Swarthmore Beit Midrash

09/02/2021

Next Friday from 11am - 1pm we are hosting an open house with bagels - visit our space in Bond hall and enjoy some bagels!

The Beit Midrash (located in Bond) is a center for the study of Judaism, Jewish history, and Jewish culture in their broadest expressions. We strive to facilitate conversations that explore—and expand—the boundaries of what Judaism is, who Jews have been, and who Jews are.

Anyone can attend this event.

06/10/2020

Some Thoughts for Pride, June 2020

06/10/2020

https://jewishcurrents.org/translating-black-lives-matter-into-yiddish/

Amid an eruption of protests over police brutality, a Black performer of Yiddish music reflects on an attempt to “touch Blackness from inside Yiddish.”

04/08/2020

For those who, in this exceptional time of crisis, are thinking in fours for tonight and tomorrow night:

03/19/2020

I’ve been throwing these two together in my head:

CONSIDERING how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to light, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us in the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm chair and confuse his 'Rinse the mouth—rinse the mouth' with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us—when we think of this and infinitely more, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love, battle, and jealousy among the prime themes of literature. Virginia Woolf “On Being Ill”

And:

Rav Anan said that Rav said: From where is it known that the Holy Blessed One supports the one who is sick? As it is stated: “God will support them on the bed of illness” (Psalms 41:4). It was also taught in a baraita: One who enters to visit the sick person should not sit on the bed or on a chair; rather, they should wrap themselves [in a tallit] and sit in front of the one who is ill—because the Shekhinah dwells above the head of the one who is sick, as scripture states, “God will support them on the bed of illness” (Ps. 41:4). Bavli Shabbat 12b

03/15/2020

https://jwa.org/podcasts/canwetalk/episode-36-relearning-wash-our-hands

Dori Midnight: We are humans relearning to wash our hands. Washing our hands is an act of love. Washing our hands is an act of care. Washing our hands is an act that puts the hyper-vigilant body at ease. Washing our hands helps us return to ourselves by washing away what does not serve. Wash your hands like you are washing the only teacup left that your great grandmother carried across the ocean, like you are washing the hair of a beloved who is dying, like you are washing the feet of Grace Lee Boggs, your auntie, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver... you get the picture. Like this water is poured from a jug your best friend just carried for three miles from the spring they had to climb a mountain to reach like water is a precious resource made from time and miracle. Wash your hands and cough into your elbow, they say. Rest more, stay home, drink water, have some soup, they say. To which I would add: Burn some plants your ancestors burned when there was fear in the air boil up some aromatic leaves in a pot on your stove until your windows steam up. Open your windows. Eat a piece of garlic every day. Tie a clove around your neck. Breathe. My friends, it is always true, these things. It has already been time. It is always true that we should move with care and intention, asking "Do you want to bump elbows instead?" with everyone we meet. It is always true that people are living with one lung, with immune systems that don’t work so well, or perhaps work too hard, fighting against themselves. It is already true that people are hoarding the things that the most vulnerable need. It is already time that we might want to fly on airplanes less and not go to work when we are sick. It is already time that we might want to know who in our neighborhood has cancer, who has a new baby, who is old, with children in another state, who has extra water, who has a root cellar, who is a nurse, who has a garden full of elecampane and nettles. It is already time that temporarily non-disabled people think about people living with chronic illness and disabled folks, that young people think about old people. It is already time to stop using synthetic fragrances to not smell like bodies, to pretend like we’re all not dying. It is already time to not take it personally when someone doesn’t want to hug you. It is already time to slow down and feel how scared we are. We are already afraid, we are already living in the time of fires. When fear arises, and it will, let it wash over your whole body instead of staying curled up tight in your shoulders. If your heart tightens, contract, and then expand. Science says: Compassion strengthens the immune system. We already know that, but capitalism gives us amnesia and tricks us into thinking it’s the thing that protect us, but it’s the way we hold the thing, the way we do the thing. Those of us who have forgotten amuletic traditions, we turn to hoarding hand sanitizer and masks. We find someone to blame. We think that will help. It is already time to remember to hang garlic on our door, to dip our handkerchiefs in thyme tea, to rub salt on our feet, to pray the rosary, kiss the mezuzah, cleanse with an egg in the middle of the night when you wake up with terror in your belly. It is time to think about stardust and geological time, redwoods and dance parties and mushrooms remediating toxic soil. It is time to care for one another, to pray over water, to wash fear away every time we wash our hands.

Each month on Can We Talk?, JWA's podcast team brings you stories and conversations about Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives. You'll hear lively profiles of historical and contemporary Jewish women, frank discussion of culture, politics, and current events, and littl...

02/16/2020

On the First Mention of mishkav zakhor
Inspired by Bavli Berakhot 43b

The Bavli misses a great opportunity here toward the end of Berkahot 43b. In the midst of pages of discussion with sometimes hair-splitting distinctions concerning which are the right blessings one says over variations of species of grains, fruits, trees, smells, etc., it neglects to pause to consider blessings for benefitting from the pleasure of encounters with diverse people. The richness of vocabulary articulated about spices, flowers, fruits had me marveling at their embeddedness in the natural world. Palm trees, caper bushes, pomegranates, ginger, chard, dates, plums, dill, cumin, turnips, quince, etrog, musk, balsam, daffodils, violets, etc.
Blessed be the creator of all indeed.

And then, at the end of b. Berkahot 43b we are confronted with rules of conduct that construct an edifice based on exclusion of other people: “Six things are disgraceful for a talmid hakham (torah scholar):
They may not go out perfumed to the market — in a place where there is a suspicion of male-male s*x-acts [mishkav zakhor].
They may not go out alone at night — lest they be suspected of promiscuity/engaging with s*x workers [Rashi: z’nut]
They may not go out wearing shoes that have been patched up — lest their lack of economic means disgrace their position or the torah
They may not converse in the market with a woman, even his wife or other female relatives — lest they be suspected of conversing with a strange woman, or again promiscuity
They may not eat together with the amei ha-aretz (those who do not adhere to rabbinic teachings) — lest they be attracted/drawn to their ways
They may not be last to enter the Beit Midrash — this is obvious

Here distinctions based on s*xuality, class, gender, and perhaps education are presented, and such differences are not opportunities for blessings for the students but seen as disgraces to be avoided or shunned.

This list of six, includes a seventh disgraceful thing: taking long strides and walking fully upright. Both are understood as displaying arrogance. Taking long strides is said to diminish one’s eyesight.
And of walking upright, the text proclaims, “It is as if they push away the feet of the Shekhinah [Divine Presence]. Isaiah 6:3 is quoted to establish that the arrogant who walk proudly literally take up too much air space, which belongs to God (or at least God’s feet): “The whole earth is full of God’s glory”

I say, The whole earth is full of God’s glory (Is. 6:3) — to include places suspected of mishkav zakhor, to include women, to include all. Blessed be the creation of all.

For what is it—but arrogance—that causes one to shun women, people of less economic security, LGBTQ people, and those with different perspectives and experiences. What arrogance to assert that, in effect, The whole earth is not full of God’s glory?

The daf offers those who take long strides a remedy/repair for the loss of vision caused by such actions: drinking the kiddush wine on the evening of shabbat (after saying the appropriate blessings in the correct order or not it does not specify).
Let us share our tables, our feasts, our study houses with all people, and work to acknowledge that indeed, the whole earth is full of Glory. Let us repair the places where a lack of vision has caused exclusion and see all people as worthy of blessings.

02/02/2020

Bavli Berakhot 29a-30a

01/31/2020

On March 5, the Beit Midrash will host a screening of They Ain't Ready For Me with Tamar Manasseh - details to come!

---

They Ain’t Ready For Me is the story of Tamar Manasseh, the African American rabbinical student who is leading the fight against senseless killings on the south side of Chicago. The film explores the challenges and motivations of this fearless community leader as she works to prevent more people from being killed by gun violence. Tamar's complex identity and magnetic personality combine to make her a force to be reckoned with, and she hasn't even hit her stride yet.

01/31/2020

Inspired by Berakhot 27a-b

Daf Yomi: until midnight. Others: until evening. Rabbi says halfway between evening and midnight. The strict ones: one should finish by sunrise. Masters of Shields (!): there is no fixed time.
From when [can one begin] Daf Yomi? From the hour before children awaken. From the hour after the children go to school. Midday. Evening, For there was evening and morning one day. Four hours after the young children go to bed. 2 hours after a boy 13 years and 1 day goes to bed. An hour and a half after one’s partner goes to bed. Immediately after packing the kids lunches for the morrow—or is it already the day. From midnight.
It happened once that a woman, an androginos person, and a tumtum were learning the Daf. And some say they were with a person who is hearing impaired, a minor, and a half-enslaved half-free person.
A rabbi passed by and said “You are causing the Divine Presence to depart from Israel.” The HolyOne said, “You are strengthening the bond between Me and Israel.”

Midnight?! The beginning says [one has until] midnight [to finish Daf]. And the end [later in the passage] says one begins at midnight?! And it also says midday. How do I know that midnight [means midnight and] not midday and midday [means midday and] not midnight? And if one can end at midnight and begin at midnight, how does this differ from those that say there is no fixed time?

From the hour the children awaken? What is meant by this? Do [my own] children exist? [i.e., is their presence in the household of any impact on my life?].
What time does a young child go to bed? If you say at eight o’clock and so and so said in the name of so and so that a boy 13 and one day old goes to bed at ten o’clock then four hours after one and two hours after the other is the same. And moreover, isn’t that midnight? And if the partner goes to bed at 10:30, as so and so in the name of so and so daughter of so and so taught—again midnight?!

And when does one pack the lunches? If it is at the moment where the days [today and tomorrow] meet is that not midnight? Learn from this.

[A contradiction is brought from the same passage]: Evening. For there was evening and morning one day (Gen. 1:5). A day begins at evening. So how can one say midnight?! This is a difficulty.

According to those who say there is no fixed time. Isn’t it said, The day consists of twelve hours; during the first three hours the HolyOne is occupied with Torah study. When does the day begin for the HolyOne. If you say here teaches [the day begins with the] morning. But you say evening? For their was evening. Is it not obvious? [Midnight.] Does the day even begin for the HolyOne. And, Behold the one who watches Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep (Ps. 121: 4). Does sleep determine a new day? For their was evening. But At midnight I will rise (Ps. 119: 62) — the day begins at midnight.

And one should finish at sunrise. If you finish at sunrise must you begin at midnight? Rather, begin at halfway between midnight and sunrise. For those who maintain one may begin at evening, if they began halfway between the afternoon and evening do they need to learn it again [when evening comes]?

A woman, a tumtum and an androginos person...and some say...were learning [daf yomi].
When it came time for them to recite Shema, the hearing impaired person recited first: Hear O Israel.
What chapters [were they learning]? Of how the sages once removed a nasi (president) for excessive cruelty and abuse of power. This is obvious.