More fun with the Rabbi

When I was in Junior High, in north (and I mean north) Toronto -- at the time, for those of you who might remember pre-amalgamation MEGACITY -- it was called North York, Willowdale even....  (Hey, I voted in that referendum.  No one can say that I supported this monstrosity.  Fourth freaking largest city in North America.  Think about that for a second.  Bigger than Boston). ...

I digress.

Back when I was in Junior High, in what was a very Jewish school -- new Jews, old Jews, first generation Canadian Jews, second generation Canadian Jews, and lots of Russian Jews -- we had, from time to time, Lunch with the Rabbi.  It was awesome.  What would happen is you and some other Israelis would hang out with a Rabbi and would be given Israeli treats which would only increase your nostalgia for a country from which you were brutally deracinated.

But I digress.  And exaggerate.

You all know where this is going.  This is turning into a religious blog, you rebel!  It's not.  But it's my damn blog and I'll write what I want and nobody is even reading this anyway, right?

So yesterday was my (sorta) weekly lesson with my Rabbi who is leaving for Chicago.  Very sad, yaddi, yaddi, yadda.  OK, here's the baby part of the blog.  I mustered up my courage (for some reason, when sitting across from this man, I feel like I have a rock for a head and I lose my suaveness) and asked him about his decision regarding the circumcision (this is becoming truly self-referential).  I had all my arsenal at the ready.  It will be early July probably.  Maybe he'll be interested in an Ottawa visit.  Maybe I will pay for his ticket, or half.  No dice.  "Why don't you get in touch with Dr. Engel?"  I'll get in touch with Dr. Engel.  But I still wanted his real answer.  "The decision has been made for me," he said.  "I'm moving to Chicago."

Now, for all interested in sticking around for the second half of the blog post.  Here it comes.

For some reason, my Rabbi wanted to get to the rainbow part of the story of Noah that we even skipped a couple of paragraphs.  Remember how God made an oath never to flood the earth again, "for the imagery of a man's heart is evil from his youth" (yeah, I screwed up the Stone translation -- imagery, not image, for yetzer).  And so, to mark this oath--actually, to mark a covenant with humanity, God creates a rainbow (you can bet it was a double, or even a triple, rainbow all da way for that first rainbow of the world).  "And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant that I give between Me and you, and every living being that is with you, to generations forever.  I have set My [triple] rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.  And it shall happen, when I place a cloud over the earth, and the bow will be seen in the cloud.  I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living being among all flesh, and the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.'"

OK, my Rabbi has really been waiting to share this passage with me, that's why we skipped.  He's been talking about it for a while.  Now, you know the drill, he starts running around the study, looking for a book.  He consults with the Rabbi leading the talmud session, gets an opinion, and goes back to the shelf.  Can't find it.  He'll ad lib.  It's OK, he knows this stuff.

"So when see a rainbow, we should be happy, right?" he asks (rhetorically of course).  "God is reminding us of the covenant he made with all living beings."  I nod.  
"No!" he says, "we should be sad.  We should be sad because God is reminding us (or himself) that although he is angry with us, he won't have another flood, because so he swore."  
"OK."
"What about a lunar eclipse?"  Now he's really getting into it.  
"According to a midrash, lunar eclipses are considered a bad omen for the Jews.  Now, how can they be a bad omen?  We know that we can predict them scientifically.  "Hold on," he says.  Runs around some more, finds books this time, and brings them over.  This is highly advanced stuff (for me).  The talmud.  I move over and sit beside him.  He reads aloud.  We look at another text, this one written a couple of hundred years later, interpreting the older interpretation (this is how biblical exegesis works).  The explanation is as follows: during the time of solar and lunar eclipses, there is a greater potential for misfortune.  What about earthquakes?

This is where it gets weird.  Through this whole discussion, we never make reference to Japan once.  I do almost, but think it unnecessary, assuming that we are both living on the same planet.  And, to be fair, maybe it wasn't necessary, maybe it was all in the background.

Now before we all get to the punchline here, I want to put this in context.  These texts that we're looking at are old.  They were written by wise men A LONG TIME AGO.  Strange ideas.  And yet, and yet...  These texts are immensely respected in this one community.  They are taken at their word, though interpretations, I would think, have to be stretched.  The texts are valued as interpretations, but must, I would think, be seen with some perspective.  This is esoteric and obscure stuff, and I do not understand it.  (This is why I am looking forward to reading this book which was banned by certain influential rabbis).

So I found, on important surfing time today, two blog posts from people who actually know what they are talking about, on earthquakes in the talmud.  These can do better justice than I can to the passages I listened to yesterday.  First, the causes of earthquakes.  This learned scholar explains that earthquakes may be caused by "any one of a number of acts: yes one of them is gay sex, but others are by disputes, and also by not taking heave offering and tithes from your produce, and also because God is just upset that the Temple is in ruins and there are theaters and circuses in Israel."  

The more interesting question is, what is the physical process which gives rise to an earthquake.  We all have some notion of this, right?  Tectonic plates grating against each other, etc., right? Wrong, earthquakes are caused by two of God's tears in the sea:

"When God takes notice of his children, who are mired in oppression among the nations of the world, He drops two tears into the ocean, and the resultant commotion is heard from one end of the world to the other.” 

We conclude.  When we see a rainbow, witness an eclipse, or learn of an earthquake, we reflect on what this means to us, children of Israel.

But what about Japan?

One quick correction here: I was jumping from lunar to solar eclipses above.  If I remember correctly, SOLAR eclipses may portend a bad omen for Jews and lunar ones, for the Gentiles (because Jews follow the lunar calendar).  So there.