[NHC] Workshops
Aug. 20th, 2008 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidClasses are four 90-minute sessions (mostly), while workshops are 60 minutes, a one shot. There are seven slots (morning and afternoon Tuesday to Friday, minus Friday afternoon, to allow for Shabbat prep), and there were eight to twelve options for each slot.
Tuesday morning I went to "Bloodlettings, fatal attractions, and curious adjustments in early modern Jewish law," by Hillel Gray (a grad student at UChicago).
We looked at the case of an Ashkenazi man who moved from Poland to the Ottoman Empire, where Rabbenu Gershom's (960-1050) takkanot (1. If getting divorced, the husband needs the wife's consent, and 2. (the more famous) ban on multiple wives.) were not part of the tradition. He decided to marry again, and did not divorce his first wife (back in Poland). The question is asked of the Maharshal (1510-1574, an Ashkenazi authority) what the Pleven community (local rabbi: R. Eliezer from Nikopol) should do.
It comes out in the details of the shaila that the local rabbi had told him not to get betrothed until he divorced his first wife. He sent a proxy with a get, which would be valid only if she accepted it freely. The wife refused to accept the get unless she was paid the ketubbah money. However, the husband went ahead and married the woman in Pleven anyway. When pressed, he said that the husband had hired the proxy to forge a document saying the first wife had accepted the get if he could not get her to accept it. (There's a side discussion about whether someone is a kosher witness or not here.) In the end, the ruling is that the husband is still bound by the minhagim of the place he left, because his wife (home) was still there (if one moves without planning to return, one takes on the minhagim of the new place). After some additional supporting cases, there's a discussion about the duration of R. Gershom's ban, if there is even a limit. No one has lifted the ban, even if it has expired, nor has there been material changes to the (unspecified) circumstances that led to its implementation (or codification of practice of the time; it's unclear). In the end, the ruling is that the husband needs to be separated from his second wife. I have to quote the last line of the translation we looked at:
Whew! No ambiguity there!
There were other responsa included in the handout that we didn't manage to get to, since we spent time on the discussion of R. Gershom's ban.
Thursday morning, I went back for more topics, which focused mostly the question of whether a man can marry a katlanit (a woman whose previous multiple husbands have died, even though there is no question of her causing bodily harm). There's a question as to whether a divorce is forced if the marriage is already performed, and it seems clear that it is not for the third marriage, though it might be for the fourth (three times make a chazakah, after all).
In the brief time left, we looked at the question of bloodletting, and saw how there was a lot of astronomical considerations involved.
The Thursday session didn't come together into a whole nearly as nicely as the previous one. I'm not sure why.
Tuesday afternoon I went to a batik class run by Rebekah Emanuel, which turned out not to be traditional batik, but how it's done in Uganda. We started with fabric that had already been infused with wax, then used water and rehydrated paint powder rather like watercolors on the surface. We could use a certain kind of pen if we wanted solid black lines.
It was an interesting, if somewhat messy, process, and I didn't take the time to let the paints 'bloom' as much as they might have, deciding to iron it and take it then rather than remember to come back later. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the mizrach, but it was fun making it.
Wednesday morning I went to a Yiddish class focused on vocabulary about women led by Ron Schnur.
yid - person (man) (see also, tallis - household), but
yidene - shrewish woman (similarly, yachna)
yidishe tochter - Jewish daugher (any age)
vayb - wife (slightly negative. bevayter - husband, lit. 'bewived')
yenta - busybody. also a first name, related to the old French Gentille, gentle (which lead to a mention of how bentsch is a cognate with benediction, speaking good)
moyd - (unmarried) maid
kallah moyd - marriageable girl
alte moyd - old maid (alte bocher - old boy)
farsezeneh alte moyd - old maid in a chair (confirmed old maid)
beryeh - perfect housekeeper, good person, all around perfect
eyshes chayil - pysically strong woman (lit. 'woman of valor')
balebosteh - housekeeper, mistress of the house
bokn ligns vi a yidene lokshn (tell) broken lies like a Jewish woman makes noodles
tseveynen zikh vi a yidene - cry/weep/complain oneself - make oneself miserable like a girl
ployneste - Jane Doe (female version of ploni)
vaybershe zumer - wifely summer- Indian summer (is there any term for this that is not derogatory to some group?)
Her nor, tsu herst? Di tsihernesteh. - Hear now, you hear? the one who is called (ball and chain)
trogn di tsitsis, trogn di yoyzin - wear tzitzit, wear the pants (the woman wearing the pants in the family)
gezunt shtik - healthy piece (battleaxes, piece of work)
zoyere vetshere - sour meal, sour dinner (sourpuss, always in a bad mood, a complainer)
farbissineh - bitter one (adj.)
goydern zikh - goiter onself (iodine deficiency) - put on airs, make themselves have a double chin (being large meant having enough food, not a lot of heavy work, and not having TB, so double chin = good)
madamenyu - proud (madame)
di gottekeh - Mrs. God
tsitsis-shpinern - spinning, making tzitzit - a religious know-it-all, sanctimonious (while "not exactly a tzitzit spinner meand the woman was loose - can't win here)
shpiln tsitsis - playing with the tzitzit - making out (crude)
shpiln eser makos - play the 10 plagues - serious making out (genital contact)(again, crude. comes from the spilling of the wine at the seder)
gots straptshe - God's prosecuting attorney - critical know-it-all
shlimazlnitse - luckless one, slub - goodheared but scattered
shlumperke - doesn't do the housework (because of being lazy; she could, but doesn't)
yoderdik - kernel - buxom girl
zeresh - evil woman, nasty (from Haman's wife)
klipeh - clinging, demanding person
arureh - curse, in the sense that she's her own curse, stuck being herself
klafteh - from the same root as kelev, dog - bitch (but worse implication)
Which is to say, there's a couple of ways of complimenting women, and a lot of ways of tearing them down. Lovely.
Also included on the handout (there wasn't time to go over them, but the tranlations were on the sheet):
Got hot nisht gekent zayn imetum, hot her beshafn mames. (God couldn't be everywhere, so He created mothers.)
Kleyne kinder lozn nisht shlofn; groyse kinder lozn nisht lebn. (Small children don't let you sleep; big children don't let you live.)
Kleyne meydlekh tseraynsn di shertsn, groyse meydlekh tseraysn di hertsn. (Little girls tear dresses; big girls tear hearts.)
A mame muz hobn a groyse fartekh di kresroynes fun di kinder tsu farekn. (A mother must have a big apron to cover her children's faults.)
S'iz nito a guter toyt un nito a shlekhte mame.
(There's no such thing as a good death or a bad mother.)
Kuk af di meydl, nit af di kleydl. (Look at the girl, not at the dress.)
Wednesday afternoon I chose the class on Genesis 6:1-4, by Mark Berch. I was looking forward to the text study (it's a fascinating bit I've never understood), but it turned out to be a lecture read aloud, not anything interactive. At that time of day, I found it hard to concentrate, coming out of a text-based afternoon class, so my notes are rather disjointed.
There are a variety of translations for "bnei Elohim," ranging from sons of God to sonss of distinguished men(/princes). One commentation links the plurality of divine beings to the part of Creation where God says "naaseh adam" (ie, in first person plural.
Radak blames the interaction on weak women, and cites it as part of what lead to the Flood.
Another possibility is this refers to polygamy (see: Adah and Zillah) and polygyny.
Yet another possibility: b'not adam refers to the line of Cain, and b'nei Elohim to the line of Seth, with the decline of the holier line leading to the Flood (no intermarriage with idolaters).
Another interpretation reverses the lines of descent (b'not adam being Seth's line, etc).
Malbim says that the early rulers were heavenly in origin, and unscrupulous people claimed sescent (extra rights). God shortened people's lives (after the Flood) to counter this. (No need to change lifespans if everyone is human).
"Sons of God" appears three times in Tanach, in Job, and refers to non-humans.
In Daniel, "bar Eloha" protects the three in the fiery furnace.
In the Septuagint, there's a translation of a phrase in Deuteronomy (missed the citation) about how something is translated b'nei Elohim, something about 70 angels for the 70s nations, a god to each nation.
What about the Nephilim? They also appear in the report of the spies, as giants. Giants are also associated with Anakim, Golyat, Og, and Refaim. All of them are defeated by Israel multiple times. The piece in Genesis might be giving backstory about how there came to be giants.
Another piece: in the Apocalyptica, there's a book called First Enoch. [missing some stuff here; I'd really lost focus by then, unfortunately] The idea was that perhaps this little bit was included in Genesis as a reminder of the idea that things can go wrong for reasons other than one's own actions.
Thursday afternoon I'd thought about going to a text-based session, but was too mentally tired to face it. I worked on my quilt (for my morning class) instead.
Friday morning I went to a songfest, seeing how many tunes we could come up with for Dror Yikra and Yah Ribon, cycling from one to the other. I got there a bit late, so I missed one or two early tunes. I recognized a few, heard some lovely new tunes (which I totally won't be able to reproduce, but could now follow better :-), and was able to work on my quilt while I sang. Bonus: the accoustics in the chapel are good for this.
Tuesday morning I went to "Bloodlettings, fatal attractions, and curious adjustments in early modern Jewish law," by Hillel Gray (a grad student at UChicago).
We looked at the case of an Ashkenazi man who moved from Poland to the Ottoman Empire, where Rabbenu Gershom's (960-1050) takkanot (1. If getting divorced, the husband needs the wife's consent, and 2. (the more famous) ban on multiple wives.) were not part of the tradition. He decided to marry again, and did not divorce his first wife (back in Poland). The question is asked of the Maharshal (1510-1574, an Ashkenazi authority) what the Pleven community (local rabbi: R. Eliezer from Nikopol) should do.
It comes out in the details of the shaila that the local rabbi had told him not to get betrothed until he divorced his first wife. He sent a proxy with a get, which would be valid only if she accepted it freely. The wife refused to accept the get unless she was paid the ketubbah money. However, the husband went ahead and married the woman in Pleven anyway. When pressed, he said that the husband had hired the proxy to forge a document saying the first wife had accepted the get if he could not get her to accept it. (There's a side discussion about whether someone is a kosher witness or not here.) In the end, the ruling is that the husband is still bound by the minhagim of the place he left, because his wife (home) was still there (if one moves without planning to return, one takes on the minhagim of the new place). After some additional supporting cases, there's a discussion about the duration of R. Gershom's ban, if there is even a limit. No one has lifted the ban, even if it has expired, nor has there been material changes to the (unspecified) circumstances that led to its implementation (or codification of practice of the time; it's unclear). In the end, the ruling is that the husband needs to be separated from his second wife. I have to quote the last line of the translation we looked at:
And should this malicious husband be one of those rebels who refuse to follow the words of their teachers and would not act according to my writing, I am the first to join you in imposing sanction on him, [and I shall be] like a snake that creeps on the earth and gnaws until he renounces his evil ways.
Whew! No ambiguity there!
There were other responsa included in the handout that we didn't manage to get to, since we spent time on the discussion of R. Gershom's ban.
Thursday morning, I went back for more topics, which focused mostly the question of whether a man can marry a katlanit (a woman whose previous multiple husbands have died, even though there is no question of her causing bodily harm). There's a question as to whether a divorce is forced if the marriage is already performed, and it seems clear that it is not for the third marriage, though it might be for the fourth (three times make a chazakah, after all).
In the brief time left, we looked at the question of bloodletting, and saw how there was a lot of astronomical considerations involved.
The Thursday session didn't come together into a whole nearly as nicely as the previous one. I'm not sure why.
Tuesday afternoon I went to a batik class run by Rebekah Emanuel, which turned out not to be traditional batik, but how it's done in Uganda. We started with fabric that had already been infused with wax, then used water and rehydrated paint powder rather like watercolors on the surface. We could use a certain kind of pen if we wanted solid black lines.
It was an interesting, if somewhat messy, process, and I didn't take the time to let the paints 'bloom' as much as they might have, deciding to iron it and take it then rather than remember to come back later. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the mizrach, but it was fun making it.
Wednesday morning I went to a Yiddish class focused on vocabulary about women led by Ron Schnur.
yid - person (man) (see also, tallis - household), but
yidene - shrewish woman (similarly, yachna)
yidishe tochter - Jewish daugher (any age)
vayb - wife (slightly negative. bevayter - husband, lit. 'bewived')
yenta - busybody. also a first name, related to the old French Gentille, gentle (which lead to a mention of how bentsch is a cognate with benediction, speaking good)
moyd - (unmarried) maid
kallah moyd - marriageable girl
alte moyd - old maid (alte bocher - old boy)
farsezeneh alte moyd - old maid in a chair (confirmed old maid)
beryeh - perfect housekeeper, good person, all around perfect
eyshes chayil - pysically strong woman (lit. 'woman of valor')
balebosteh - housekeeper, mistress of the house
bokn ligns vi a yidene lokshn (tell) broken lies like a Jewish woman makes noodles
tseveynen zikh vi a yidene - cry/weep/complain oneself - make oneself miserable like a girl
ployneste - Jane Doe (female version of ploni)
vaybershe zumer - wifely summer- Indian summer (is there any term for this that is not derogatory to some group?)
Her nor, tsu herst? Di tsihernesteh. - Hear now, you hear? the one who is called (ball and chain)
trogn di tsitsis, trogn di yoyzin - wear tzitzit, wear the pants (the woman wearing the pants in the family)
gezunt shtik - healthy piece (battleaxes, piece of work)
zoyere vetshere - sour meal, sour dinner (sourpuss, always in a bad mood, a complainer)
farbissineh - bitter one (adj.)
goydern zikh - goiter onself (iodine deficiency) - put on airs, make themselves have a double chin (being large meant having enough food, not a lot of heavy work, and not having TB, so double chin = good)
madamenyu - proud (madame)
di gottekeh - Mrs. God
tsitsis-shpinern - spinning, making tzitzit - a religious know-it-all, sanctimonious (while "not exactly a tzitzit spinner meand the woman was loose - can't win here)
shpiln tsitsis - playing with the tzitzit - making out (crude)
shpiln eser makos - play the 10 plagues - serious making out (genital contact)(again, crude. comes from the spilling of the wine at the seder)
gots straptshe - God's prosecuting attorney - critical know-it-all
shlimazlnitse - luckless one, slub - goodheared but scattered
shlumperke - doesn't do the housework (because of being lazy; she could, but doesn't)
yoderdik - kernel - buxom girl
zeresh - evil woman, nasty (from Haman's wife)
klipeh - clinging, demanding person
arureh - curse, in the sense that she's her own curse, stuck being herself
klafteh - from the same root as kelev, dog - bitch (but worse implication)
Which is to say, there's a couple of ways of complimenting women, and a lot of ways of tearing them down. Lovely.
Also included on the handout (there wasn't time to go over them, but the tranlations were on the sheet):
Got hot nisht gekent zayn imetum, hot her beshafn mames. (God couldn't be everywhere, so He created mothers.)
Kleyne kinder lozn nisht shlofn; groyse kinder lozn nisht lebn. (Small children don't let you sleep; big children don't let you live.)
Kleyne meydlekh tseraynsn di shertsn, groyse meydlekh tseraysn di hertsn. (Little girls tear dresses; big girls tear hearts.)
A mame muz hobn a groyse fartekh di kresroynes fun di kinder tsu farekn. (A mother must have a big apron to cover her children's faults.)
S'iz nito a guter toyt un nito a shlekhte mame.
(There's no such thing as a good death or a bad mother.)
Kuk af di meydl, nit af di kleydl. (Look at the girl, not at the dress.)
Wednesday afternoon I chose the class on Genesis 6:1-4, by Mark Berch. I was looking forward to the text study (it's a fascinating bit I've never understood), but it turned out to be a lecture read aloud, not anything interactive. At that time of day, I found it hard to concentrate, coming out of a text-based afternoon class, so my notes are rather disjointed.
There are a variety of translations for "bnei Elohim," ranging from sons of God to sonss of distinguished men(/princes). One commentation links the plurality of divine beings to the part of Creation where God says "naaseh adam" (ie, in first person plural.
Radak blames the interaction on weak women, and cites it as part of what lead to the Flood.
Another possibility is this refers to polygamy (see: Adah and Zillah) and polygyny.
Yet another possibility: b'not adam refers to the line of Cain, and b'nei Elohim to the line of Seth, with the decline of the holier line leading to the Flood (no intermarriage with idolaters).
Another interpretation reverses the lines of descent (b'not adam being Seth's line, etc).
Malbim says that the early rulers were heavenly in origin, and unscrupulous people claimed sescent (extra rights). God shortened people's lives (after the Flood) to counter this. (No need to change lifespans if everyone is human).
"Sons of God" appears three times in Tanach, in Job, and refers to non-humans.
In Daniel, "bar Eloha" protects the three in the fiery furnace.
In the Septuagint, there's a translation of a phrase in Deuteronomy (missed the citation) about how something is translated b'nei Elohim, something about 70 angels for the 70s nations, a god to each nation.
What about the Nephilim? They also appear in the report of the spies, as giants. Giants are also associated with Anakim, Golyat, Og, and Refaim. All of them are defeated by Israel multiple times. The piece in Genesis might be giving backstory about how there came to be giants.
Another piece: in the Apocalyptica, there's a book called First Enoch. [missing some stuff here; I'd really lost focus by then, unfortunately] The idea was that perhaps this little bit was included in Genesis as a reminder of the idea that things can go wrong for reasons other than one's own actions.
Thursday afternoon I'd thought about going to a text-based session, but was too mentally tired to face it. I worked on my quilt (for my morning class) instead.
Friday morning I went to a songfest, seeing how many tunes we could come up with for Dror Yikra and Yah Ribon, cycling from one to the other. I got there a bit late, so I missed one or two early tunes. I recognized a few, heard some lovely new tunes (which I totally won't be able to reproduce, but could now follow better :-), and was able to work on my quilt while I sang. Bonus: the accoustics in the chapel are good for this.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-20 08:23 pm (UTC)shpiln eser makos
Wahahahaha. I wish I'd known *these* in college!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-20 08:24 pm (UTC)Never know what those yeshiva bochrim will get up to!