Behar
Hello! Last week we had some technical difficulties, so you might not have gotten the email on time (or at all), but never fear! you can read it online. There's kittens. It's worth it.
CN: mass shooting reference, racism
Jewish Calendar
Joseph Ibn Hayyim marks the beginning of Torah portion Behar (בְּהַר) with a bear with its nose in a jar 🍯
— Ennius (@red_loeb) May 19, 2022
Bodleian Library MS Kennicott 1; ‘The Kennicott Bible’; 1476 CE; La Coruña, Spain; f.73v @BDLSS pic.twitter.com/8ipTLFgzum
Parshat Behar
Behar--which yes literally means on the mountain--is when we get the rules around shmita (agricultural rest year) and yovel (jubilee). It's often merged with next week's Bechukotai but this year's a leap year, so we get it by itself.
This year's a shmita year so a lot of relevant questions have been on my mind lately. How do we honor these commandments outside of eretz yisrael, or in a non-agricultural setting?
Or, maybe more pressingly for yovel than for shmita, how do we honor them in a setting where most of the people we interact with, the people who grow our food and the people who hold our debs and the people we sell property to and the people operating prisons (the hotbed of modern slavery that they are) don't have any interest in practicing a jubilee year? These are of course all questions rabbis have considered, but i find some of their simpler conclusions unsatisfying personally and haven't fully studied the more complicated ones.
I am big into debt forgiveness as a concept, especially when so many of the debts people carry are for things like medical care. If you've got some spare funds, consider giving them to RIP medical debt.
The Haftarah (reading from the Prophets) to the portion ‘Be-Har’ comes from Jeremiah chapter 32. Elegant opening to the Book of Jeremiah, in the Lisbon Bible volume 2 #HebrewProject #LetsGetDigital #Haftarahhttps://t.co/KW2fk5EvxB pic.twitter.com/pPnzRiYj6w
— BL_HebrewMSS (@BL_HebrewMSS) May 20, 2022
Omer counting
I have a daily email reminder that will send you the text of the blessing along with something about that day's sefirot. It looks like it's getting caught in a lot of spam filters and I'm very sorry about that. Please tell your spam filter it's not spam.
This week we had Lag B'Omer, a "break" in the minor mourning period celebrated with bonfires and haircuts. Sephardim call it Lag La'Omer. Futurama made a joke about it once.
ל…ל״א…ל״ב…ל״ג
— joey rosenfeld (@jorosenfeld) May 18, 2022
First you set your intention towards something.
Then you encounter a prevention, something that says no.
With a heart of flesh, a person moves beyond the blockage.
Finally, something is revealed.
Antisemitism, Zionism, Israel and Palestine
Vashti's The Pickle email newsletter was about the crossover points between antisemitism and transphobia in the UK.
The mass shooting in Buffalo, NY last week led to a influx of articles and ideas around the great replacement theory, white supremacy, race, and antisemitism. Here are some places to donate to support the Black community of Buffalo. Work to eradicate white supremacy within Jewish communities.
Miscellaneous
I made this and I’m not sorry. ( @Anzovina you might enjoy) pic.twitter.com/fxRuGxupbs
— Amalia Rubin (@TheWildAmalia) May 20, 2022
This wonderful t-shirt from ModernTribe has a rainbow and raises abortion funds for NNAF, and it goes up to 5XL.
Online queer yeshiva Shel Maala has merch with their lovely pomegranate logo on it, including crop hoodies (S/M/L only, but other merch options go bigger)! Xava and Binya model the t-shirt, crop hoodie, and mug beautifully.
was talking today about Dumah, the angel who oversees graves, and sources in folklore and Talmud. Reminded me I hadn’t share my Dumah Jewish Monster Hunting trading card. Here it is… pic.twitter.com/Cqv7KRxGqe
— Adne Sadeh: Jewish monster hunter (@AdneSadeh) May 18, 2022
Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell has some very cool projects coming up apparently!
Chelm is coming to television and it just might be hilarious:
Cohen will develop the animated special “Chelm: The Smartest Place on Earth” for HBO Max alongside Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, known for “King of the Hill,” and Michael Koman, a former writer on “Nathan For You” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Cohen will also narrate the special.
Let's learn about the kosher meat boycott of 1902!
On this week in 1902, Jewish women in NYC led a fierce and successful boycott campaign in response to the rising cost of kosher meat. This campaign saw thousands of women protest in the streets, organize in synagogues, and promote the boycott of kosher meat wherever they could. pic.twitter.com/nYWZzXVtnG
— The Workers Circle (@workerscircle) May 17, 2022
Classes coming up
SVARA classes, including summer talmud zman 6/14-7/21
Events!
New event additions to the list are bolded.
5/23 Telling Stories with Data: Reclaiming the studies that shape Jewish communal narratives with Samira Mehta and Ari Kelman, moderated by Analucía Lopezrevoredo (part of a series)
5/25 Multilingual Jewish Prayer Throughout History: Performance and Analysis
5/25 Young Adult Author Panel Focusing on Jewish History
6/1 IJV Online Chavurah - 2022 Shavuot Session
6/3-6/5 Festival Sefardí
6/4-6/5 ShavuotLIVE 2022: a 24-Hour Festival of Jewish Learning! 5pm eastern-5 pm eastern.
6/7-6/10 Yidstock
6/12 Book Talk: Women Writing Jewish Modernity
6/12-6/14 Kavod v'Nichum North American Chevrah Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference
6/30 Antisemitism and the Impact of Philanthropy on Public Discourse (part of a series)
7/29 Queer Disability Shabbat (queer and disabled jews only, please, but with expansive definitions on all three of those identity labels)
Jewish Pet of the Week
This week I am tired so you get a picture I took yesterday of my friend's roommate's cat Bucky (for Starbuck). She chose me! Can you believe it.
Shabbat shalom!
<3
Meli