Here is a very nice interview with me on an Orthodox Feminist [no, not an oxymoron] blog that gets to the bottom of what inspired me to write "Rashi's Daughters," as well as some other interesting questions. Thank you, Talia bat Pessi.
I got a nice Hanukah present last week when the "final" manuscript of RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER was accepted by my editor at Plume. While this still isn't the real final manuscript, that is, the version that readers will see in August, it does mean that I've earned the next portion of my advance. My editor found so few things to correct that she sent it off to copy editing, saying that I could address both kinds of changes later.
Luckily I had just finished reading the whole thing aloud, which meant that I'd fixed some more errors [including one scene where I'd referred to something that hadn't happened yet] and improved any wording that didn't sound right [including places where I used the same word several times in one page]. Another lucky thing is that the same copy editor who worked on "Rashi's Daughters" is available to work on "Rav Hisda's Daughter.
But no holiday break for me. Plume sent me a 5-page author questionnaire, some of which require careful consideration.
The tough questions are:
1] If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked? If possible, could you provide the answers?
2] How did the idea originate? Remember that often the most incidental stories make interesting publicity.
3] The most difficult - Please describe your book in 250 words or less.
In my next few posts, I'll share my answers to these questions, and more.
You probably know that Hanukah begins tonight, but did you know that Hanukah is a Talmudic holiday? Many Jews are surprised to learn that Hanukah is not even mentioned in the Torah, and in fact, the story of Hanukah, along with its laws and customs, is missing from the Mishna as well, except for a few passing references (Bikkurim 1:6, Rosh Hashanah 1:3, Taanit 2:10, Megillah 3:4 and 3:6, Moed Katan 3:9, and Bava Kama 6:6). Perhaps knowledge of the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it, but some scholars suggest that, as the Mishnah was redacted shortly after the two recent, albeit unsuccessful, revolts against the Romans, its editors were reluctant to discuss a holiday celebrating a successful revolt against a foreign ruler, for fear of antagonizing their Roman rulers.
The rituals of Hanukah are described in the Talmud staring on Shabbat 21. The text begins by discussing Shabbat lamps and then digresses to Hanukah lamps. It says that after the forces of Antiochus IV were driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that nearly all the ritual olive oil had been profaned. Only a single container remained that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the lamp in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this anyway, yet it burned for eight days - the time it took to prepare new oil.
The Talmud presents three options for lighting the lamps that commemorate the festival:
1. Minimally one light each night per household,
2. A better practice is to light one light each night for each member of the household
3. The most preferred practice is to vary the number of lights each night, with Shammai starting with eight and decreasing while Hillel starts with one and increases.
Except in times of danger, the lights were to be placed outside one's door, on the opposite side of the mezuzah, or in the window closest to the street. In Babylonia, where the Zoroastrian Magi considered fire one of God’s most holy creations and thus objected to fire being profaned in Jewish ceremonies, Jews kept their Hanukah lamps indoors for fear of the Magi confiscating them.
According to that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, חנוכה (Hanukah) is a Hebrew acronym for ח נרות והלכה כבית הלל — "Eight candles, and the halacha is like the House of Hillel". This is a reference to the disagreement between two rabbinical schools of thought — the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai - on the proper order in which to light the Hanukkah flames. Shammai opined that eight candles should be lit on the first night, seven on the second night, and so on down to one on the last night. Hillel argued in favor of starting with one candle and lighting an additional one every night, up to eight on the eighth night. Jewish law adopted the position of Hillel.
For more about the history of Hanukah, click on the link.
And now for something completely different: this year's winner of Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2011, announced Dec 6 at London's "In and Out Club" [of course]. Thank goodness I didn't win it, although there are those who say even/especially bad publicity is good publicity.
For those who want to know more about Talmud study, here is a link to a good article explaining what Talmud is and why it is so difficult to study. It also gives a nice explanation why Talmud is less difficult today than 25 years ago. I admit to being a Schottenstein Talmud fan, not that I and others who want to study in English have much choice. At least I have the resources to translate the text differently if I think they're wrong.
A little while ago I wrote about the primacy of Torah study to all denominations of Jews. When it comes to the importance of Torah study, it seemed that the sentiment of Elu Devarim summed this up so nicely that I wanted to use it in "Rav Hisda's Daughter."
Alas, this prayer is a product of recent Ashkenzi liturgists [it doesn't even appear in Sephardic prayer books], so I couldn't very well have Rav Hisda and his students quoting it. The origin in Mishna Peah lists merely 3 things/devarim: honor mother and father, acts of loving kindness, and making peace between a man and his fellow, and it ends with "and Torah study is equal to them all." There is no "because it leads to them all." The Talmudic rabbis discuss this briefly in Shab 127a.