My Torah Portion, Genesis Verses 1-6 The B’reishit; The Creation

Each week in synagogue, the congregation reads a portion of the Torah, so that by the end of the year, we have read the first five books, yet again, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Each person at his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah engages with the Torah portion for the week of his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah. And so my Torah portion is The B’reishit, the Beginning-- Genesis verses one through six. And this is my drash, a word meaning interpretation. A drash can also be a story that helps elucidate another story. My drash is some of each. 

In the beginning, God creates heaven and earth, and still all is darkness. Then, God calls for light, and as God speaks, our world forms, day and night, sea and grass, sun and moon. God calls creatures into existence, fish and birds, cattle and beasts. An finally God creates Adam, a human. In the Hebrew Bible, Jewish Publication Society edition of 1917, this verse reads: “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him, male and female, created he them.”

We don’t usually hear this version of the story, a simultaneous creation of male and female. The story we usually hear is more vivid, and it occurs in verse two, chapter seven. Here, a key word changes. God becomes Lord. “The Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” Ah, yes, the man in the garden, God telling the man he can eat from every tree except from the Tree of Knowledge. Then, God saying the man should not be alone, so God creates a “help-meet” for the man. Help-meet, a word translated from the Hebrew meaning another corresponding to or equivalent to. Yet, most of us have learned to read this story in a hierarchical manner, that Eve, because she was created afterwards from Adam’s rib, is second to or less than.

Why has this story prevailed? The assumption is that an educated male elite prepared the bible for a male audience. Therefore, mostly male characters are in the foreground and mostly female characters are in the background, giving the impression of the subordination. And often the bible is taught this way. The question for women is: How can we more these women from background to foreground, from periphery to center?

If we look closely at the text we can see that in both stories, the earlier and the later, neither maleness nor femaleness exists before Eve’s creation. What prevails is the potential for both in the human. With Eve’s creation, God brings both maleness and femaleness into the world at the same time. This is a simultaneous creation.

Now, let’s consider Eve in the Garden. So much going on here, a talking serpent who deceives, Eve, who seeking knowledge, chooses to eat, then gives the fruit to her husband, who eats, too. They hear the voice of God walking in the Garden, and like children, they hide behind trees. God speaks first to Adam, asking if he ate from the tree. He blames Eve, telling God, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.”

And Eve? She accepts blame, saying, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

Supposedly, this is Eve’s downfall, and traditional interpretations say she is responsible for the couple’s expulsion from the Garden. Well, who wants to live in Paradise, anyway? Paradise is bland and boring. I like Eve. No only does she act, she takes responsibility. You might say Eve gives us free will. She also gives us unpredictably, because always with choice we have unintended consequences. And so this story becomes a description of our world—good and evil, joy and suffering. A story of human life as we know it, grand and complex.

Engaging with this text is an essential part of Jewish life. I love teasing out these stories. Some may ask, Why bother? Because this text, in all its translations, has had and still has a powerful effect on Western culture, particularly on the way the culture views women—debates about social services, day care or no day care, debates about health care, coverage for pregnancy, abortion. And sadly, I still hear women and men excusing boys’ aggressive or inappropriate behavior, especially toward girls, saying, as a boy shoves a girl to the ground, “Boys will be boys.”

Years ago, wanting to set the record straight, I created a character I called Bessie and wrote a short story. Bessie is an older Jewish woman, widowed and struggling with a hip replacement. She takes a course on women in the bible, similar to one of the courses I took. Toward the end of the story, Bessie visits Lucy, her granddaughter who lives in California. Lucy is being raised Catholic. In this scene, Bessie, struggling with her new hip and with arthritis, has stayed in bed late. Lucy brings her breakfast.

Bessie places her fork on her plate. “You’re learning about Adam and eve?” she says to Lucy.

“My school has religion class. I’m supposed to go to church, too.”

Sunday morning.

Lucy sighs. “I think Eve’s a nerd, don’t you?”

Bessie tucks her napkin under the rim of her plate and motions. “You’ll put my tray on that desk. Then, you’ll come sit by me. I know a story that if you read it right makes …” Bessie pauses. “What did you say? Nerd?”

“Yeah, like jerk.”

“… a nerd into a smart cookie.”

The quotes from “Midrash,” by Sandell Morse, first published in the New England Review. Available at: http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2013/01/65-midrash-by-sandell-morse.html

Midrash on the Shehecheyanu

Perhaps this is a prose poem, perhaps a prose prayer poem. I don’t know. But I’m on track, preparing for my Bat Mitzvah coming up at the end of September. The invitations are in the mail. It’s happening. And this is my midrash, a form of storytelling exploring meaning, on my favorite prayer, the Shehecheyanu.

I imagine a life infused with prayer, the shehecheyanu on my lips when I taste the first peach of the season, the first ripe plum, words to slow me down, to say as my Grandmother Sarah used to say, Taste, Sandella, taste—her mandelbread, her chicken soup, tsmis, sweet potatoes mixed with prunes, the taste of time, her fingers circling shabbos candles, my feet climbing mountains, first with Lucy, my beloved standard poodle at my side, then with Lucy and Sam, Sam a standard poodle, too, now with Sam, time working on all of us—the moments we had, the moments that Sam and I will have, the shehecheyanu on my lips, thanking Life itself for my strength, for the beauty of a wildflower, sky and clouds. Shehecheyanu, Hebrew for who has given us life, parents, grandparents, generations reaching back across a sea into unknown villages. Unknown cities. So many sustain us, grandchildren, children extending our lives with new families, in Yiddish, our machatunim—and our friends.

The shehecheyanu celebrates what is new or what feels new, a hike in the mountains, a baby naming, a Bat Mitzvah—so many moments in which to thank God, the God I do and don’t believe in, the God that means something different to each of us-- that I am alive. If only I could come to each day with that joy. I can’t. I don’t. But, silent or sung, the shehecheyanu can bring me there, Baruch Attah Adoini Eloheinu melach ha olam, shehecheyanu, vikimanu, vihigyanu, lazman, hazeh, Blessed are You, Adoini, for giving us life, sustaining us and allowing us to reach this joyous season, this moment in time.

The Loop Over Franconia Ridge With Sam

I love challenge and drama. What better hike on a beautiful, yet cool, summer day in July than the loop over Franconia Ridge with Sam, my standard poodle, my favorite hiking buddy at my side. We left the parking lot at Lafayette Place in Franconia Notch at eight on Thursday morning. The temperature that morning was fifty-three degrees, and would perhaps reach seventy. Cooler in the mountains. No rain or wind in the forecast. Perfect. We entered the woods. At two tenths of a mile, the trail split, Falling Waters to my right, Old Bridal Path, our descent, to my left. Both trails are steep and difficult, but the Falling Waters Trail is a little more challenging, and with all of the rain we’ve had, I’d rather we hiked up a slippery trail than slide down. Sometimes, Sam took the lead; other times, he followed behind, always making forays into woods, then back to the trail. He’s been hiking since he was a pup, trained by Lucy, my older standard, who died this past spring. She was the more avid hiker, bounding ahead, finding the best route up and around a challenging spot of rocky trail. Sam waits until I give him a boost, then scrambles up. Always, he sticks close. I like that.

            The climb is rugged, but beautiful, exposed roots, rock stairs, boulders, loose gravel, water making slabs slippery, brook crossings where I managed to find stepping stones, where Sam waded. We stopped as everyone does at Cloudland Falls, an eighty foot cascade sending mist into the air. Soon the trail moved away from the brook, offering a brief respite from the steep, before rock steps began again. Most hikers summit Little Haystack in about two and a half hours. Sam and I made it in three, emerging from woods and onto the summit, Sam summiting before me. He senses opens space, a place to rest or perhaps to stand. He loves finding the height of land, standing and surveying, and I love seeing him there. A standard poodle is an anomaly in these mountains, although I see labradoodles and goldendoodles—but standards, true, regal, loyal standards—not many.

            From the summit of Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln is seven tenths of a mile north and Mount Lafayette at 5,261 feet, is nine tenths of a mile beyond Lincoln. The ridge is exposed, a three hundred and sixty degree view. Sections are steep. There is a knife edge where I call Sam back. This is where Sam began to fatigue, looking for scrub in which to lie down, low growing evergreens where he could find cool dirt. I’d peeled down to a sleeveless shirt. No way Sam could shed his thick black fur. We rested. I ate half of my sandwich, gave Sam water, fed him kibble.

            Along the trail, we’d made friends, a woman hiking with Sadie, her Golden Retriever, a couple hiking with two labradoodles. They’d kept Sam going. Now, they were no where in sight. I thought about turning back, but by then, the way back was as difficult or nearly as difficult as the way forward, and we were close, so close. I wanted to summit Lafayette, wanted to complete the loop. Loyally, Sam followed. He’d turned eight last March, and he was slowing down faster than Lucy had. Still, he summited ahead of me and was sniffing a backpack, looking for food, gathering both disapproving and approving glances when I arrived. Tired, exhilarated we found a spot of rock where we sat, looking out at mountains and sky.

After about a half an hour, we started down the Greenleaf Trail, a series of rock steps leading to the Greenleaf Hut, its green roof visible in the distance. Sam was reluctant. I leashed him. Not easy to climb down, holding a dog, so I let him go. He doubled back. Usually, after reaching a summit, we go back the way we’d come. I’m sure that’s what Sam wanted to do. He’d had enough. Luring him with treats, I leashed him again. He looked for scrub, lay down. I let him rest, then urged him on. After about forty minutes of stopping and starting, Sam lay on his side, head resting, tongue lolling, side pounding. Here I was with seventy pounds of exhausted dog, about forty minutes from the hut and another three miles down a steep trail. Seeing us, a kind man and his son stopped. He offered to inform people at the hut and ask them to send help. Generally, people at the hut are not sympathetic to people who exhaust their dogs. “Oh, don’t do that,” I said. “They’ll probably call search and rescue and send out helicopters.”

            The helicopter line was fantasy. Not the fear of search and rescue. This was my folly. Somehow, we’d get down. After half an hour, I rallied Sam, and we made our way to the hut where we spent another forty-five minutes resting on the porch. No dogs inside.

Sam drank water. He lay at my feet. My goal was to leave at four. That way, I figured we’d be out of the mountains by six-thirty—if we didn’t have to stop too often—and that’s what we did, climbing slowly and carefully, my loyal dog following until he sensed water and the end of the trail. He would and he did lead me out. 

Waiting

At the VCCA, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where the quiet is deep as writers write, composers compose and artists, sculpt, paint and draw, I leave my studio late in the day to walk before dinner. Behind the Center, a country road.The last of the cicadas lay dead, their orange and red wings faded and fading. They have completed their cycle. Another seventeen years will pass before they emerge. On both sides of the road grasses grow tall. So many birds here, blue birds, brown thrashers, mocking birds-- sparrows and robins, of course. After a severe storm, the intense heat is broken. It is hot, but air moves. There is a breeze. I turn at the crest of a hill. 

A train whistle sounds. I hurry along, half walking, half running. I want to watch the train from a bridge, as I am doing now, looking down on the freight rumbling past, open cars carrying lumber, closed cars, some of them probably refrigerated, shiny black drums I think are carrying oil until I read: Corn Products. Yes, oil, but a different kind than I’d had in mind, and I feel uneasy thinking about corn oil, the ubiquitous nearly hidden distribution of genetically modified seeds. 

The last two freight cars carry utility poles. I am disappointed. I'd waited and waited for the caboose, wanting to wave to a railroad man, as I used to wave long ago, a child sitting in the back seat of Dad’s car, Mom in front, all of us waiting at a railroad gate, Dad impatient behind the wheel because that’s the kind of man he was, irritable and quick tempered. What he hated most was waiting—waiting in line to buy a package of cigarettes or a newspaper. He refused to wait for a stool at a counter in a luncheonette, for a table in a restaurant, choosing to leave instead. Always, Mom and I trailed behind. Here, at this crossing, he was trapped, and I was climbing up into the front seat, kneeling in Mom’s lap, my upper body stretched outside an opened window, waving my arm at the railroad man, and he was waving back. 

After The Great Gatsby

After watching Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby with my husband, my son and my granddaughter, we sat in Chipotle’s eating tacos and burritos, talking about the film—Luhrmann’s over the top party scenes, other scenes that were strangely like or unlike the novel. Some of us liked the movie; others liked portions. None of us was wholly enthralled, wholly engaged. My granddaughter talked about the acting, my husband about the party scenes. My son brought up the stereotypical Jewish character.

            “Which one was that?” my granddaughter said.

            “You didn’t get it,” my son said. His tone, both statement and question, remained kind.

            At fourteen, my granddaughter has experienced anti-Semitic remarks thrown at a Jewish boy in her class, Asian slurs thrown at her. She is both Anglo and Asian. My son, her father is American and Jewish, her mother Korean and Buddhist. I’m not sure how my granddaughter identifies, but she is very comfortable with Jewish rituals and Jewish holidays.

            My granddaughter guessed at the Jewish character. “Gatsby?” “Nick?”

            “Meyer Wolfsheim,” my son said.

            My husband talked about the character’s model, Arnold Rothstein, notorious for fixing the 1919 World Series. Maybe. As for me, I was thinking about literature, the Jew as villain, a theme that goes back to the New Testament. An English major, I remembered my anglophile professor lecturing and reading aloud from Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Such blatant anti-Semitism glossed over. Accepted. By everybody. Except me. In my one-armed desk, I shrank to my spine.

            Watching Wolfsheim on the screen, I felt disoriented. Who was he? Why was he dark skinned? Was the  director was playing back to a medieval stereotype—the Jew as devil with black skin and flashing eyes. Researching, I discovered that Luhrmann had spoken of a “non-controversial casting strategy.” Non controversial?  I found the Wolfsheim character both strange and offensive. Was Luhrmann contending that by casting the Indian actor Amitabh Bachchn in the role he had avoided a stereotype? Tom Buchanan calls Wolfsheim a “kike.” His name is Meyer Wolfsheim. Camera work exaggerates Wolfsheim’s lips, his nose. His features are coarse; he is coarse, a stereotypical Jew.

            Yet, my granddaughter doesn’t recognize him. In school, the buzz word is tolerance. Difference is played down. Both racism, anti-Semitism seem to be caught under an umbrella of anti-bullying. Yet, kids toss racist and anti-Semitic remarks. Better, I think, to let them know the history of those remarks. Why not have a discussion about stereotypes? Where they come from. Who perpetuates them and why. Why not let present day understanding illuminate a darker past? But a discussion of race and anti-Semitism would necessarily bring students to a discussion of class, perhaps a more sensitive subject in these United States than either race or Jews. And isn't that what The Great Gatsby is about, class in the greatest democracy on earth, a glass wall, a glass ceiling, the privilege of the Daisys and the Tom Buchanans?

Monday Morning

          This morning, I got up early to ride the number four Metro to Saint Germaine des Pres. Then, winding my way through a maze of narrow streets, I found it, Dore, Dore, my favorite shop to buy stockings and socks. This was my second try. I'd failed Saturday evening. I'd found the shop's website, announcing hours, Monday through Saturday, nine to seven. But I'm not buying stockings, I'm sitting at a bistro next door, drinking a double espresso and eating baguette with butter and jam. I am waiting, but I understand my hopes are in vain. Speaking French and see-sawing his palm, my waiter had said, "Mondays, sometimes, yes, sometimes no."
             So, I sit and I write, preparing for my interview with a woman I will meet this afternoon. She was a hidden child during World War Two, hidden in full view in an orphanage run by the Eclaire Israelites of France, the Jewish Scouts. The orphanage was a rented house in the main square of a Beaulieu sur Dordogne, a village in southwest France. I am writing about this village, about another villages in south west France. About Jews who took refuge in both places. Beaulieu was a friendly village for Jews. I like learning that.
              I check the shop one more time.

Ah, Paris. Ah, the French.

Mother's Day

           I am in Paris alone, and I cannot think of a better way to spend this day, than letting it unfold. I passed part of the morning at my computer, transcribing notes, adding impressions Then, I walked to the Place Bastille to search for the entrance to the Promenade Plantee, an elevated walk built on the abandoned tracks of Bastille Railway Line. Here the walk is narrow, the gardens lush. People stroll; joggers jog; a few children ride bicycles, although bicycles are forbidden. They day is breezy and cool, partly sunny. Midway along the walk, I descend, find a patisserie, buy a small quiche, a bottle of water, then reenter the walk, passing the Jardin de Reuilly. Here, the walk turns surprisingly urban. Walking and searching for seclusion, I find a bench, eat and watch passersby, my thoughts drifting.

As the walk again becomes urban, gardens are strewn with winter’s debris. No one has raked fall leaves. Many of the city’s gardens remind me of Manhattan in the seventies when the city’s parks had been neglected. Money? Probably.

I’ve walked for more than three kilometers, one more until the end. But I lose my way. I’m on city streets. Making my way back to the Promenade, I descend at Gare de Lyon. In a bar, I order a double espresso and wonder what I’ll do next, go back to my hotel? Find the Musee de Nissim de Camondo? My phone rings. My son is calling to wish me a happy Mother’s Day, my husband to wish the mother of our sons a happy Mother’s Day. Their voices feel close. They feel close. Yet, I’m happy here at this far away table. This is the writer in  me, seeking not isolation, but the solitude of my own thoughts. I’ve come to Paris to go to the wedding of a friend’s son and to do research for a series of essays I’m writing about hidden Jewish children during World War Two. Today, though, I am absorbing the city.

            My metro stop is the Park Monceau, a beautiful eighteenth century park, filled with gardens, families, lovers. A carousel turns. There are statues, rock sculptures, small pools. Here, I’m happy to say, someone has raked. On the Avenue Monceau, I enter the Museum, built by Moise de Camondo, heir to a banking fortune, and mentioned in one of my favorite books, The Hare with Amber Eyes. In the book, Edmund de Waal, tells a the complex story of his family with simplicity (and I mean that in the best sense of the word) and grace. Waal’s family, the Ephrussis lived down the street from the Camondos, and like the Camondos, they were wealthy Jewish bankers. Inside the mansion, I walk with an audio guide, listening to stories of the family, of the house, its art, its porcelain, and as I listen I tried to imagine living in such wealth. Impossible.

Moise built the house for Nissim, his son, who, sadly, was killed in action during World War One. Moise’s daughter Beatrice wasn’t interested in the house or the art, so Moise donated the house to the Musee des arts decoratifs, upon his death, along with a foundation to fund it. He died in 1935.

Shortly, before the Nazi invasion in 1939, Beatrice converted to Catholicism. Thinking her French citizenship would protect her, she and her family stayed in Paris. An equestrian, Beatrice rode horses with German officers. In 1943, the family was arrested (Gestapo? French police?), sent to Drancy, a transit camp, then murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.  

            Meandering through the Parc Monceau, I sit on a bench, call my family in Colorado. It’s morning there, and my son has a made a frittata for breakfast. It’s ready, so we talk briefly. I speak with my grand daughters. It’s nearly six in Paris. Still, light, still breezy. I study a Metro map, then after three rides, I’m sitting on one of the large wide bodied boats that cruise the Seine. The motor is too loud, and it stinks. The commentary in four languages is overpowering. Still, I feel the comfort of motion, a slowing down, as if to settle the complexities of my day, the gardens, the carrousel, the children in the park, the sad legacy of the Camondos, their gift to the French state, their murder in Auschwitz.

            I’ve hardly eaten all day, and when I leave the boat, I realize I’m starving. Entering a restaurant on the Place d’Alma that I know will be overpriced, I allow myself to be seated at a table. I’m here because I like the décor, so French, scarlet banquettes, fringed lampshades, tinted mirrors, crisp white linens, attentive waiters. I’m here because I’m exhausted. My salmon is fresh, decent. Uneventful. Still, I’m content, sipping wine, watching traffic and pedestrians, the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance, my thoughts like wheels, turning and turning.