March 30, 2010

Twas the Night after Pesach

With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore:

Twas the night after Pesach and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not me nor my spouse
Matzah crumbs and other shmutz were swept up with care
Wine stains removed from that dining room chair

Linens laundered and folded and all put away
Sure the afikomen holder did not go astray
The dishwasher's empty after doing loads four
Furniture moved back to its previous decor

Not a glass or dish broken, this year was unique
So many leftovers, I won't cook for a week.
With all the work finished, I sit down and rest
At a friend's Seder tonight, I'll be the guest

[I did not find this on the internet, I actually wrote it myself]

Posted by maggie at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2010

Fun in the library

I spent Tuesday doing research at the HUC-JIR library in Los Angeles. I must have found over twenty books that looked like they could be useful, but I was only allowed to check out five. So I spent my time leafing through them, deciding which ones I needed to take them home and which ones I could just photocopy the pages of interest. I ended up with over 100 pages to copy, so imagine my disappointment when I learned that the machine only took dimes. Then the librarian made my day by pointing out that this modern copier would make pdf files and email them to me. Incredible! What a savings in paper, toner and money.

So which books captured my interest? Here are a few titles: "Labor, Crafts and Commerce in Ancient Israel," "Woman and Womanhood in Stories of the Babylonian Talmud," "Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia," "Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls," and "Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period." I can see that my problem is changing from lack of resources to lack of time to read them all.

And I haven't even begun to look for periodical articles on my subject, although I think that will be my next step, now that I've plundered the shelves at the Los Angeles city public library, as well as those at LMU, HUC-JIR, and AJU. Plus there are all sorts of online resources, like Encyclopedia Iranica . I can see that researching RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER will utilize online resources far more than with RASHI'S DAUGHTERS, where I did much of my research in the last century. A fantastic resource I just discovered is World Cat , which will search a huge number of research libraries for a specific book and then tell you which library that has it is closest to your zip code. Unfortunately, neither HUC nor AJU catalogues seems to be included.

Many of my current sources are will be journal articles, some of which are available online at the professor/author's website, some in online collections devoted to my subject, and others the author have emailed me as pdf's. But the gold mine for this stuff is RAMBI - The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies , a selective bibliography of articles in the various fields of Jewish studies.

Posted by maggie at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2010

National Day of Unplugging this Shabbat

I read an unusual article in the NY Times this morning about a Jewish organization, Reboot who are urging everyone, Jews and not, to join in them in a "National Day of Unplugging" this Shabbat, from Friday, March 19, at sundown to Saturday, March 20, at sundown. No computer, no cell phone [except maybe to call family and friends], no Facebook or Twitter. Can you do it?
Besides avoiding technology, there are 9 more ways to unplug and revitalize yourself on Shabbat, courtesy of Sabbath Manifesto, a creative project designed to slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world. I personally recommend: get outside, nurture your health, and connect with loved ones.
Shabbat Shalom

Posted by maggie at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2010

Problematic Talmud texts about Rav Hisda's daughter

The Talmud contains 3 passages concerning Rav Hisda's daughter that I'm not sure what to do with. Berachot 56a is part of a large sugia on dream interpretation where Rava [her husband] and Abbaye [his friend] consult a professional dream interpreter. The two men describe identical dreams, but Abbaye pays the interpreter and receives good predictions while Rava doesn't pay and gets bad ones. Among Rava's bad news: his will divorce two wives, his sons and daughters will die, and his wife will die. Rava clearly believes these predictions and gets quite upset at the thought of Rav Hisda's daughter dying. While I realize that this passage is probably in the Talmud to teach that dream interpreters can be, and probably are, untrustworthy, I would like to work this scene into my book in some way. Quite a challenge.

Ketubot 65a contains a problematic tale where Abbaye's widow Homa comes to Rava's court to request her maintenance. When Rava questions her, she throws out to arm to indicate the large cups of wine she and Abbaye drank from, and in doing so, her sleeve falls away and exposes the flesh of her arm [and perhaps more]. Rava becomes so aroused that he must leave the court to go home and have sex with his pleasantly surprised wife. A nice tale except that tradition has Abbaye dying at age 60 and Rava being approximately 10 years older than his friend. So Rava is supposed to be 70 years old when this happens?! Rather difficult to imagine such a sexy scene occurring between septuagenarians.

But most difficult is the passage in Shabbat 129a, where Rav Hisda's daughter becomes chilled after childbirth while Rava is away. She becomes so ill that his students bring her to him on her "arsah." English translations render "arsah" as sickbed [so he can cure her with his warmth] or bier [so he can bury her]. Obviously a big difference in interpretation as far as my novel is concerned. Luckily I discovered that medieval commentators recognize this problem and state that Rava's wife was indeed healed by him. So I give a sigh of relief that apparently my heroine didn't die in childbirth after all, plus thanks that I can have a cliff-hanging race to bring her to her husband before it's too late.

Posted by maggie at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2010

What the Talmud actually says about RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER

So what does the Talmud actually say about Rav Hisda's daughter? Bava Batra 12b has the core scene of Rav Hisda's daughter sitting on her father's lap while his students, Rava and Rami bar Hama, stand before them. When Rav Hisda asks her which of the two men she wants to marry, she replies "both," and Rava adds, "I'll be last" [commentators let us know that she indeed married Rami first and Rava second]. Eruvin 65a also shows our heroine as a child, innocently suggesting that Rav Hisda appears tired and should take a nap. Shabbat 140b contains the famous [or perhaps infamous] passage where Rav Hisda teaches his daughters, in rather explicit detail, the fine art of sexual foreplay [yes, that's the piece of Talmud Rashi teaches to Joheved and Miriam in BOOK 1].

The scene in Yevamot 34b, along with those below, takes place later, after she's become Rava's wife. Here they are recently wed as well as newly pregnant. Rava hears gossip about her because the sages have a tradition that a woman widowed more than 10 years can no longer bear children, thus she must not have been chaste during those intervening years [this passage also tells us that Rami died 10 years before Rav Hisda's daughter married Rava]. But Rava's teacher, Rav Nachman, says that this tradition only applies if the widow has no plans to remarry. Rav Hisda's daughter, clearly familiar with both teachings, reassures Rava that during her widowhood, "I was thinking of you."

Later on, in Berachot 62a, our heroine demonstrates several methods she uses to protect Rava from demons while he's in the privy. Hagigah 5a shows Rava's confidence that Rav Hisda's daughter [his wife], unlike most women, is an expert in removing the forbidden fat and nerves from meat before cooking it. In Hullin 44b, she chides Rava for buying meat from an animal he himself declared kosher, pointing out that her father would not do so in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Ketubot 39b has several rabbis discussing how much pain a woman suffers upon losing her virginity, including Rava who declares that Rav Hisda's daughter felt only a sting like a bloodletter's lance. Ketubot 85a gives us a courtroom scene where Rava accepts his wife's opinion of a witness' truthfulness while rejecting another rabbi's.

These Talmudic passages are rather straightforward, but others that mention Rav Hisda's daughter can be problematic - as we'll see in my next post.

Posted by maggie at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2010

special offer for RASHI'S DAUGHTERS at B&N

We interrupt this blog for an important word from our sponsor.

Great news. The full RASHI'S DAUGHTERS trilogy is in the Buy 2 Get 1 Free promotion all this month at B&N. I wonder if it's for Passover or in honor of "Women's History Month."

We will return to Rav Hisda's daughter research with the next post.

Posted by maggie at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2010

what does the Talmud say about Rav Hisda's daughter

Back to RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER. With the historical timeline in place, I now look to what the Talmud says about my characters' lives, my heroine's in particular. Jewish scholars span a wide range of opinions on the Talmud's historicity, from those who say that everything written there is absolute fact to their opponents who say that it's all mere legend. I am not a historian [who must be correct], but a historical novelist [who cannot be wrong]. My job is to weave fact and legend into a story that entertains and educates my readers, hopefully using as much fact as possible.

But the Talmud is self-referential; we have no outside sources that mention Rav Hisda, Rava, or anybody in the Talmud for that matter. Thus I am compelled to use what the Talmud says about my characters as the basis for my novel, despite occasional contradictions. So how do I find these Talmudic references? First I check various books like "Encyclopedia of Talmudic Sages" or "Who's Who in the Talmud?" Of course they have entries for Rav Hisda and Rava, and an occasional reference to my heroine. Online "biographies" for these sages, such as WebShas, yielded more sources. A goldmine is an article by Professor Dvora Weisberg titled "Desirable But Dangerous: Rabbi's Daughters in the Babylonian Talmud," which provides 12 citations for Rav Hisda's daughter.

Eventually I find Rav Hisda's daughter mentioned nearly 20 times in the Talmud [BB 12b, Ber 56a, Ber 62a, Chag 5a, Eruv 65a, Hul 44b, Ket 21a, Ket 39b, Ket 65a, Ket 85a, Kid 81b, MK 9b, Nid 15b [tos], Shab 129a, Yev 34b]. Now, hoping these passages will supply me with lots of interesting scenes to create a story around, I check to see what the Talmud says about her. My next post will detail what I found.

Posted by maggie at 07:00 PM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2010

Fabulous Purim at my shul

In honor of Purim, which of course took place in ancient Babylonia [but about 800 years before Rav Hisda's time] I'm sharing a video taken at my Reform synagogue, Beth Chayim Chadashim [I also belong to a Conservative synagogue, Burbank Temple Emanu-El], on Saturday night.

The video's star of is our new cantor, Juval Porat, the first cantor ordained in Germany since the Holocaust. Because so many non-members come to our Purim shpiel, he delivered a special membership appeal to the audience.
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You can also watch Juval in another Purim musical skit at his blog.

Posted by maggie at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)