shteyngart’s novel Super Sad True Love Story, chosen as one of the New York Times’ ten best books of 2010. The novel is set sometime in the-not-too-distant-future, when New York City, as well as the rest of the “American empire,” is coming to a close. The entire rickety structure of the U.S. government, including its long-neglected infrastructure, is about to fall apart. In one memorable scene in the novel, part of the Williamsburg Bridge collapses into the East River—all of this rotting-away, in Shteyngart’s biting satire, is, of course, symptomatic of America’s many moral failings. In this frighteningly all-too-real look into the future, there is no longer a two-party system of Republicans and Democrats—now there is only a need for one party which calls itself—in deference to the supposed two-party politics of years ago—the Bi-Partisans. In Shteyngart’s vision of the coming American century, all citizens wear around their necks an electronic device called an äppärät, which resembles a sort of high-tech cross between the choshen mishpat and an advanced iPhone that constantly streams data and, most-importantly, ratings for every person one encounters (does this remind anyone of Twitter, or Facebook?).

Lenny works for a company called Post-Human Services, owned by a man named Joshie Goldman. Post-Human Services offers its rich clients eternal life, but this “product” is only available to those extremely wealthy individuals who can afford the exorbitant fees that Post-Human Services charges—or as Shteyngart puts it—High Net Worth Individuals or HNWI’s. This concept of eternal life is accomplished through painstaking blood work, healthy eating habits, and an extremely high-tech drug regimen. This painful routine of constant monitoring of clients’ blood levels for fat and triglycerides, and so forth—is, of course, Shetyngart’s satire of our current culture’s complete obsession with youth and beauty, a preoccupation that many elevate to the level of a new religion.

When the novel opens, Lenny, our hero has been living abroad in Italy for a few years selling eternal life to HNWI’s, and in the scene I examine below, he has just returned to New York to his office at Post-Human Services, which is situated at an old, and now-defunct, midtown New York synagogue, built in the Moorish architecture style. Shteyngart is probably modeling this fictional midtown synagogue on the famous Central Synagogue in New York. Shteyngart writes:

The Post-Human Services division of Staatling-Wapachung Corporation is housed in a former Moorish-style synagogue near Fifth Avenue, a tired-looking building dripping with arabesques, kooky buttresses, and other crap that brings to mind a lesser Gaudi. Joshie bought it at auction for a mere eighty thousand dollars when the congregation folded after being bamboozled by some kind of Jewish pyramid scheme years ago. (56–57)         

Shteyngart’s satirical joke of the venerable midtown synagogue being sold at auction hits painfully close to home. The effect is enhanced by the fact that this travesty was caused by “a Jewish pyramid scheme”—an obvious reference to the Bernard Madoff scandal, which deeply affected numerous Jewish charitable organizations that had invested with Madoff (The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, among others). Shteyngart’s midrashic reversal continues throughout this scene:

The ark where the Torahs are customarily stashed had been taken out, and in its place hung five gigantic Solari schedule boards Joshie had rescued from various Italian train stations. Instead of the arrivi and partenze times of trains pulling in and out of Florence or Milan, the flip board displayed the names of Post-Human Services employees with the results of our latest physicals, our methylation and homocysteine levels, our testosterone and estrogen, our fasting insulin and triglycerides, and, most important, our “mood + stress indicators,” which were always supposed to read, “positive/playful/ready to contribute,” but which, with enough input from competitive co-workers, could be changed to “one competitive betch today” or “not a team playa this month.” On this particular day, the black-and-white flaps were turning madly, the letters and numbers mutating—a droning ticka-ticka-tika-ticka—to form new words and figures, as one unfortunate Aiden M. was lowered from “overcoming loss of loved one” to “letting personal life interfere with job” to “doesn’t play well with others.” Disturbingly enough, several of my former colleagues, including my fellow Russian, the brilliantly manic-depressive Vasily Greenbaum, were marked by the dreaded legend TRAIN CANCELLED. (56–58)

Shteyngart has midrashically replaced the ark of the Torah, which holds the scroll of the law, with a Solari flip information board that does nothing but contain data. The difference of the endless interpretations spilling out from the Torah’s thousands of stories, which have been interpreted and re-imagined by Jewish writers and thinkers for thousands of years, versus the notion of all of this being replaced by a simple Solari flip-data board, representative of our future, as well as a wry commentary on our current culture—life within the information age—is hard to miss. This satirical scene might also be a sad addendum to recent Jewish history: in a post-Holocaust world, it is difficult to see a European train schedule board in a synagogue and not have it convey numerous associations to the Holocaust-era cattle-cars and trains, which carried Jews from the farthest reaches of occupied Europe to the Nazi killing centers. [See Figure 3 andFigure 4at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]

Additionally, Shteyngart obviously does not choose the number five at random; rather, each of the Solari boards can be understood to replace one of the “Five Books of Moses,” the Hebrew Bible. This displacement of prayer services and the numerous activities of a synagogue, which promises eternal life in olam haBa, the world to come, with the headquarters of a corporation premised on delivering eternal life in olam haZeh, the present world, showcases Shteyngart’s familiarity with midrashic ironic reversal. In fact, these many ironies, of using midrashic exegesis to decry American culture’s displacing of literacy with raw data, becomes the major theme of Shteyngart’s novel. Despite these many midrashic interpretations, Shteyngart’s main focus remains on the present, information and ratings-obsessed cultural moment; in decrying our current culture’s reliance on data over the endless multiplicity and imagination of books, Torah exegesis, and midrashic reinterpretations, he ironically employs an extended midrashic story to make this observation.

We can see this theme further developed during a key moment in the novel when Eunice, Lenny Abramov’s love-interest in the novel, does something radical in this futuristic post-literate New York City: she attempts to read a book, or rather, she asks Lenny to read a book to her. In Shteyngart’s dystopic vision of the American future, a time and place where the Ark of the Covenant has easily been replaced by a Solari information board, people do not read books anymore. Books are considered extremely “uncool” and they will lower your rating on your äppärät—clearly something to be avoided in a data-obsessed culture where a person’s success is entirely dependent on one’s rating. Despite the many perils of literacy in this futuristic New York, in a brave moment in the novel, Eunice attempts to understand Lenny’s old, yellowed, dog-eared copy of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being—a book about love and mortality. She asks him to read to her from the novel. However, after a few moments, Eunice appears to give up: “Eunice’s gaze had weakened, and the light had gone out from her eyes, those twin black orbs usually charged with an irrepressible mandate of anger and desire” (277). Eunice’s wandering attention leads to the following conversation:

 “Are you following all this?” I said. “Maybe we should stop.”

“I’m listening,” she half-whispered.

“But are you understanding?” I said.

“I’ve never really learned how to read texts,” she said. “Just to scan them for info.”

I let out a small, stupid laugh.

She started to cry…

“Even I’m having trouble following this. It’s not just you. Reading is difficult. People just aren’t meant to read anymore. We’re in a post-literate age. You know, a visual age. How many years after the fall of Rome did it take for Dante to appear? Many, many years.” (277)

The knowledge and wisdom contained in the Torah (synonymous with Judaism’s textual history), has been entirely displaced in Gary Shteyngart’s futuristic view of a “post-literate” America bereft of values and all the knowledge that our print culture contained. Instead of midrashic interpretations of the Five Books of Moses, much like a retro Twitter account, the five Solari flip boards endlessly stream data concerning the health and mood of the Post-Human Services employees. Through the Solari information boards, streaming endless statistics and blood-work data, Shteyngart creates a modern midrash that also works allegorically, as the Solari boards imported from Italian train stations cannot help but bring to mind the roll-call of the European death trains. Even as the Solari boards broadcast the health and vitality of the workers at Post-Human Services, in an ironic midrashic reversal, Shteyngart has them memorializing the “post-human” quality of all that endless life. Shteyngart’s ironic displacement suggests to his readers that without the Torah and the stories and ethics and the “understanding” that goes with it—the hermeneutics and interpretation of the Torah—all is reduced to a mindless scanning of texts for data, for useless information. Indeed, it is a sterile vision of our age and the future it foretells. Through his ironic reversal of the Torah ark, Shteyngart midrashically underscores the perils of ignoring our spiritual and cultural heritage contained in the Torah and our thousands of years of textual exegesis on that foundational, living document.

After he is convinced to give up books in favor of a shiny new äppärät, Shteyngart’s hero Lenny reports to his readers: “I’m learning to worship my new äppärät’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors” (78).

In contrast to a post-literate future, Shteyngart himself does not just draw attention to an amnesiac America, which is turning its back on classical texts and literacy, but he also draws upon many of his own literary forbears as well to make his case—extending their reach and relevancy. The entire novel of Super Sad True Love Story might be thought of as a recasting of the Russian master Anton Chekhov’s novella, Three Years. Shteyngart liberally quotes from Chekhov throughout Super Sad True Love Story, drawing attention to the many parallels as well as the disjunctions between Lenny Abromov’s predicament and the tragic story of Chekhov’s hero Laptev. Despite the obvious importance of Chekhov’s novella undergirding Shteyngart’s deeply literary novel (this is part of the midrashic irony he employs), I believe there is yet another Russian writer lurking beneath the surface of Shteyngart’s novel—the Jewish short story writer, who was initially hailed by the Soviet-system as an important writer and respected comrade, only to be murdered by Stalin as a Jew and a parasite on the state: Isaac Babel. Babel might have had as profound an influence on the twentieth century and contemporary Jewish imagination (from Saul Bellow and Cynthia Ozick to Shteyngart, Nathan Englander, and Dara Horn) as any other Jewish writer. After reading of the displacement of the aron kodesh, the ark of the Torah, in Shteyngart’s novel, Babel’s short story, “My First Goose,” comes to mind. Nearly a century before Shteyngart replaces the Torah ark with Solari information boards, Isaac Babel, in his well-known short story, “My First Goose,” replaces the promised land of Israel with the false promise of a communist paradise on earth.

VII

“My First Goose” was published in Red Cavalry, a collection of Babel’s stories drawn from his years fighting on the front lines with a Cossack unit (The First Cavalry of the Soviet Red Army) during the Polish-Soviet Warof 1920. The purpose of this war was to spread communism and the doctrines of the Revolution to Poland, and then, to the rest of the world. Babel was raised in a traditional Jewish home in Odessa, and according to Cynthia Ozick he “was at home in Yiddish and Hebrew, and was familiar with the traditional texts and demanding commentaries” (15). In one of his stories, Babel describes himself (the Jewish intellectual) as follows: “you have glasses on your nose and autumn in your heart” (146). Despite these poetic leanings, as a young man Babel was assigned to a murderous Cossack unit fighting to spread the gospel of communism. “My First Goose” tells the story of the pivotal first hours of Babel’s service with this Cossack unit (or Lyutov—his fictional, but deeply autobiographical, first-person narrator of “My First Goose,” as well as many of the Red Cavalry stories). Things do not go well for the Jewish intellectual Lyutov. As an insular fighting group, the Cossacks have rejected him as an educated “cream-puff.” To the amusement of the unit, one handsome young Cossack has thrown Lyutov’s suitcase out into the street; he then impresses his comrades by farting in the intellectual’s face. Yet, other men incessantly make fun of the new recruit:

I went down on my hands and knees and gathered up the manuscripts and the old, tattered clothes that had fallen out of my suitcase. I took them and carried them to the other end of the yard. A large pot of boiling pork stood on some bricks in front of the hut. Smoke rose from it as distant smoke rises from the village hut of one’s childhood, mixing hunger with intense loneliness inside me. I covered my broken little suitcase with hay, turning it into a pillow, and lay down on the ground to read Lenin’s speech at the Second Congress of the Comintern, which Pravda had printed. The sun fell on me through the jagged hills, the Cossacks kept stepping over my legs, the young fellow incessantly made fun of me, the beloved sentences struggled toward me over thorny fields, but could not reach me. (232)

The situation is desperate for Lyutov. If he is not accepted by the men of his unit, he realizes he will not survive very long in the midst of war in a very unforgiving environment. Lyutov decides to act. He gets up from his intellectual pursuit of Lenin’s latest speech and approaches the mistress of the house (undoubtedly a Jewish woman as are so many of the poor peasants we meet in Babel’s Red Cavalry stories):

I put away the newspaper and went to the mistress of the house, who was spinning yarn on the porch.

“Mistress,” I said, “I need some grub.”

The old woman raised the dripping whites of her half-blind eyes to me and lowered them again.

“Comrade,” she said, after a short silence. “All of this makes me want to hang myself.”

“Goddammit!” I muttered in frustration, shoving her back with my hand. “I’m in no mood to start debating with you.”

And, turning around, I saw someone’s saber lying nearby. A haughty goose was waddling through the yard, placidly grooming its feathers. I caught the goose and forced it to the ground, its head cracking beneath my boot, cracking and bleeding. Its white neck lay stretched out in the dung, and the wings folded down over the slaughtered bird.

“Goddammit!” I said, poking at the goose with the saber. “Roast it for me mistress!”

The old woman, her blindness and her spectacles flashing, picked up the bird, wrapped it in her apron, and hauled it to the kitchen.

“Comrade,” she said after a short silence. “This makes me want to hang myself.” As she pulled the door shut behind her. (232)

This act of violence, so out of character for the mild-mannered Lyutov (Babel’s Jewish-intellectual alter-ego), impresses the Cossacks, and he is subsequently accepted by the tough, violent men of the unit. By the end of the story, he is seen reading Lenin’s speech to group of fighting men gathered round him, their legs entwined together under the stars, yet the guilt of this first act of violence (there will soon be many more to come) troubles Lyutov’s fitful dreams:

…then we went to sleep in the hayloft. Six of us slept there warming each other, our legs tangled, under the holes in the roof which let in the stars.

I dreamed and saw women in my dreams, and only my heart, crimson with murder, screeched and bled.” (233)

            It is this seminal midrashic moment in Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry that I believe Gary Shteyngart is building upon and extending in Super Sad True Love Story. In Babel’s story, Lyutov is rejected by the regiment of Cossacks to which he has just been assigned to. One of the older men has, in fact, thrown his suitcase into the street and, at the beginning of the paragraph, the narrator, on his hands and knees, is in the process of retrieving its contents. Once he has collected the many manuscripts together, he places them beneath his head as a pillow of sorts. Only his rest is troubled and he quickly abandons the notion of sleep in favor of the violent act that ingratiates him to his comrades. Notice the obvious reworking of the midrash that Rashi writes extending the original biblical story of Genesis 28:11. While fleeing his brother Esau, Jacob leaves Beer-sheba and travels toward Haran. In Genesis 28:11 the Torah says that before preparing to sleep, Jacob “took of the stones of the place and put them under his head.” Later in the same chapter of Genesis 28, in section 18, the language of the Hebrew Bible refers to Jacob taking one “stone,” singular. Rashi, (see Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 91b as well), tells a midrash to help explain this seeming grammatical error or inconsistency:

“And he put it under his head—He made them into a sort of cape round his head, for he was afraid of wild beasts. The (stones) began to quarrel with each other, one saying, ‘Upon me shall the righteous man place his head,” and the other (stone) said, ‘Let him lay (it) upon me.’ Immediately the Holy One Blessed Be He made them into one stone (sing, in verse 18) that he had put under his head.’” (Rashi 28:11, The Pentateuch with Rashi’s Commentary, p. 275)

            Rashi’s midrash is clearly glossed in the decisive moment in Babel’s “My First Goose.” Lyutov takes his manuscripts and creates a sort of pillow using the communist manuscripts just as Jacob had done with the stones during his moment of crisis fleeing his brother Esau. In the original biblical story, after his dream, Jacob then uses the stones to make an altar for an animal sacrifice to God who, in his dream, has promised Jacob the land of Israel. Lyutov’s sacrifice of the goose in his short story does not lead to the dream of Jacob’s ladder as it does later in Genesis Chapter 28 and God’s promise of a homeland. Instead, in Babel’s story this sacrifice leads to the joining of Lyutov with his fellow violent comrades in this vicious Cossack unit, off fighting a war for the dubious mission of spreading the gospel of communism to neighboring Poland. Thus, Babel’s “My First Goose” functions as a midrashic extension of the seminal story in Genesis. Rather than gaining the promised land of universal brotherhood, the communist dream that both Babel and his first-person narrator Lyutov are so enamored with at the outset of Red Cavalry, in actuality, what transpired was the murder of Isaac Babel before one of Stalin’s firing squads. Thus, Babel’s personal history adds another tragic layer of meaning and commentary to “My First Goose.”[v] [See Figure 5 andFigure 6at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]

In Babel’s retelling of this midrash, the stones that would become part of Jacob’s altar to God and the basis for the future temple on that same site are replaced by the many communist manuscripts contained in his little suitcase, which are gathered into a pillow. Lyutov’s sleep does not lead to a dream of redemption by God and the promise of a great nation and homeland as in the biblical story of Jacob’s ladder. Instead, it foretells a midrashic replacement of God’s temple and promise with the hope for the new religion of communism and Lenin’s Comintern speech reprinted in Pravda.  As we have already seen, this displacement of the Torah with other political or social ideas is glossed throughout Gary Shteyngart’s 2010 novel, Super Sad True Love Story, particularly in the scene with the Solari flip boards replacing the Torah ark.

So, to recapitulate the narrative timeline we have been sketching: the redactors of the Talmud tell a midrashic story to explain a grammatical inconsistency in Genesis 28; many centuries later Rashi re-interprets and retells this talmudic midrash in his commentary on the Hebrew Bible; in the early twentieth century Isaac Babel recasts this midrash to explain the predicament of being a Jewish intellectual in a Cossack unit fighting for the spread of Communism; and early in the twenty-first century Gary Shteyngart builds upon each of these midrashim to reinterpret the story anew in his satire, Super Sad True Love Story, using the displacement of the wisdom and multiple interpretations of the Torah with simple Solari information boards to prophesize his vision of America’s future bereft of midrashic storytelling. In following this timeline we can begin to glimpse the many ways that midrash is central to understanding the contemporary Jewish imagination.

VIII

To understand more fully the contemporary Jewish imagination and the ways midrash spurs creativity, I turn my attention here to the work of renowned contemporary artist Tobi Kahn, who, from the very beginning of his career three decades ago, has been using biblical texts and stories to connect viewers to the stories of their own lives and experiences.

While Gary Shteyngart has created a modern midrash in which the ark of the covenant contains Solari train schedule boards to replace the ancient stories of the Bible, graphic artist, Tobi Kahn has not created a metaphorical ark as his midrash, but rather an actual aron kodesh, Orah (1987). Orah was originally commissioned as a moveable ark to hold a Torah scroll for prayer services in a New York-area hospice. In place of the customary lions holding the rounded form of the Decalogue, Kahn has created a beautiful, and somewhat abstract, landscape painting with two mountains in the distance and a flowing river moving from the right foreground of the painting into the distant mountains in the center of the painting at the “vanishing point” of the image corresponding with the lowering arc of the second mountain to the right. In this evocative painting, Kahn tells a story about olam haZeh (this present world) and olam haBa (the world to come).

In an interview with art critic and historian Emily Bilski, Kahn notes: “Although Judaism has emphasized words, language, and commentary, I have found the visual elements of the tradition equally illuminating. For me, the life of the spirit is integrally bound up with the beauty of the world, with the rituals and symbols that are a Jewish medium to transcendence. Like language, what we see can be a benediction” (6). [See Figure 7 at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]

As Bilski explains, Kahn builds up the surfaces of his paintings by

adding over ten layers of gesso, each layer sanded before the next one is applied, to ensure an extremely smooth surface, with no trace of the texture of the material. On this prepared surface, Kahn executes a black-and white drawing; he then starts building up the surface with a mixture of modeling paste and acrylic polymer. This is followed by eight to ten layers of opaque pigment, over which Kahn applies a final fifteen layers of transparent washes of acrylic paint that resembles glazes. Thus he achieves the richly luminous surfaces that have been a hallmark of his expressive paintings. By building up multiple layers of modeling paste and pigment, he creates tactile surfaces resonating with a rare depth of color. (16)

As Bilski explains, just like most midrashic art, there is paradox and contradiction (irony) in much of Tobi Kahn’s artwork: “a simultaneous embrace of the human experience and celebration of the physical world, along with a desire to transcend that world and achieve a higher spiritual state” (17). This paradox is poignantly seen in Kahn’s portable ark for a Torah scroll, Orah, acrylic on wood (1987). This work of ritual art tells a midrashic story of Kahn’s own family history. Kahn’s father was born in Frankfurt Am Mainz, Germany, a member of the Breuer’s Kehillah. For generations of Kahns (Kohanim, members of the priestly tribe), Germany was home—until during Kristallnacht in 1933, an uncle of Kahn’s was among the very first group of Jews murdered by the Nazis. The remaining members of the family soon managed to flee Germany for America, and Kahn was born and raised as a member of the Breuer’s Kehillah, which was re-established by Rav Joseph Breuer in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan. Kahn’s father is, in fact, a “haver” one of Rav Breuer’s inner circle of adherents and leading members of the Kehillah, the Breuer community. Although the Kahn family found respite and safety in Washington Heights in what became euphemistically known as “Frankfurt on the Hudson,” given the Kahn family history, the necessity for an easily transportable ark—one that can easily be moved in times of crisis and exile—becomes apparent.

            Orah contains other midrashic and historic elements as well. The architectural form of the ark is simple and hearkens back to Shaker furniture, which influenced the American arts and crafts movement and the furniture of Gustav Stickley. Kahn’s borrowing from this somewhat obscure Christian religious sect for his variation on the traditional form of a Torah ark deeply resonates with Andy Statman’s continual borrowing and improvisation with indigenous American musical forms: Blues, Jazz, and Bluegrass. As already mentioned, the central image in most arks from at least the middle ages, are the twin forms of the Ten Commandments—the Decalogue. In Kahn’s American reimagining of this central conceit, however, the two rounded tablets are replaced by the form of two mountains with a river running through them. Although there are clearly two mountains discerned in Orah, Emily Bilski sees in this landscape painting a modern reinterpretation on the midrash on Proverbs, 68.9, which tells the story of how there were actually three mountains present at the giving of the Torah: Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, and Mount Sinai, each competing to be the site for the giving of the Torah (Ritual Art, p. 26). Bilski sees the suggestion of yet a third mountain ciphered within Orah in the hollow, rounded door knob on the front of the ark. While I agree with Bilski’s brilliant commentary on the midrashic elements hidden within Kahn’s sculptural form and the painting contained within Orah, I believe there may be yet another hidden meaning contained in Orah.

This painting calls to mind the famous landscape artists of the Hudson River School of landscape painting: Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher B. Durand, even Sanford Gifford in the luminous, shimmering surface of Kahn’s paintings, including Orah, a Hebrew name, which means “light.” As a boy, Tobi Kahn spent each of his summers in Tannersville, NY, a vacation spot in the Northern Catskill Mountains, as his family would follow Rav Breuer up to some of the highest peaks in New York State. I see the river running through the center of Orah as a visual representation of the Hudson River, which not only meanders beside the Catskill Mountains, Kahn’s summer home, but also flowed past Kahn’s boyhood residence in Washington Heights overlooking the Hudson River one hundred and twenty miles south of Tannersville. Thus Kahn’s abstract reimagining of a Hudson River School landscape such as Cole’s Sunrise From the Catskill Mountains is not only an homage to his childhood homes, but it is also a means for Kahn to tell a personal story of family redemption in this art work. Through Orah, Kahn also suggests the union of ancient Jewish culture with indigenous and contemporary American art forms. In creating his landscape midrash as a house for a Torah scroll, Kahn is also suggesting the many imaginative ways that contemporary America has served as a home for the Torah—its stories, wisdom, and lessons—and the myriad, new interpretations being spun from the ancient Hebrew scroll contained within Orah by so many contemporary writers and artists. Thus, Kahn is typologically and midrashically transposing three Northern Catskill high-peaks for the ancient Judean hills from the Hebrew Bible, and in so doing, through the shimmering surface of Orah he allows us to glimpse the reflection of an endlessly inventive contemporary midrashic imagination.  

Kahn’s interpretive improvisation with indigenous American art forms and religious movements from Shaker furniture to Hudson River School landscape painting to his reimagining of the ancient ritual object of an aron kodesh, parallels the powerful midrashic imagination evidenced by Andy Statman, Bob Dylan, and Gary Shteyngart. Although it might not be immediately apparent, upon studying Orah, Kahn’s transgressive and subversive imagination is stunning. When one considers Orah as a functioning piece of ritual art, a working aron kodesh, a house to hold a Torah scroll, the holiest object in Judaism, its full import and beauty is recognizable. Kahn is not making his statement of blurring borders and boundaries between old-world ideas of sacred and secular, between what constitutes “acceptable religious iconography,” at the margins of Jewish culture, but instead he is forcing viewers to take up his aesthetic and spiritual challenge right at the center of Jewish life and ritual. Kahn confronts these questions and ideas through the literal house of Judaism’s most sacred object. All of Kahn’s ritual art objects are made within the halakhic specifications and are fully functioning ritual objects. Kahn’s midrashic imagination purposefully blurs the boundaries between text and commentary and suggests a seemingly ceaseless number of interpretations for his Torah ark. In so doing he creates a contemporary midrash on the ways that New York City itself, and by extension America, has been a welcoming home for Torah and the millions of Jewish people who have made their modern lives on the shores of the Hudson river. Stern suggests all great midrashic works should “tease out the nuances of Scripture rather than use (artistic) interpretation to close them off” (3). This is precisely what Kahn’s art does: it invites viewers to re-imagine ritual and reinterpret biblical stories through aesthetic beauty. Whether he slyly references ancient midrashic stories about the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, as Bilski suggests, or whether he evocatively alludes to Shaker simplicity or the complex story of exile and survival that is his own personal and familial history, Kahn’s Jewish imagination works midrashically—in so doing he returns all viewers of his art to the fundamental principles of Judaism and the complex negotiations required of cosmopolitan Orthodox citizens of the contemporary American scene. Rather than seem heretical and problematic, as might have been the view of an earlier Jewish audience, say a mid-nineteenth-century Hirschian worldview, in the twenty-first American century, Kahn’s objects of the spirit truly inspire all who view them.

IX

The last midrashic work I would like to take a look at is a series of photographs taken of “décollage” images by Ahron Weiner, a contemporary New York artist. His show, titled Bible AdInfinitum, opened in June of 2011 at Superfine, a Brooklyn gallery in Dumbo. I was able to attend this opening with my Jewish Studies students from the University of Texas at El Paso when we were all in New York for my summer class, New York Through the Literary Imagination. Weiner’s midrashic aim for Bible AdInfinitum is to combine advertising “décollage” and digital photography to uncover new interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. The French word “décollage” translates into English literally as “take-off” or “to become unglued.” Essentially, what Weiner does is walk the streets of Manhattan looking for old advertising posters placed around the city at major construction sites. After many months, or years, (just ask any New Yorker about the speed of contractors and construction in Manhattan…), there could be twenty or thirty advertising posters pasted one on top of the other plastered onto the protective scaffolding around a construction site. In an act of “archeological semiology,” Weiner removes a large section of these pasted-together advertising posters and, back at his Long Island studio, begins the task of stripping away at the palimpsest to reveal iconic images and story fragments redolent of tales from the Hebrew Bible.

Unlike Tobi Kahn’s painstakingly slow building up of an image through numerous layers, Ahron Weiner employs a reverse method of décollage, of tearing at a surface to reveal the hidden meaning within. Instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images (as is done in collage), it is created by cutting, tearing away, or otherwise removing pieces of an original image. It is this “un-mooring” of the original image from its advertising intent that frees it to be manipulated back into a biblical context.

In an interview, I asked Weiner to elaborate on his choice of décollage as his compositional method. He responded: “I think the ancient Kabbalistic tradition of permutation—rearranging words and letters to uncover deeper meanings­—foreshadows what I’m doing. The semiotic archaeological aspect of this series quite literally echoes the work of archaeologists working on tels across the Middle East, seeking physical evidence of biblical sites and stories” (interview). Weiner’s attempt to find hidden meanings in advertising images, particularly allusions and reinterpretations of ancient biblical stories, partakes in the midrashic imagination that has animated so much of Jewish art over the centuries. The element of ironic reversal, which, as we have already seen in this essay, is a defining characteristic of the current midrashic imagination, is apparent in Weiner’s image The Creation of Man—a work that retells a Hebrew Bible story (Genesis 1:26) through obvious allusion to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel, one of the most revered and copied images in Christian iconography and Western art. Yet Weiner sees this image as relevant to the Hebrew Bible as well: “My compositional appropriation of Michelangelo’s iconic Sistine Chapel fresco in my “Creation of Man” is relevant, important, and ironic. In addition to being an homage to an artist I revere, it suggests all that Christianity appropriated from Judaism” (interview). [See Figure 8at http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=69307]

Weiner goes on to suggest that through Bible AdInfinitum, he is “appropriating advertising—a medium that appropriates from everything else—to retell these biblical stories. Whereas the Bible is eternal, holy, and written by God, advertising is temporal, unholy, and most certainly written by man” (interview). Despite this “unholy” quality infusing advertising, Weiner still believes that he can use this medium to retell these ancient biblical stories. When I visited the opening of Bible AdInfintum in Brooklyn in June of 2011, I witnessed an eclectic mix of advertising executives, art gallery owners, inquisitive Williamsburg hipsters, former and current Yeshiva students, and my students and I from West Texas. All of us together stood around discussing these ancient biblical stories as if they were current news—whether it was the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) or the Creation of Man (Genesis 1:26)—stories uncovered through Weiner’s décollage technique.

Weiner has been an advertising executive for several decades, and, he says about drawing biblical tales out of the most unlikely of places: “I didn’t set out to create an advertising-based abstract biblical narrative. I’ve been working with AdInfinitum since 2002—it took me eight years before I realized that I could use it to tell the biblical narrative. This series is a synthesis of my three major influences: Jewish history, art history, and advertising. It’s that mother’s milk, sub-rosa, informing my artistic expression” (interview).

Although graphic artists—Kahn and Weiner—use somewhat oppositional methods of composition, they share a similar fascination with the ancient stories of the Hebrew Bible: they both give new life to ancient biblical stories and recast Jewish history on the contemporary American stage thus making it relevant and meaningful to new audiences.

X

            In Midrash and Literature, David Stern asks us to consider the many ways we, as citizens of the modern world, inscribe meaning in our lives. Stern asks: “how are we to secularize our understanding of [midrash] this inherently religious literature, as we must, without profaning it?” (2). The numerous artists and writers that I analyze here, Andy Statman, Bob Dylan, Isaac Babel, Gary Shteyngart, Tobi Kahn, and Ahron Weiner challenge us to find new and innovative ways of incorporating biblical stories into our contemporary American lives.

Before I conclude, I would be remiss if I did not mention that in a future essay I will be looking at the particular ways that Jewish women writers, interpreters, and artists—people such as Dara Horn, who reanimates lost Jewish worlds and languages, Basya Schechter, the lead singer for Pharoah’s Daughter, and biblical scholars Nechama Lebowitz and Aviva Zornberg—after thousands of years of being silenced and shut out of midrashic storytelling and biblical exegesis, are reinvigorating this ancient form of analysis. The incredible variety of midrashic reinterpretations currently ongoing by female scholars and artists requires and deserves its own analysis—one that looks at the many ways that for centuries women’s voices were silenced. Today women midrashists, having largely overcome this centuries-long neglect, are among the most innovative practitioners of this ancient exegetical compositional method.

XI

As Dylan says, it’s funny how circles always seem to hook up with themselves. Or as Walt Whitman reminds us in his meditation on the timelessness of change, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” when it comes to people connecting to each other through great art, “it avails not, time nor place—distance avails not” (20). As I sit in the Charles Street Synagogue, surrounded by my students from West Texas, together we listen to Andy Statman play his clarinet in the heart of Greenwich Village, like the Hassidic masters of old, listeners and fellow travelers, each of us can begin to discern a path to redemption through niggun, through song. Although Bob Dylan was speaking about Aaron Neville when he said, “There’s so much spirituality in his singing that it could even bring sanity back in a world of madness” (Chronicles, p. 178), had he ever stumbled into the Charles Street Synagogue on a Thursday night, he would have to agree that the same description would just as easily apply to Andy Statman as well.

Whether contemplating one’s life journey in a makeshift synagogue through Tobi Kahn’s painstaking layering of abstract forms into shimmering surfaces which reveal the journey of contemporary Jewish history, or whether one considers the travails of Jewish history and the plight of African American’s migrating north up Highway 61 while listening to Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic songs, or perhaps while viewing Ahron’s Weiner’s slow, meticulous scraping away at contemporary advertising culture to reveal a small biblical kernel within its unholy wrapping, when one notices the smoke rising from Isaac Babel’s lonely childhood hut and when one heed’s Gary Shteyngart’s prophetic warning of a post-literate world (think of the implications for the people of the book!)—we are, each of us, participants in the midrashic imagination. Midrash is what unites each of these distinct Jewish artists—the vibrant, renewable, midrashic imagination, which is rediscovered anew for each generation. We today in the twenty-first century are seeing the completion of a circle—the long arc of Jewish imagination that knows no linguistic limitations and admits no geographic boundaries. Nearly half a century ago at the height of the youth movement in the 1960s, Bob Dylan stridently warned his listeners: “Don’t look back.” For the artists and writers that I examine here, as well as so many other contemporary Jewish artists from Jerusalem to New Orleans, one need not turn around to see what might be gaining ground. With the steadying force of the timeless midrashic imagination behind them, contemporary Jewish artists confidently face the future knowing that following the long arc of tradition, like a circle hooking up with itself, will, eventually, bring them right back home again. 

List of Works Cited

Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic, 1981. Print.

Babel, Isaac. The Complete Works of Isaac Babel. Ed. Nathalie Babel. Trans. Peter Constantine.

Intro. Cynthia Ozick. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.

Ben Isaiah, Rabbi Abraham, and Rabbi Benjamin Sharfman. The Pentateuch and Rashi’s

Commentary: A Linear Translation into English. New York: S.S. & R., 1949. Print.

Bilski, Emily. Objects of the Spirit: Ritual and the Art of Tobi Kahn. New York: Hudson Hills,

2004. Print.

Bloom, Harold. Kabbalah and Criticism. 1975. New York: Continuum, 1999. Print.

Chekhov, Anton. The Complete Short Novels. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

New York: Vintage, 2005. Print.

Dylan, Bob. Chronicles: Volume One. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Print.

———. “Highway 61 Revisited,” Highway 61 Revisited. Warner Bros. Inc., 1965. CD.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl: And Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1959. Print.

Hass, Robert. “Meditation at Lagunitis,” The Apple Trees at Olema. New York: Ecco Press,

2010. Print.

Kahn, Tobi. Orah. 1987. Acrylic on Wood. Private collection.

Shteyngart, Gary. Super Sad True Love Story. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.

Stern, David. Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies.

            Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1996. Print.

Stevens, Wallace. “Of Modern Poetry,” The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a

Play.Ed. Holly Stevens. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

Suggs, Jack M. et al., eds. The Oxford Study Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Print.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ed. Thomas Cooley. New York: Norton,

1999. Text.

Visotzky, Burton, L. Reading the Book: Making the Bible a Timeless Text. Philadelphia: Jewish

Publication Society, 2005. Text.

Weiner, Ahron. Personal interview. 15 June 2011.

———. Creation of Man. 2011. Paper. Collection of the artist.

Whitman, Walt. “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. New York:

Norton, 2002.

The pattern is much the same everywhere – because the cause and effect is the same everywhere. It's probably true that the new communication technologies are catalyzing the process, but that process existed in ancient and medieval times too, so only the externals have changed, not the substance.

The process I'm referring to is the backlash on the part of the poor against the predatory rich. In medieval times, peasants' revolts were commonplace – not surprising, given the miserable lot of the serfs. But it is worth noting that then, as now and as ever, it was the participation and usually the leadership of the middle-class that was essential to give the peasant mob a fighting chance against the rich – then the nobility – who controlled all the resources.

The growth of the middle-class in the modern period was supposed to have made the idea of peasant revolts passé – and for a time it really seemed that way. Nowhere was this truer than in the United States, where the essence of the American dream was that the class and status you were born into did not determine your fate, lot and life-story. Even in class-bound Britain and Europe, the rise of universal and largely free education drove a move away from aristocracy and towards meritocracy. The odds were still stacked in favor of the haves, but the chances of a have-not joining them were vastly improved.

This was not the case in the un- and less-developed world, and nowhere was this clearer than in the Arab countries. Thus, when the "Arab Spring" erupted almost a year ago, the reaction in much of the developed world was one of patronizing support for the demonstrators – who, for their part, followed the classic pattern of middle-class leadership of an urban mob, with the rural (and mostly conservative) population largely sidelined.

However, during the course of 2011, the pattern has extended not merely across the Arab world, but also into the developed world, from Europe's Mediterranean south across the continent – Britain providing an especially horrific example of mob violence. In Israel, of course, we have had a powerful dose of protest. Belatedly, the expression of open, widespread and so far largely peaceful protest, has spread to the US, where it began fittingly enough in Wall Street, but is now rapidly going nationwide.

The rationale for reviewing this now is not because it is finished. On the contrary, it is a safe bet that we will see much more of this pattern of protest in the coming year – and that it will be more intense, more bitter and encompass more countries. But now is the time for Jews, at least, to relate to the forces driving the protest/ backlash/ revolt that is taking place across the world and which, everywhere, is the result of a culture of greed and excess in which a tiny elite appropriated the bulk of a country's or a society's wealth, impoverishing the majority or, in more fortunate cases, leaving it a steadily shrinking share.

Why now? Because the main theme of our Holy Day season as a whole, is to ask what's it all about – at the individual and societal level. The passage from Isaiah read on Yom Kippur morning is rightly viewed as a seminal text for social justice, and the quotation in the title of this essay is one key component of that manifesto. But the second half of that verse – "and bring the desperate poor into thy house" – is interpreted in the Talmud not as a moral exhortation but as sound advice: if you don’t share your bread with the hungry, don’t be surprised if the desperate poor come knocking – not necessarily very politely – on your door.

There are people, even in America, who understand this simple equation. Jeffery Hollender was here this week, talking about the social, moral and ethical issues that underlie the economic and financial crisis (Google him and read some of his stuff – it's worth it and it's not written in academese). But the moneyed class, which is now centered on the financial elite, and which has effectively bought control of the government and its agencies, is blind and deaf not merely to moral suasion, but to the common sense version of Isaiah's prophecy.

They, like all their predecessors and their contemporaries around the world, are doomed and they will be swept away in the rising tide of protest and revolt. But it is still possible for 'Main Street' America to wrest back control of the country and society from the Wall Street elite and its self-serving but ultimately destructive creed. Fortunately, Israel's society – as well as its economy and financial system – are in better shape or, more correctly, are less far gone in terms of the extent of the moral rot characterizing them. That's a good starting point for what is sure to be a tough year.