December 24, 2021

Shemot

Hello everyone! There are 236 email addresses receiving this and I think that's amazing.

CW's: beginning of exodus bible stuff (oppression, baby killing policies, murder), nazis

Jewish Calendar

This week's torah portion is Shemot (playlist from the folks at Rising Song). We are starting a new book of the torah: exodus/shemot. A lot of stuff happens in this one parsha, most of them familiar story beats. I try and avoid calling mitzrayim egypt, because it's not the egypt that exists today; and unless I'm mistaken we have no proof these events factually happened in history so it wasn't the egypt then either, and also it expands the liberatory potential of the text co call it the narrow place or place of struggles, even if the ways to say "people of mizrayim" are all clunky. The monarch is still called pharaoh in the torah, though, so I do use that term.

Anyway, since Joseph died, years passed and the bosses got bad, with the rulers of mitzrayim forgetting the israelites and oppressing them, culminating in racist population boom myths and an order to kill jewish babies. Shifra and Puah, the two midwives who prevented the deaths of jewish babies by leaning on additional racist myths about fertility (hey, whatever works, you know?) There is disagreement over whether the midwives themselves were israelites or mitzrayimite, touched on in this dvar from nonbinary JTS rabbinical student Jessica Dell’Era. Anyway a Jewish mother had a baby boy, named him Moses, and hid him for a while, but ended up putting him in the river in a basket. The pharoah's daughter adopted him.

Grown-up Moses murdered a mitzrayimite who was beating up an israelite and freaked the fuck out at his own actions, running away with a midianite and his family. Moses fell in love with Zipporah, a midianite woman, and married her, and had at least one kid with her (first son named Gershom, meaning stranger-there). Hashem called Moses to leadership by speaking through a shrub that burned but was not consumed. Moses got a magic staff that turns into a snake and back (#goals). Moses is like "okay but i'm bad at words" and G-d says "then your bro Aaron will do the talking parts". Then they go back to Mitzrayim and stuff continues to go sideways, but more on that next week.

If you want more in-depth viewpoints on all this, RaDR's newsletter Life is a Sacred Text is aligned with the torah portion--because she is digging deeper and going in order, that will not last long, but it is true at the moment. I also appreciated Zohar Atkins' dvar about ordinary good people.

Israel, Zionism, and Antisemitism

While I'm no expert on international politics, I gotta agree with Uncle Caviar here regarding the Chilean election of Gabriel Boric: I know jewish communities are often one-issue voters around israel policy, but when the other guy is a nazi-descended far right guy maybe the jewish angle should be a little about how the nazi lost.

Misc

We may someday actually get a xmas rom-com between a Chinese restaurant owner and the Jewish widow he cooks dinner for every year!

It's hard to be Orthodox and Queer, though that's slowly improving because of the efforts of groups like Eshel. It's much harder to be orthodox and nonbinary, since the gender roles are often strictly and communally observed in Ortho communities. Jesse Caplan's extended interview with Joey Reef is an ex-orthodox queer story that's not quite the same as the others I've read before, not least because of the role of pronoun experimentation via pandemic-related internet socializing.

Dos vort in der virtueler yidisher gas: How Online Social Spaces Are Strengthening Transnational Yiddish Community, by freygl gertsovski

The Torah Studio's winter season of classes look great, including tehillim (psalms), intro to talmud, and more! Apparently they are friendly to drop-ins, or you can get a class pass at a discount.

In addition to SVARA's previously linked spring zman classes, Jess Belasco (SVARA fellow) will be running a three session disability justice focused drop-in torah circle on January 9th, 16th, and 23rd. This is not the same as their Cripping the Talmud course with Rabbi Elliot Kukla, which is full.

Jewish parenting site Kveller is calling for pitches, particularly from queer jews, JOCSM, single parents, and others who are often underrepresented.

Events!

12/24 Nittel Nacht with Rad Yiddish

12/25-12/30 Yiddish New York, which includes a 4 day social justice workshop and a 24 hour concert (!)

12/26 Jews vs Aliens: A Chanukah Story, an RPG playthrough

1/2 Speculative Wisdom bookclub discusses The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

1/9 Matir Asurim Penpal training

1/9 Queer Nigun Project Song Circle

1/10-1/14 Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest

1/16-1/17 Tu Bishvat

1/18 Torah beyond zionism: Israel and the Book of Joshua with Rachel Havrelock

1/26 Black Studies and Jewish Studies in Conversation: Du Bois Before Warsaw, Fascism Before Racism

1/27 Shakespeare & Yiddish with Ilan Stavans

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Data! look at her all snug in her cat bed.

A final note: as I said last week, I have turned on an entirely optional pay what you want subscription option. Paying will get you the exact same thing as not-paying.

See you next week, and shabbat shalom!

<3

Meli