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mostly dead computer

OY! One of the biggest disasters to befall an author - my trusty 2007 Mac Powerbook died last Friday. I took it to my local computer repair place [High-Tech in Westchester] to see if it was completely dead or just "mostly" dead. They did something called a reflow to get my old PowerBook Mac up and running again. It cost less than $100 and was well worth it to get the few days of files I hadn't backed up.

But they warned me the fix would likely only extend this old workhorse's life for a few months, maybe a year if I was lucky. So it was off to the Apple Store for a Mac Mini where I can still plug in all my old peripherals - large monitor, printer, internet cable, and last but not least, 2 terabyte time capsule hard drive. Downloaded everything onto it and I am totally back in business. Thank goodness I had Time Machine.

Twitter

I finally bit the bullet and joined Twitter, and now have just over a minyan of folks who follow my tweets [not minions unfortunately]. You can keep up with my progress in writing, promoting my new book, and other various authorial tasks by following me @MagiAnton.

Mishna Yomit Pesachim

"At the light of the fourteenth day of Nissan they check for chametz with the light of the candle." That's the famous first line of Mishnah Pesachim, which through incredible "min hashamayim" timing, we will begin learning through Mishnah Yomit on the very day that we Jews all over the world will be doing this. This is as rare an event as Thanksgiving falling on Hanukah. In fact, Rabbi Goldfarb has told me that the Mishnah Yomit cycle will not begin learning Pesach on Erev Pesach again until the year 4329 C.E. This is your chance to get in on a historic event!

So sign up now for Mishnah Yomit.

I've been learning from this daily dose of Mishnah, delivered fresh to my email box each morning, for several years. For those who don't have the time or inclination to study Gemara daily with Daf Yomi, or for those who want to learn Talmud in the traditional manner by doing the entire Mishnah first, I highly recommend Mishnah Yomit.

Rashi on Noah in JJ

Wow! I have an article in this week's Jewish Journal that details Rashi's questions and answers concerning the story of Noah. Of course the questions are mine; Rashi, like the TV show Jeopardy, only provides the answers and part of the fun in Rashi's Torah commentary is figuring out what the question is.

Rashi on Noah's ark pt 4

In conclusion, Rashi considers the most important, and profound, question about Noah’s Ark:

“And finally, one of the most difficult questions: How could the Holy One repent that He had made man and have it grieve His heart? Didn’t He know when He created Adam and Eve what would happen in the future?”

Salomon paused for a moment before concluding, “When a man fathers a son, he rejoices and makes others rejoice with him, even though he knows that his son will sin and some day his son will die. So too is the way of the Holy One. Although it was clear to Him that in the end man would commit evil deeds and be destroyed, for the sake of the righteous men who were to issue from them, He still created humanity.”

Rashi on Noah's ark pt 3

Rashi answers even more questions about Noah’s ark:

“It rained for forty days and forty nights, but how long did Noah and all the animals stay in the ark altogether?” A student who’d actually begun to think about the text usually asked about this. “The rain began to fall on the seventeenth day of the second month, and one solar year later, on the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth had dried sufficiently that the ark’s inhabitants could leave.”

“A whole year! How could they stay on the ark so long?” The previous answer always required elaboration. “Before the flood, the Holy One made a covenant with Noah and the animals such that fruit and grain to feed them would not spoil, the carnivorous animals would not eat their vegetarian fellows, and the wombs of the females were closed so no babies would be born on the ark.”

“Noah took seven pairs of clean animal and two unclean. How did he know which animals were clean before Moses received the Law?” Another problem for the skeptic. “Obviously Noah was acquainted with Torah even before Moses. After all, Torah existed before the earth was created.”

Rashi on Noah's ark pt 2

Rashi continues answering questions about Noah’s ark:

“People have children when they’re young; why didn’t Noah have any until he was 500 years old?” Salomon could see the dubious expression on a skeptical student’s face. “Because the Holy One restrained him, saying, ‘If Noah’s descendants are wicked, they will perish in the flood and it will grieve him; and if they are righteous, he will have to trouble himself by building several arks.’”

“What does it mean that Noah is called a righteous man in his generation?” One of his more intelligent students usually asked this question. “Some say to his credit that Noah was righteous even in a generation of wicked men, that he would have been considered even more righteous in a generation of good men. Others say, to his discredit, that in comparison to his own generation he was righteous, but had he lived in the generation of Abraham he would have been of no importance.”

“There are many ways the Holy One could have saved Noah; why did He burden him with constructing an ark?” Another intelligent question. “So the wicked men might see him building the ark and ask about it, and thus confronted with their impending destruction, perhaps they would repent.”

Rashi on Noah's ark pt 1

The top-grossing movie last week was “Noah,” and though it sold plenty of tickets, audience reaction was mixed. People apparently either loved it or loathed it, but one reaction was universal. Everyone had lots of questions, particularly about how far the movie strayed from the biblical text and where the screenwriters [both Jewish, though professed atheists] got their ideas.

Rashi too had lots of questions about the Noah story, or perhaps his students did, because his Torah commentary answers many of them. As it happens I created a scene in the second volume of Rashi’s Daughters: Miriam, where he is explains the Noah story to an audience of Jews and Notzrim in the local count’s court.

So in honor of this new Noah movie, I am devoting my next few blog posts to that scene, in hopes that Rashi may enlighten my readers with his opinions. Here’s how it starts:

“Salomon decided to discuss Noah’s Ark, a subject even the most ignorant of Count André’s court should be familiar with. Yet even Noah’s Ark had its pitfalls. With a Jewish audience Salomon would have spent time explaining how the Holy One’s name changes during the tale. Sometimes, like when He tells Noah to make an ark because He is going to destroy the earth along with its corrupt and violent inhabitants, He is Elohim, God of Strict Justice. At other times, like when His heart is grieved and He regrets creating mankind, He is Adonai, God of Divine Mercy. But a lesson depending on Hebrew would be wasted on Notzrim.