In the Talmud, A Weirdly Sobering Voice from My Own Not-So-Distant Past

Each chapter of the Talmud ends with some beautiful words from the editor: הדרן עלך / Hadran Alakh / “We will return to you.” It’s a reminder that the massive volumes of the Talmud are not read like any other books, but rather are something to be reviewed and revisited. When you come back to a certain chapter, you discover insights that you never noticed the first time around, because you’ve presumably grown and changed and are reading the words in new and different ways.

So with the tradition of Hadran in mind, I often write notes to myself in the margins as reminders for the next time I’ll be back on this page.

All of which is to say, this morning, I found a note to myself that was a sobering signpost of where we are in the world.

Some context: I learn the Talmud in two ways. I’m one of tens of thousands who are doing Daf Yomi, the one-page-a-day cycle of reading the Talmud which takes 7+ years to navigate (we just marked the two-year anniversary of this cycle!). I approach Daf Yomi as a spiritual discipline each morning, before I read the news or email or the day’s responsibilities; I give it 45-60 minutes and often simply plow through sections that are especially dense or obscure.

I also have been learning Talmud with a chevruta (study partner), Rabbi Ben Levy, which we’ve been doing for over 20 years! And our approach is the exact opposite of Daf Yomi: we read closely and meticulously, and give ourselves plenty of opportunity for reflection and free association. It sometimes takes us years to finish a single volume of the Talmud.

So, this morning I’m reading the Daf Yomi, Megillah 31, which Ben and I studied more intensively in the past. The page discusses the liturgical readings from the Torah that the Rabbis selected for the various holidays throughout the year. And in that discussion, we find this paragraph:

תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר אוֹמֵר: עֶזְרָא תִּיקֵּן לָהֶן לְיִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁיְּהוּ קוֹרִין קְלָלוֹת שֶׁבְּתוֹרַת כֹּהֲנִים קוֹדֶם עֲצֶרֶת, וְשֶׁבְּמִשְׁנֵה תוֹרָה קוֹדֶם רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה. מַאי טַעְמָא? אָמַר אַבָּיֵי וְאִיתֵּימָא רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ: כְּדֵי שֶׁתִּכְלֶה הַשָּׁנָה וְקִלְלוֹתֶיהָ

It was taught: Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said: Ezra enacted for the Jewish people that they should read the Torah portion of the curses that are recorded in Leviticus (Lev. 26:14-46) before Shavuot, and the Torah portion of the curses that are recorded in Deuteronomy (Deut. 28:15-69) before Rosh Hashanah.

Why? Abbaye (4th C sage in Babylonia) said—and some say it was Resh Lakish (3rd C sage in the Land of Israel) who said it: In order that the year, and its curses, should come to an end!

(The next paragraph explains that Shavuot, at the beginning of the summer, can also be considered a “New Year,” just like Rosh Hashanah.)

There’s lots to say about those words. But what leapt out at me was a note that I had written in the margins when I last read this page with Ben. There I wrote: “I’m reading this on 12/30/2020, the year of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Look how naïve I was! I figured that it was unique that I was studying this text on the cusp of a New (secular) Year, and it resonated with me. Because surely when I would return to this page in the future, the curse of the pandemic would be a sorrowful memory of a lousy time.

My own voice from the past, in a private message to my future self.

Like so many others, I’m so tired of all of this—of irresponsible responses to the virus, of the stupid politicization of public health policies which should be one thing all of us have in common, of these frigging masks, and of people I care about being sick or dying or in mourning. Tired of it—but trudging forward and determined to do the right and responsible behaviors, for the sake fo those who are most vulnerable.

 Today I wrote another note in the margin of Megillah 31b: “And again, on Daf Yomi 1/12/22, while Covid still endures.”

I will return to you, Megillah 31. And, G-d willing, when I return to you, the curses of this damned pandemic will have come to an end, a distant memory.

Twenty Years

Twenty years.

No doubt others will have much to say about this dismal anniversary, but I hope that my reflections will help you come to terms with yours. I’ll share three things here: (a) where I was; (b) a strange fantasy that I had at the time; and (c) what it all meant to me as a Jew.  I can only share what I felt and learned, because ultimately, each of us is on our own; the great coming-together in unity and mutual empathy of the post-9/11 world never arrived. (Today, under Covid, that couldn’t be clearer.)

Like many people in New Jersey, I was driving to the office that Tuesday morning, and one year-old Avi was in his toddler’s seat in the back. It was during our four-minute commute into New Brunswick that we heard the news that the first plane hit the first tower.

I dropped Avi off in the Anshe Emeth preschool and hurried down the hall to Rabbi Bennett Miller’s office, where together we listened on the radio as the events unfolded. There was the second plane, and then the towers collapsing. There was the attack on the Pentagon. There was the plane full of heroes that was wrested from the terrorists and forced down in a southwestern Pennsylvania field. I recall how for the rest of the day there was chatter about how many more planes were out there, unaccounted for, and we braced ourselves for even more crashes that never came.

We put out word that there would be a gathering in our sanctuary that afternoon. And I remember Rabbi Miller putting his arm around me and saying, “Neal, don’t be disappointed if very few people come out. Many people’s impulse will be to go home and stay home on a day like today.” And I remember the overwhelming emotions when we went up to the sanctuary and every seat was full, and we sang songs of peace, and one by one people came up to the microphone and just spoke from their hearts.

The anger came later, and I still don’t think that 9/11 commemorations give enough credence to the integrity of anger. In New Jersey, everyone was one degree of separation or less from a funeral.
 

I had a fantasy in the weeks after 9/11… and it was just a fantasy, a pretty naïve one as it turns out. You see, something rather remarkable happened in the world after the attacks.  Many countries around the globe said, “We’re all Americans today.” Many cities renamed some of their main thoroughfares with names like “New York Plaza” or whatever. That was certainly the case in Israel, where every citizen knows what it feels like to live in the shadow of terrorism. There was a remarkable sense of international empathy, of gathering behind the United States, this wounded giant.

But not everybody shared that sense of unity. In many Arab nations, there was celebration. In the Palestinian territories—and I don’t write this with spite or viciousness, just candor—there was dancing in the streets, and passing out candies to children on this ‘great day.’

And my fantasy was that America would use that momentary international unity for something truly profound… My fantasy was that President George W. Bush would, in the months after 9/11, bring Arafat and the Palestinians and Sharon and the Israelis together. And he’d say: “Here’s the deal. We have the weight and support of the entire world behind us. We’re putting an end to the conflict, now. The plan is the Clinton plan, that one that you, Arafat, walked out on. We saw you dancing and celebrating. We’re willing to put that aside. But now, today, everyone will sign this agreement, and we’re putting the decades of conflict to an end. By the authority of the United States and the entire world which stands with us.”

That was my fantasy. I told you it was naïve. But what authority, what consensus we had for a few moments there… and I shudder to think how it was squandered.

The other thing I will always remember is how the attacks came just six days before Rosh Hashanah.

When we assembled in shul that year, everything was illuminated in new and unfamiliar ways. The words of the Machzor were on fire. The prayers spoke of things that hadn’t been there last year. There was ash in the air.

Rabbis scrapped the sermons they had been writing over the summer and composed new ones from the heart. I haven’t been able to track down the sermon I wrote, but I still remember how it ended. It was about Cain and Abel. At the end of the drash, I reflected on Cain’s famous dodge when the Lord of the Universe asks him, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain, of course, says, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And I remarked that the very next verse, when G-d speaks again, seems quite disconnected; instead of answering Cain’s question, G-d responds that Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground. The non-sequitur bothered me. Why doesn’t G-d answer? Why doesn’t G-d reply to Cain’s question?

I proposed then that G-d does, in fact, reply to Cain. The entire rest of the Torah is G-d’s answer to the question.

And the answer was, and is: “Yes.”