Dear friends,
I’m afraid my blogging lags well behind my actual experiences. And alas, my present experience is sitting at home with a bad upper respiratory infection. No, don’t panic — I’m quite sure it is my usual winter sinus mess, and NOT the new corona virus. But it caused me to miss a Shabbat dinner I would have loved to attend (at which the Dean was in attendance — a man who is difficult to get to know). And now, a day of classes as well — not to mention, the weather is delightful today, sunny and warm and full of bird song. I felt much less sad about staying in on Friday when the rain and the wind were whipping around outside and the sky was as dark at mid-day as it usually is at dusk. Just now, a Palestinian Sunbird (sort of like a giant iridescent hummingbird) was fluttering around in the sunlight on my patio. If it stays so nice, I will at least go sit outside for a bit in that gorgeous sun.
Here as everywhere there is a general panic about COVID-19. Normally a great deal of travel goes on between Israel and the rest of the world. Now, people are being placed in quarantine at a rapid rate, and many countries are off-limits for travel. One of Pardes’s staff members made the mistake of going to France to visit family and is now on lock-down for fourteen days. We receive daily updates about the best ways to prevent the spread of the virus — measures that we all no doubt should have been following even before the advent of this nasty virus, given that a place like Pardes is a veritable petri dish of germs. A couple days ago we got a notice from the government that an American tourist who was later diagnosed with COVID-19 had gone traipsing through Talpiot (the neighborhood where Pardes is located), visiting all the shops, cafes, and buses that we generally use. They provided us with a list of times, dates, and locations, and said if we’d been in any of these places at these times we should report to the government for testing and possible quarantine. As one of my classmates said, “Who the hell remembers what time or day we were in the mall or on the Hebron Road bus?”
Purim is almost upon us. With the fears about the virus, it seems like a bad time to be encouraging mass parties with excessive drinking. In Intermediate Talmud we’ve been reading Tractate Megillat Esther, which lays out the rules for Purim. As kids from the BAJC Hebrew School know, there are “One, two, three, four — four mitzvot for Purim.” (See here for the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LhrjAksLlE I’m afraid it proves the sad truth that there are few if any really good songs for this holiday!). Tractate Megillah lays out the commandments: Read Megillat Esther (the scroll of Esther), give Mishloach manot (food gifts to friends), give matanot laEvyonim (gifts to the poor), and make a festive Purim meal. But there is also a commandment — not listed as one of the four, but spelled out in the gemara — “Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordecai”. (Megillah 7:b)
Our teacher Leah told us that her son, who goes to a frum yeshiva, was thinking about coming home for Purim in order to avoid the spectacle — as well as the possible dangers — of seeing his fellow-classmates and teachers taking this commandment literally. She said he was quite nervous about it. I don’t blame him. I was planning a Purim seudah (meal) at my house, but I wasn’t all that sorry to have to cancel it due to being sick — the possibility that my guests would be very drunk didn’t thrill me. As it is, I was recently at a Shabbat lunch where everyone except me was drunk, and it held no joy for me. All this will come as a surprise, perhaps, to members of my Brattleboro community who know how many years I lobbied for us to observe Purim as the adult holiday it really is, and to offer alcohol at our festivities (as we now do). But I have never seen anyone at the BAJC Purimpalooza drink to excess. Apparently Rambam (Maimonades) said that the instructions in Megillah 7:b simply mean to drink enough to be too sleepy to hear the difference between Haman and Mordechai. If I were to drash (interpret) a bit, I’d say that what it really means is that we should be so merry that we can forget for a brief time the real evils in the world.
Another thing we learn in Tractate Megillah is that Purim is observed on a different day in Jerusalem than anywhere else. Technically, it is observed on a different day — a day later than the rest of the world — in all walled cities, but the gemara makes the decision that it has to be walled cities that have been walled since the time of Joshua — and then also decides that this means Jerusalem. The walls around the Old City have actually only been extant since Suleiman the Magnificent built them in the sixteenth century, but the story goes that Jerusalem has been a walled city since Joshua took it — although there’s no archeological proof that Joshua even existed. There’s an argument to be made that the Talmud simply wants Jerusalem to be different because it is Jerusalem, and sets about proving its case any way it can. In any case, we’re a day later with our Purim festivities here, so one can, if on wishes, travel to Tel Aviv to participate in Purim there (sure to be raucous and transgressive!) and then come back up the hill for Purim here the next day.
So here I sit — on my patio now, in the sun, listening to a bulbul going through his elaborate vocal exercises, as well as to the exuberant voices of the children in the gan (daycare/kindergarten) next door. I’m hoping I recover speedily. I’ve been invited to do a vocal recital with the pianist roommate of a friend, and I need to be practicing our repertoire. Also, I’m supposed to chant part of the megillah Wednesday morning. I hope to be singing like that bulbul any day now. In the meantime, I’ll be writing the rest of those blog posts I’m so behind on… stay tuned!
Nine months in Israel 