Weekend excerpts (Noach, Femmine, etc.)
Nov. 2nd, 2003 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI steamed the Brussels sprouts Friday. It took a long time to snap them off the stalk, then trim each one, but they were wonderful (are there any other Brussels sprouts likers out there?). The largest of them were about the size of my thumbnail, and the smallest had less than half the diameter of my pinkie. I didn't share with anyone (does anyone else get possessive of their produce?), eating most of them straight out of the pot with my fingers, a couple of them with a little bit of salt.
I went to MIT Hillel Shabbat morning, since a friend was laining Noach. I haven't been there in a while; I'd forgotten how quiet it can be, how focused. I wish I were more focused... An added bonus this time of year: the tall windows above the aron frame the gold and red foliage across the street. A couple of ideas/questions bounced through my head during the reading.
Noach brings in pairs of animals, seven pairs of some, two pairs of others. When it's animals, they're described as "eesh v'eeshto" (lit. "man and his wife"), while the birds are "zachar u'nikayva" (lit. "male and female"). I wonder why the difference; it's not because all animals are monogamous and all birds aren't. Also, did the dove's partner ever find the dove sent out to find out if the Flood had ended?
Why do the commentaries see Nimrod as a (neutral to) negative person, when all the pasuk says is he was "a mighty hunter before the Lord", which seems like a relatively positive description?
The Noach family, going into and coming out of the Ark, consists of Mr. and Mrs. Noach, and the three sons, and their wives. No mention of anyone else. The episode of Noach's drunkenness can't happen immediately after the Flood (there needs to be time to grow decent grapevines), before there has been any mention of children (all the major lineage descriptions are later). Yet Cham is described in the story as father of Canaan, more than once, and especially in the verse describing his misdeed. Why is this necessary? What does his being Canaan's father have to do with it? I know there are explanations that say it's because Canaan is later cursed because of this scene, but I wonder if there's more than that, that something about parenting Canaan let Cham become a different son to his father, a more disrespectful son....
I chose a different route home form shul, walking down Vassar St. part of the way, now that it's no longer closed for construction. I had time to check out the one of the new buildings going up, which still looks to me like an accident with a hyperjump machine, two buildings landing in the same space at the same time (one rectilinear, made of brick, the other swooping curves and jutting angles, with windows sticking out, made of brushed metal, as seen in these models). What I hadn't realized was that Vassar Street wasn't just being repaved, but completely reworked. There is no longer parking on both sides, and there has obviously been much thought about traffic patterns: the sidewalks are wider, and there are bike lanes in both directions. What I found particularly interesting was that the bike lanes went up on the side walk for part of the distance, delineated from the rest of the sidewalk by a different surface (asphalt). Since this happens where there is car parking, it avoids the issue of bicyclists being doored (since the bike lane isn't at the edge of the sidewalk, it isn't an issue on either side of the cars). Very cool. (This morning I discovered that MIT has lots of plans for the street.)
I went to the opening of Wendy Artin's show at the Gurari gallery; this year it's all female nudes. She has such a way with watercolor... just amazing pictures, the details showing how these are real women, not air-brushed, idealized ones. It's so impressive to me how two blorps* of paint become hands, or a leg; looked at another way, they're just blobs of color.
Quotes this week
"I heard what had happened, and I knew it wasn't true."
-some woman on the news
(Alas for grammar, I knew it well....)
"Las Vegas: terroir of death."
-Jeffrey Steingarten
* On further reflection, blorp is not the correct word, since it is much more a three dimensional thing, rather like when ketchup comes out of the bottle. Splotch seems to be a bit flatter, more two dimesional liquid spreading on surface. (edit, 0925 11/03/03)
I went to MIT Hillel Shabbat morning, since a friend was laining Noach. I haven't been there in a while; I'd forgotten how quiet it can be, how focused. I wish I were more focused... An added bonus this time of year: the tall windows above the aron frame the gold and red foliage across the street. A couple of ideas/questions bounced through my head during the reading.
Noach brings in pairs of animals, seven pairs of some, two pairs of others. When it's animals, they're described as "eesh v'eeshto" (lit. "man and his wife"), while the birds are "zachar u'nikayva" (lit. "male and female"). I wonder why the difference; it's not because all animals are monogamous and all birds aren't. Also, did the dove's partner ever find the dove sent out to find out if the Flood had ended?
Why do the commentaries see Nimrod as a (neutral to) negative person, when all the pasuk says is he was "a mighty hunter before the Lord", which seems like a relatively positive description?
The Noach family, going into and coming out of the Ark, consists of Mr. and Mrs. Noach, and the three sons, and their wives. No mention of anyone else. The episode of Noach's drunkenness can't happen immediately after the Flood (there needs to be time to grow decent grapevines), before there has been any mention of children (all the major lineage descriptions are later). Yet Cham is described in the story as father of Canaan, more than once, and especially in the verse describing his misdeed. Why is this necessary? What does his being Canaan's father have to do with it? I know there are explanations that say it's because Canaan is later cursed because of this scene, but I wonder if there's more than that, that something about parenting Canaan let Cham become a different son to his father, a more disrespectful son....
I chose a different route home form shul, walking down Vassar St. part of the way, now that it's no longer closed for construction. I had time to check out the one of the new buildings going up, which still looks to me like an accident with a hyperjump machine, two buildings landing in the same space at the same time (one rectilinear, made of brick, the other swooping curves and jutting angles, with windows sticking out, made of brushed metal, as seen in these models). What I hadn't realized was that Vassar Street wasn't just being repaved, but completely reworked. There is no longer parking on both sides, and there has obviously been much thought about traffic patterns: the sidewalks are wider, and there are bike lanes in both directions. What I found particularly interesting was that the bike lanes went up on the side walk for part of the distance, delineated from the rest of the sidewalk by a different surface (asphalt). Since this happens where there is car parking, it avoids the issue of bicyclists being doored (since the bike lane isn't at the edge of the sidewalk, it isn't an issue on either side of the cars). Very cool. (This morning I discovered that MIT has lots of plans for the street.)
I went to the opening of Wendy Artin's show at the Gurari gallery; this year it's all female nudes. She has such a way with watercolor... just amazing pictures, the details showing how these are real women, not air-brushed, idealized ones. It's so impressive to me how two blorps* of paint become hands, or a leg; looked at another way, they're just blobs of color.
Quotes this week
"I heard what had happened, and I knew it wasn't true."
-some woman on the news
(Alas for grammar, I knew it well....)
"Las Vegas: terroir of death."
-Jeffrey Steingarten
* On further reflection, blorp is not the correct word, since it is much more a three dimensional thing, rather like when ketchup comes out of the bottle. Splotch seems to be a bit flatter, more two dimesional liquid spreading on surface. (edit, 0925 11/03/03)
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 09:05 am (UTC)I'd planted a half-dozen brussel sprout plants in my garden this year. As of yesterday, you can see the little nubs where they're STARTING to make sprouts, but it's a race against frost and I don't think they're going to make it.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 06:30 am (UTC)And the sheer surprise value the first time I saw them on the stalk; I'd imagined they grew like miniature cabbages.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 06:32 am (UTC)I like liver, but have it very rarely, since from a kosher perspective it's a massive pain to prepare; the easiest way is to buy prepared chopped liver. The one time I had liver and onions after college, it was yummy.
Is there any way you can partially cover the plants to hold in heat just a little longer?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 06:35 am (UTC)I go through phases. There was a time I could barely plan a meal without carrots, while other times sweet potatoes are the thing, and the only vegetable I've had an actual craving for is broccoli. Oh, and ripe tomatoes in season.... mmmm.... I'm not sure how much of it is mood, how much is what's in season, or looks good at the market, or what I need nutritionally.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 01:43 pm (UTC)One of the things I found interesting in recent re-readings of the Noah story is the way the details vary over the course of the story. First Noah is told to bring two of every living thing (6:19), and then seven pairs of clean ones and one pair of unclean ones (7:2), and then "two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life" (so does that mean four?) (7:15).
There must be fascinating midrashim which explore this particular disjunction...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 07:04 pm (UTC)Looking back over the verses, my impression is that the first is a general description of the minimum: a breeding pair of every kind of animal, for propagation. The later command (7:2) adds in the extra six pairs for all clean animals. And 7:15 seems to be describing the actual entering into the ark, with the repeated two being idiomatic Hebrew for two by two (why can I not stop hearing the kid song about twosies twosies?). The only thing I can find easily mentions the greater number of clean animals so sacrifices can be made with them, but doesn't address the discrepancy otherwise. Next time I'm around more texts...
Hi, btw. How did you find my journal?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-06 05:18 am (UTC)Thanks for the thoughts on Noah; much appreciated.
(And I found your journal via the friendsfriends feature available to paid lj users; it's a fascinating little tool. Near as I can tell, our friendslists have
no subject
Date: 2003-11-06 06:11 pm (UTC)I've checked out friendsfriends, too; it can be interesting, and a bit more likely to have things I'm interested in reading than just hitting the random button, when my friends are being obliging by posting enough :-).