Talmud

There is value in diluted wine

Recently, a stranger responded to a forum post I wrote on Ravelry, a knitting website. I’ve worked off and on for many years designing knitting patterns. In the last four years, I’ve been distracted by the pandemic, by moving house and renovation, and the war. I haven’t put out any new patterns for awhile. Then, hit by a variety of antisemitic interactions, I decided I didn’t want to market my past work either. Most of my patterns are like anyone else’s, but a few show my Jewish identity. This includes two kippah knitting patterns and a hamantashen grogger design.

So, I mentioned my hesitancy about marketing during wartime to a Jewish knitters’ group. Out of the blue, I got a screed from an outsider that shows just why I’m wary. According to this response, I’m one of those “people without a soul.” Among many other comments, it was insinuated that

Israelis appropriated everything – we even stole hummus. Of course, the “we” showed exactly how jumbled up this person was. She assumed all Jews were Israelis or that all Israelis were Jews. The person didn’t understand the word “antisemitism” at all. It was quite a daunting paragraph. I knew many things about this hateful post were off base, as did others who were on this forum. Despite multiple reports about this screed, however, the website’s owners didn’t respond to us or promptly remove the hateful post.

Meanwhile, my household encountered hateful graffiti about the war in our neighbourhood again, which we reported to the police. This is at least our fifth report; there’s an investigation complete with incident numbers, as most of the graffiti isn’t about the war but simply Jew-hatred.

I then read a biased media report online. Recognizing the name of a journalist associated with it, I contacted her – and here’s where the narrative changes.

The journalist was open to my concerns, thoughtful, and the article was immediately edited. The police contacts I have dealt with have been unfailingly responsive and empathetic. I was comforted by professionals who saw our concerns, indicated they too saw the hate or bias, and acted on it. These were smart people who used their roles to stand up for what is right. Were they allies in every way? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but, in these instances, I felt less alone.

As part of my Daf Yomi (page of Talmud a day), I’ve been learning the Babylonian tractate of Bava Batra. In Bava Batra, on page 96, a question arises. At what point is a food so significantly transformed that we need to change the blessing we say when eating it? Rabbi Elliot Goldberg introduces this in an essay on My Jewish Learning, and it gets at the weird gradations we encounter and how to categorize them. On this page, there’s a question that relates to beverages. At what point is a drink derived from grapes so watered down that it’s no longer wine, and now just some sort of flavoured water? I immediately understood this because, centuries later, I’ve also had those bubbly waters flavoured with “real fruit.” Is there any actual nutrition from the fruit in what we are drinking? No, there isn’t. It’s usually just a little grape taste in the carbonated water. It tastes good, but it’s not juice.

My household traveled in September to a family bat mitzvah in New York City. There were many great moments during the weekend, including the bat mitzvah, which was held at the famous congregation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. This is where Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan served on the pulpit and the cantor was famous for composing “Hava Nagila.” Reconstructionist Judaism started in this building. There was good food, some great sightseeing. I especially enjoyed the perfect fall weather in Central Park during Shabbat, watching cousins play and chat in the playground.

Even so, I don’t love travel. A 12-hour journey, two airplanes, an international border and huge crowds can be a drag. Like the diluted wine conversation, it reminds me that not everything is obvious. Some dilution (or travel) is fine. Too much can result in a less pleasurable experience that we must bless and define differently.

On the airplanes, I read a novel, Suzanne Joinson’s A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar. At first, it appeared to be a story about women missionaries and their proselytizing efforts in Western China. By the end of the novel, it was about sexual assault, lack of medical care, gender identity, riots and war, colonization, British identity, exoticism, refugees and more. Just like diluted wine, sometimes things are not what they initially appear to be about. A book I sought out as entertainment was something more.

So, too, what we see as entertaining or as a diverting hobby – a knitting project, for instance – can be more. The design is a piece of technical writing, the finished garment keeps us warm and, somehow, discussion about it can turn into an opportunity for those who hate. Even the chore of reporting something can turn positive, via an opportunity for dialogue with a journalist or police officer, or negative, when a site’s moderators and owners fail to respond appropriately or quickly.

During the High Holy Days, we reflect on our behaviour, with clear markers of right and wrong, good and evil. Usually, that is more than enough to think about, but, this year, everything I ponder is tinged with this last year of tragedy, war and its aftermath. As I escape into the outdoors, a good conversation or a novel, I go back to the talmudic conversation about diluting wine. The past year has felt “diluted” to me by the sadness and the war and antisemitism. Yet, I hope, as always, that Sukkot will bring good weather for sitting outdoors, and interesting conversations. Simchat Torah might give me a chance to dance with the Torah with joy and without reservation.

As I sat in Central Park, a cousin asked me, with only a little smirk, if I was still into “the knitting thing.” I paused. It’s OK to acknowledge that our intellectual energies and what we find entertaining have changed or diluted during this time. Many have changed irrevocably since Oct. 7, 2023. The High Holy Days offer us an opportunity to get back in touch with ourselves and consider who we are. The changes may be hard ones. We may be “diluted” differently, but the change itself isn’t bad. Rather, it’s part of life’s journey. Here’s hoping for sunny moments in the sukkah this fall, but, if it snows instead here in Winnipeg or it rains in Vancouver, we can’t control that. We can just control how we understand and bless it. Gam zu le’tovah, this too is for the best.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Think first, then share news

When I write articles lately, they’re usually columns with an Opinion header near the editorial section. Most writers try to back their opinions up with research and information. I’m no different. However, some readers can be easily swayed regardless of the facts involved. This was clear to me when I ate dinner at a neighbour’s home recently. I chatted with my host about a syndicated columnist who gives succinct opinions about all sorts of world politics.

The writer’s accessible approach makes it seem like his opinions are solid. His tone is breezy and confident. But he covers so many different world events and conflicts that I wondered how he knew so much about it all. My host suggested he had a large staff to help him. I doubted this. Writing’s just not that profitable these days.

Here’s why I grew to doubt this columnist’s work. When it came to how he analyzes Israel and the Middle East, I have some academic background in the subject and I read widely. I saw where I disagreed with his assumptions. In several cases, I had more information about the issues than he presented. I saw his bias. I questioned what I read. Yes, his work is always on the newspaper’s editorial page. It’s always an analysis piece but that doesn’t mean his facts and conclusions are always correct. Now when I read his work, I see the “mansplaining” tone. He’s overconfident and oversimplifies big conflicts. Sadly, I suspect few people call him on it.

My host and I had this exchange while talking about mainstream media. In North America, we like to think our journalism is objective, fair and impartial. When I was a kid, my family visited relatives in France. I noticed the sheer quantity of publications on the French newsstands. More than one relative explained that they subscribed to certain newspapers that represented their political view and bought others with differing views. This way, they could get a full picture of world events. They acknowledged that everyone had biases and that media wasn’t objective. The way to get a fair representation of events was by doing more: more reading, more information gathering, critical comparison and analysis.

My recent Talmud study, from the tractate Bava Batra, has taken me through some fun “tall tale” narratives from Rabbah bar bar Hanna. He was prone to exaggeration. In Bava Batra 73, he sees enormous antelopes and a frog as big as 60 houses. He claims that a dragon swallows the frog, which is then eaten by a raven. The raven then sat in a tree. Can you believe, he says, how sturdy that tree was?

When Dr. Sara Ronis introduces these stories in the My Jewish Learning essay for this page, she calls them what they are: a real fish tale. (You should have seen the fish that got away!) These myths also perhaps have parallels to a Zoroastrian text called the Bundahishn, according to Drs. Reuven Kipperwasser and Dan Shapira. The stories might be crazy, but they were floating around in the ether of multicultural Babylonian marketplaces. Rabbah bar bar Hanna returns to the study hall with his crazy stories. The other rabbis call him on his nonsense. They insult him and call him names, criticizing his choices. There are lots of modern scholarly opinions about why the other talmudic rabbis do this, and what it means. It’s a topic for academic debate.

However, what if this is an ancient reminder for us? What if, during this period of Elul, when we’re supposed to start doing serious introspection, we’re also supposed to be examining exactly what crazy stories we’re swallowing? Imagine social media and news outlets as our marketplace. Maybe we’re bringing home Zoroastrian tall tales and repackaging them for our own consumption. The rabbis teach us in Bava Batra that swallowing these fish tales whole is not the smartest move. The rabbis ask why Rabbah bar bar Hanna didn’t just stop and think more before bringing this “stuff” home with him.

We’re often plied with misinformation – about the war in Israel, but also about other news. What do we know about Russia and Ukraine, repression in Iran, the Uyghurs or the Sudanese crisis? How much propaganda has been sent our way and who paid for it? It’s hard to tell. Too often, a seemingly objective, sincere journalist’s narrative might mislead us simply because their unconscious bias and opinion is submerged in the text. The editor’s headline guides us, too.

Worse, sometimes it’s not subconscious bias. Sometimes, it’s bots or outright propaganda, paid for by a country that wants to mess up North American elections or culture. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I believe that, like the rabbis suggest to Rabbah bar bar Hanna, one should reflect on things you read or hear, really look at them, and think critically.

This season’s the time when we’re supposed to be examining our deeds since last year. Most of us were guilty of complacency in this past year. Last Sukkot, we couldn’t have imagined what was ahead. If someone had described what was to come, we would have accused them of telling an abhorrent tall tale. For many, Oct. 7 and its aftermath have been one scary, real and gruesome nightmare.

It’s easy to understand complacency. We want to feel safe. We don’t want there to be metaphorical enormous frogs or dragons around the corner. That said, we owe it to ourselves to be like the rabbis in the study hall who called out Rabbah bar bar Hanna. Those rabbis asked bar bar Hanna to pause and think more about what he saw, read or told them.

In the spirit of the High Holidays, let’s be true to ourselves. There is plenty of horrific real news for us to share. Let’s read widely first. Let’s keep our eyes open so we recognize bias and what is really happening before we pass something along. Let’s avoid the rumours and speculation, too.

Wishing you a sweet, happy, healthy and peaceful 5785, free of misinformation.

Allowing for joyful holidays

My house smells like chicken soup. That is one of the surefire ways to tell that holidays are on the horizon. It’s a cooler summer day. I have two slow cookers “working” to make that all important broth for autumn days to come. Chicken soup is a little thing but it’s one of those small details that I do in advance to make our family holidays special.

I recently read an introduction to a page of Talmud on My Jewish Learning by Dr. Sara Ronis. It examines Bava Batra 60. This page of the Babylonian Talmud resonates with what many of us are wrestling with during this past year of war. To summarize, Rabbi Yehoshua comes upon Jewish people, who, after the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70 CE, chose to become ascetics. They give up eating meat and drinking wine, because these things could no longer be offered in sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem. The ascetics suggested that, given the loss of the Temple, life could no longer be as spiritually rich or as physically nourishing.

Rabbi Yehoshua tries to reason with them, asking if they should stop eating bread, since the meal offerings at the Temple have also stopped. The ascetics suggested they could subsist on produce.

Rabbi Yehoshua asked if they would give up eating the seven species of produce offered at the Temple. They said they could eat other produce.

So, Rabbi Yehoshua says, I’m paraphrasing here: “We’ll give up drinking water, since the water libation has ceased.” To that, the ascetics responded with silence – of course. You can’t give up drinking water and stay alive.

Rabbi Yehoshua encourages the people to make space for mourning but to avoid extremes; he suggests that choosing to be an extremist is dangerous. Making space in our life for other things like daily pleasures and regular foods is important. Devoting all our energies to mourning will rob us of life, too.

This story came to mind when I saw the celebratory photos of Noa Argamani, a rescued hostage. She wore a yellow bikini and danced with her father atop others’ shoulders at a party. In addition to having been a hostage, her mother had passed away from brain cancer, only three weeks after Noa’s rescue on June 8. The pure, almost ecstatic joy of the images clashed in a difficult way with the ongoing war, the hostages still in Gaza, and all those suffering in the conflict. Some immediately sought to criticize this behaviour. There are those who said, “if only Jewish women were more modest, the hostages would be returned.” On the other side, some said, “Look at these Israelis celebrating even while Gazans suffer.”

I remember being told at a long ago Simchat Torah celebration that mourners, after a death of a family, shouldn’t dance or sing. Yet, maybe 10 years ago, when my twin preschoolers asked a Moroccan Jewish family in mourning for their mother, to sing with them Mipi El (a Jewish acrostic song, a piyyot, with a traditional Sephardi tune loved by my sons), these older men held up my kids, danced and sang with the Torah. It was a meaningful moment. It was full of emotion. Maybe one can dance with the Torah and celebrate a little – even while mourning. I almost felt their mother, who I never knew, who raised them to be committed and involved Jewish adults, would approve.

Rabbi Yehoshua’s logical argument and suggestion that we hold onto joy even while mourning is important. Making space for all these feelings in our lives is both powerful and hard. Smelling the chicken broth aroma filling my house makes me anticipate the New Year and holidays to come. Also, like many others, I will never be able to celebrate Simchat Torah the same way again. Yet, nothing made me happier than seeing Noa Argamani and her father make the most of every moment they have together. They deserve every happiness.

In this past year, finding ways to be grateful, to anticipate rituals, holidays and joy has felt really heavy at times. Twice in recent weeks, my family has returned home from a fun summer outing to see antisemitic graffiti in our neighbourhood. There is nothing like having to take photographs of a hate crime, call the police to make a report, and send off the photos to B’nai Brith and CIJA as well to turn a sunny family adventure into a downer. I struggle with processing all this and going on with daily life.

So, when someone I follow on Instagram showed off her Instant Pot chicken soup process, I started up my serious chicken broth production. Here’s to getting new batches of chicken soup, that liquid gold, into the freezer, ready to make new positive memories and associations for the fall holidays to come.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

We must keep asking “why?”

Our short Canadian summer is full of wonder. We try to spend lots of time outdoors, finding things to marvel at on dog walks and even on errands. While we might not be out in the bush too often, we still can spot foxes, deer, woodpeckers, butterflies and moths, as well as magnificent gardens, in our neighbourhood in Winnipeg’s city core. As toddlers and preschoolers, children go through a “why?” phase. Everything is a question. Parents must come up with meaningful but short answers every time. However, as our tweens transition to teens, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover there are still a lot of “whys” being asked.

On a practical level, sometimes I end up saying “that’s a Google question” because I cannot remember every detail of European history. If our resident biology professor dad isn’t home, we’re trying to figure out flora and fauna on our own. (Hint: there’s an app for everything now.) Most of all, I am thrilled that intellectual curiosity is still a thing. Our household still finds space to wonder about how things work, what things are called and why events evolved in one way or another.

Just the other evening, I admonished our kid about being gracious about gifts. He didn’t know what I meant. We stopped to discuss the phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” and take apart what it means. This kind of daily learning is an exciting part of life, and especially in summer, when we have hours at a stretch to talk and think about things, as well as seeing natural wonders, going to museums, meeting new people, reading and listening together. Pursuing this kind of informal learning makes a well-rounded education.

I continue to study Daf Yomi, a page of Talmud a day, and right now we’re studying the tractate of Bava Batra, one of the three Bavas (translated as “gates”) that deal in civil law. I find nuggets of wisdom in these tractates, even as some of them seem dry to other students. If you’re wondering, for instance, who pays for a fence, or making the decisions about erecting a fence across a shared courtyard? The beginning of Bava Batra will help you figure out whether this is possible, and how to get along with your neighbour in the process. Each issue is examined with a “why?” lens.

How does one decide where you’re from? If you’ve lived in many places (I have), this is a real question. Do you define home as where you were born? Where you lived the most years? Which kitchen or garden you liked best? This is examined on Bava Batra 11, which suggests that, if you’ve lived in a city for 12 months, you can be considered a resident. However, if you buy a house earlier than that, or even, according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, land that would be suitable for building a house, you’re immediately considered a resident. This bit of ancient law discussion struck me as useful in an age where so many decisions are made based on where one lives: where one votes, gets health care, sends kids to school and other bureaucratic needs. Establishing residency is still often up for discussion.

There is an advantage to maintaining intellectual curiosity and nurturing critical thinking when it comes to negotiating the world. As recently as a year or two ago, I would have been upset to think that one should be getting news from social media or email newsletters. Now, however, I find access to multiple reports about the Israel-Gaza war in English and Hebrew, through Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). I then end up satiating my curiosity by clicking through to read from multiple other news sources, finding out about elections in Europe, antisemitism worldwide, or even locating (and avoiding) possibly violent protests in my own city. Asking “why? why? why?” becomes a daily necessity in trying to decipher both what’s happening and the political angle of those who write the articles, blogs or tweets.

A recent piece covering humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza on the CBC, for instance, used the word “Hamas” only once, when mentioning “Hamas-led militants” on Oct. 7. The word “Israel” could be found on the page 18 times. While 18 is a lucky number, in this case, it sounds like an uncritical reader could lay blame on one side simply through repetition. One might completely lose sight of why Gazans are in this mess in the first place. If, perhaps, Hamas chose to stop firing rockets into Israel? It might be easier to distribute supplies and return to normality. Also, the journalist mentioned Egypt only twice. Egypt also shares a border with Gaza. Egypt could choose to facilitate humanitarian aid. Whose responsibility is this? The article’s slant, and the journalist’s bio, made me suspect a bias. When examining the journalist’s X posts online, I saw only one side of this conflict emphasized. It didn’t reference anything about Oct. 7 or Israel’s experience.

It can be hard right now to maintain an even keel while facing the barrage of information about the Gaza war, Russia’s war on Ukraine, politics in Canada, the United States and Europe, and the famines and violent conflicts elsewhere in the world. Unplugging and getting out to see and do things with family, taking a vacation, exploring wild places, helps us recalibrate. It can also boost our “why?” skills so we can return refreshed, with energy to analyze all the new craziness as it erupts.

I’ve just begun Bava Batra, but one topic hit early on is where and how to donate charity to do the most good. Bava Batra 8b reminds us that money donated towards “saving captives” is a great mitzvah, the biggest commandment/good deed that one can do. Sometimes, an ancient text can remind us to readjust our priorities. Reading critically and asking “why?” are essential to Talmud and rabbinic discourse. It’s also essential for us. We must keep helping our children ask “why?” We ourselves must maintain the wonder that enables us to stay curiously critical thinkers.

Expectations for behaviour

Our neighbourhood has narrow sidewalks lined by hedges. When my dog and I take our daily walks, we step to the side at a driveway or front walk so that another pedestrian can pass. My dog sits patiently, sometimes even when I don’t prompt her. Over the years, through the lives of several dogs, we (the dogs and I) have received compliments because of how well behaved the dogs are. I say thank you. The next question is, “How did you do it? I can’t get my dog to do that!” My response is always the same. We’ve been taking these walks every day for years. We practise! Usually, the passerby shakes their head, as if I am just not letting on my secret – but I have. Consistency is everything in reinforcing behaviour.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia 60a, the rabbis discuss sales practices. While Rabbi Yehudah disagrees, the rabbis conclude that a shopkeeper is allowed to offer children toasted grains and nuts for free. By doing so, he accustoms the children to see him for their shopping, rather than going to other shopkeepers. Also, the rabbis suggest, it is OK to offer things for sale at a “below market” price, that is, on sale, in order to attract customers. These are, in effect, ancient – and approved – business marketing guidelines that reinforce desired behaviours. In this text, there are also suggestions for what is not acceptable and why.

Festive holiday meals sometimes give us time to think about what’s acceptable in our homes, too. One invites friends and family over, or goes to other homes, and that’s when you can see all sorts of different families, with different guidelines about what’s acceptable. I find myself observing all this with interest. This is one way we learn about other ways of doing things. It’s also a chance to reevaluate how we run our homes. What could we do better? What isn’t acceptable in one home may be fair game in another.

As an adult, I observe all this but my children, just like those attracted by toasted nuts in Bava Metzia, react fast when they see things that are tempting or considered “out of bounds.” For instance, my kids love additional opportunities to eat treats. However, kids also notice when things go awry.

More than once, we’ve had a young holiday guest have a colossal meltdown. We all know that kids can lose it, especially during atypical situations, in others’ houses, later in the evening, etc. However, my kids feel strongly about times when the kid (or family) shows disrespect to us. After all, it’s our house. Having a child fall apart due to exhaustion or overstimulation happens. Having a kid yell at us is different, and my kids are rightfully upset when another child snaps or is rude when I express concern or want to keep them from getting hurt. My family pointed out that I, as a grown-up, am responsible for everybody’s safety in my house – of course, I have to say something when a situation looks dangerous.

Earlier this year, our household was unsettled not only due to an extended outburst, but because no one apologized for it. Some parents apparently think that we, as holiday meal hosts, should tolerate and absorb a tantrum. For days afterwards, I fielded my kids’ comments as I stung with frustration. We spend many hours cleaning, setting the table and making multi-course celebratory meals. We take great care. Why go to all this effort for guests who don’t model basic respect for their kids in another person’s home?

By comparison, another set of family friends stayed over during a holiday. They were having breakfast in our kitchen with my kids when I came into the room. Their teenager had raspberries topping each finger (something I don’t allow my kids to do) but also, hadn’t washed their fruit. I rushed to wash the fruit, while the teenager said she was “immune” to whatever was on it. Her mom immediately jumped in. This mom insisted the teenager thank me for washing the fruit and correcting the possibly unsafe situation.

In this interaction, my kids saw the parent modeling an expected behaviour. They looked relieved. Those daily dog walks, often with kids, offer plenty of time to reflect on what we see. My twins, at the cusp of teenagerhood, now have firm ideas of how boundaries work, what respect and kindness mean, even in difficult situations. They know when parents correct things or when things go off the rails.

Watching the student encampments unfold at universities has been a chance to review those boundaries. When is it OK to protest? Why? It’s important to learn how one’s behaviours affect others and how they have lifelong ramifications. We’re seeing these issues play out in real time.

In our house, we’ve discovered new growth. Reinforcing consistent upright, respectful and kind interactions is annoying sometimes. Saying “careful!” every day because I worry about someone’s safety can be a drag. Yet, just like the dog sitting at the street corner, my household has reinforced certain behaviours. We say thank you when someone works hard to take care of us. We worry about others’ safety. We apologize when things go wrong.

Recognizing how we should behave with others is a crucial part of living in a functional community. Watching the university encampments from afar and their conflicting messages of hate towards the Jewish community and Israel makes me worry about how we will proceed in the future. The media coverage of these protests makes me question what the protesters’ parents modeled. What are these parents thinking now? The chants by some of the students make me wonder if their version of community considers Jews or Israelis eligible for membership.

I’m heartened to see when my hard work pays off as a parent, holiday meal host or dog owner. Yet, I’m worried about what it means when our boundaries or expectations aren’t respected, too. Being yelled at in my own home at a holiday meal wasn’t a good harbinger of the future. Our tradition sets some expectations for behaviour in the marketplace and at home. Even as we interpret these traditions differently, how we consistently model behaviour will determine our children’s and our society’s future. Consistently reminding one another of how to behave as responsible community members may result in a better, safer future for all of us.

What matters on a birthday?

As I stepped out my front door for an afternoon walk, I met an older dad taking a walk with a 15-month-old baby girl in a carrier on his chest. She was wiggly. The dad leaned over so the baby could pet my (sizeable) Gordon Setter mix dog. She babbled and waved and touched. She was in on all the action.

While my kids are now 12, I was transported immediately back to the days of naps and screaming tantrum wake-ups. I remembered the power of nature walks and time in a baby wrap, which often calmed both. To this dad, I just looked like an older woman with a big dog, but, by the end of the walk, he had the picture and we’d even figured out that our spouses worked at the same university.

Before this, I’d been concentrating on work, writing an opinion piece about a Winnipeg swimming pool that faces closure and potential demolition. Its name, Happyland, felt poignant and sad. To some, demolishing an aging outdoor facility that serves our winter city for only a couple months a year seems obvious, in terms of its financial worth. Yet, for us, or anyone who has had a chance to play in the shallow end with splashing kids, eager to try out their swimming skills on a sunny day, it’s a hard loss.

These random moments make up the stories of our families, our daily lives, and maybe our bigger communities. They are small and insignificant as they happen, but, at the same time, contain so much. As the dad in his 40s talked to me about being with his partner for 21 years before having a kid, and about “this magnificently overwhelming” experience, I imagined how spectacularly their lives had changed with the birth of this child.

My daily Jewish text study is not always something relatable, but things will pop back into mind at later times. Sometimes, I study my Daf Yomi, my page of Babylonian Talmud a day, and I struggle. Each day, I get an email, an essay, from My Jewish Learning that helps me stay on track and focused on one issue on a page. For Bava Metzia 46, there’s a discussion around how we define acquiring something. Does it happen when we exchange money for the physical object? Does it happen when we “pull,” or physically take, the object? The text goes further into what amounts to an ancient currency exchange counter.

Imagine traveling from Country A to another country, Country B, and you needed some cash. Your money from Country A is no longer good in B. Does it have value? If you exchange it, are you technically buying B’s currency with invalid currency from A? Is the money invalid because it’s no longer in use as your empire disintegrates, or because Country B doesn’t recognize it? Can these currencies, if invalid, still be used privately? (Like cryptocurrency, perhaps?) These are complicated ideas, but the rabbis saw that governments – kingdoms, provinces, countries, etc. – come and go. What is meaningful in one place might be worthless in another.

I layered this on top of Bava Metzia 39, a page that just ripped me up as I studied it. It was about who can be in charge and how to manage the assets and property of a captive when they might still be alive, and how to reassess these practical matters if word arrives that the captives have died. The page explored the details: if minor children were involved, and how to supervise a woman’s property when her mother or sister died in captivity. It was heartbreaking to read this text, codified more than 1,500 years ago, with hostages still in Gaza.

As the date of Israel’s 76th Independence Day approaches, I’m left juggling two concepts. There’s the physical reality of the state – its currency, its government and its infrastructure. Then there’s the enormous emotional, up-and-down response many Jews around the world are experiencing as we struggle as a big extended family through the current war and the antisemitism worldwide. The only thing I can liken the emotions to is that of parenthood. That gut-wrenching, desperate crying from your baby, or the shrieks of joy from your tween as he splashes towards you in a pool. The emotion is overpowering, even while you juggle the practical notions of how governments behave. My parallel universe in Winnipeg: how much municipal money it costs to repair city infrastructure and whether your money (in whatever currency) is enough to pay for ice cream after the swim. The emotional joy of an ice cream after a good splash … that’s something to dream of doing again.

About 35 years ago, I was a teenager living on a kibbutz, splashing in an outdoor swimming pool on a sunny day. When I got out, I might share a slightly melted chocolate bar with my roommate as we changed for dinner. The truth is I have no idea if that kibbutz pool still exists. I haven’t been there since I was 17, but just like Happyland in Winnipeg, it isn’t the concrete that matters, it is those powerful memories of play with my friends.

I’m not sure if it’s possible to sort out all the actual infrastructure costs and damage that Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Southern Lebanon face. The regional rebuild after this catastrophe will be enormous. The lives of people in the region are irrevocably changed. Meanwhile, if we can avoid numbness and hold onto powerful emotions like the clasping finger of a baby, and the laughter and that cool pool water on a hot day, maybe there’s the potential to regain our equilibrium.

I wish Israel good health on this birthday … good emotional and mental health even if, physically, things are still a hot mess. If Israel were a person? I’d be leaning in for a tearful hug over the cake, saying “You know I love you, right?”

Mitzvah to return lost items

During the winter and spring in Winnipeg, sometimes one sees a child’s toy or a colourful mitten attached to a tree or hedge along a sidewalk. These are lost items. The neighbourly thing to do when you see something in a snowbank or on the packed snowy sidewalk is to pick it up and prop it up at adult eye level. It helps others. Maybe it will stop toddlers’ tears.

Our household found somebody’s bike lock key last fall. This was harder to post. We took a piece of paper and wrote “Is this your key?” on it in large capital letters. Using clear tape, we attached the key and the sign to a powerline pole. A long time passed. One day, someone finally found their key. Relieved, we took down the sign.

I’ve been studying the Babylonian talmudic tractate of Baba Metzia, which covers civil law, including the rules around how to deal with lost items. It examines details that I often ponder. For instance, if a person finds an inanimate object, it has different obligations attached than if one finds an animal. We must return lost animals. If we don’t know how to return them, the finder must care for the animal, including feeding and watering the animal. If the animal’s upkeep is a burden, provisions exist for selling the animal and keeping the money to compensate the person who lost their animal. The particulars can be complex.

I became interested in a category that isn’t easy to describe – an object that isn’t alive or animate but still needs care. Things like books, which, in the days of the Talmud, were scrolls made of parchment made from animals. The finder had to rotate the scrolls occasionally to maintain them until they could return them. The finder couldn’t use the scrolls for study in a way that might cause undue wear on these hand-scribed texts.

Another thing in this category, in Bava Metzia 29b, says: “If one found a garment, he shakes it once in thirty days and he spreads it out for its sake, to ventilate it, but he may not use it as a decoration for his own prestige.” As someone who makes and cares for natural fibre textiles (handspun and knit sweaters, for instance), I understood this immediately. Clothing wasn’t mass produced then. There were no factories. Everyone used spindles and spun and wove clothing. It wasn’t fast fashion. Clothes took skill and a lot of time to make. So, if someone found a garment, he knew its value. It wasn’t disposable. He must keep it well-aired, to be sure it was clean and cared for, and not attracting destructive pests like moths. Since he didn’t own or make it, he also couldn’t use the garment himself.

Bava Metzia also explores when someone loses a garment and “despairs” of its return. That is, when one gives up entirely on getting it back.

For anyone who has seen images of the destroyed cars, homes and belongings left after Oct. 7 on the kibbutzim in southern Israel or from the Nova festival, these details hit hard. Some Israelis from these areas escaped with their lives but have “despaired” of ever getting back what they lost, they don’t want to return and try to reclaim things. Others asked for help or sifted through the remains of their homes to find precious items. Still others have managed to return home to their belongings and restart their lives.

This despair and reclamation reminded me of my in-laws and their stories of displacement after the Second World War. Their possessions, buried or left behind years earlier in Poland, were impossible to claim. Non-Jews had moved into their homes and taken their things. After four years in five different displaced persons’ camps, my father-in-law, his sisters and parents moved to the United States. Decades later, my husband’s grandmother would describe her family’s bakery in Mezritch and what they lost. Even in her despair, there was an acknowledgement that she worked daily to let go of that loss, and be grateful for a new, rich life for her family.

This family refugee story, of loss and rebuilding, contrasts sharply with the UNRWA concept of intergenerational Palestinian refugee status. As Jewish communities have been forced to move over thousands of years, we have, perhaps, been lucky to have these talmudic guidelines, now 1,500 to 2,000 years old, on how we can claim lost items and how we can accept loss and move on. As we tell the Passover story, we remind ourselves of the many times our people have had to leave everything behind and start again.

Teaching how to navigate lost items starts young. A PJ Library book sent to our children, called Sara Finds a Mitzva, helped us with this. Sara, the protagonist, follows through with the mitzvah (commandment) to return lost items when she finds a toy duck. She tours her Orthodox New York City neighbourhood to find the duck’s owner. My kids loved this book and its beautiful illustrations, which offered glimpses of my mother’s childhood, as well as taught a valuable lesson.

We also work with our children to help them understand that sometimes things go missing, and how to move on. After all, we say, it’s just a thing. People matter more than things. With war on our minds, we must focus on what counts most. I am praying for the safe return of the Israeli hostages. We cannot fall prey to despair – our tradition teaches that, when we despair, we have given up hope of an eventual return. Further, we must make sense of a situation where thousands of Israelis have lost their physical belongings but must now make a new life for themselves. Across the border, there are civilians in Gaza who must also rebuild their homes and lives after the war.

It’s one thing to study the rabbis’ ancient debates as an intellectual exercise. It’s another thing altogether to return pets and livestock, find belongings, and make new households amid this destruction. We have a history of past loss that offers guidance, as those affected by war are physically finding their way through this difficult experience.

We must work together to find new paths after loss. Even if it’s familiar territory, as Jews, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Perhaps each of us, like Sara in the children’s book, can be lucky and find something – whether it’s physical or intangible. Then we, too, can do the mitzvah of returning lost things, and observe Passover, too. Creating a joyful holiday after trauma also offers a third mitzvah, that of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world” – bringing a bit of joy back to someone who needs it.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Knishes and relationships

My kids came home asking about knishes. Did I know how to make them? Where do we buy them? I thought this was weird. I asked for more information.

Their school resource teacher and International Baccalaureate coordinator, Ms. T, plays an important role in their lives. She does lunch time enrichment clubs, coaches sports, and her responsibilities include supporting kids with disabilities, and the IB program. When I say that I’m not sure how she does it all, one of my kids springs up out of his seat, showing how she crouches in front of a computer in one office, typing madly. Then he dashes across the kitchen to indicate her rush to the next office, to crouch at another desk. She is, simply, everywhere.

This is when I learned that Ms. T said knishes were not, in fact, everywhere. In Winnipeg, people buy these ethnic foods from synagogues who cater, a Jewish deli or bakery. Due to a strange confluence of events, two Winnipeg synagogues are under renovation currently and without their usual catering kitchens. Other sources for knishes apparently hadn’t worked out. As a result, one of our favourite teachers was bereft of knishes.

As a kid in Virginia, I experienced knishes in two ways: one involved a street cart vendor when visiting New York with family members. The other came from a frozen packet from a far away kosher grocery store in Maryland. I’d never made one at home. I’d never considered it. It wasn’t eaten frequently in my house. Winnipeggers eat them more often. Of course, since moving here, I have, too, but I don’t miss them when they aren’t around.

I was thinking about our relationships with knishes, teachers and community recently, when I took a class from My Jewish Learning on the Hadran prayer, taught by Rabbi Elliot Goldberg. What’s that? Funny you should ask. When a person finishes studying a tractate of Talmud, they recite this prayer. I’d never heard of it until I started studying Talmud daily. When we got to the end of the first tractate, I learned that, when one finishes this kind of thing, there is a siyyum, a celebration of one’s completion of study. I’d never heard of a siyyum as a kid at a Reform congregation. When I first attended one as an undergraduate, it seemed like something that I would never be involved in. I remember an awkward party at the Jewish Living Centre with stale cookies, juice and cheers about the gawky guy with glasses who had finished studying … I’m not sure what. In a siyyum, there’s food, there’s a public teaching of something you’ve learned, and the community cheers you on.

With the start of the pandemic, my own siyyum events have been online, usually through My Jewish Learning. There’s no food on Zoom, so that aspect of the celebration is muted, as is the cheering and crowd. Nonetheless, I have grown to love these events. It’s an hour that I pull out of my day at random, whenever it’s held online, and even during remote school or summer break or whatever, it’s “Mom’s siyyum time.” I’m learning with rabbis online via an iPad, even while making peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or hiding from the whole household to concentrate. It’s cerebral. It’s a shared learning community. It’s oddly emotional.

The first time I heard the Hadran prayer read, I cried. I found myself wondering what was wrong with me, but this class spelled out why it feels meaningful. The Hadran is usually said after studying a seder (order) of Mishnah or a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, but sometimes it is said at a rabbinical school graduation, a Jewish high school graduation. It’s an acknowledgement. It starts with, “We will return to you, Tractate X (whatever tractate you’re studying), and you will return to us; our mind is on you, Tractate X, and your mind is on us; we will not forget you, Tractate X, and you will not forget us – not in this world and not in the next world.” The prayer goes on to talk about the blessing and value of studying Torah, and the hope that our descendants will have the same opportunities. It’s well worth a read. (Look up “Hadran” on sefaria.org.)

The entire text creates emotional ties and intellectual relationships. I’m connected to the mysterious 10 rabbis from long ago and to unknown great-grandchildren in this text. I’m connected to a cycle of learning and a return to sacred study. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and mindful that it takes work to study, even if it’s a holy endeavour. It’s a prayer that acknowledges that readers have relationships with texts, which mimics what I learned in graduate school about some literary theory, too. That long-ago English professor taught that, when we read novels or newspapers, our life experience, reading skills and emotions bring half of the meaning to the words in front of us. We’re in relationship with texts, just like we’re in relationships with our teachers and communities.

We had an afterschool Reach for the Top trivia tournament to attend with Ms. T. I knew what to do. I figured it out in advance. I made potato knishes. As we hopped out of our car, my twins recognized Ms. T’s bright blue Jeep. They rushed towards her, with carry-out containers full of potato knishes.

I joked, saying, “Who makes knishes?! They come from a cart in New York City!” With a sombre smile, she said, “My baba.” Her grandmother used to make her knishes. Oh. I gave a flip response, saying, “OK! I’ll be your baba now.” She put the knishes in the car and we went off to the three-hour tournament. Ms. T rushed out later. That night, she sent me an email of thanks, saying it made a delicious snack when she headed to her next meeting.

We’re in a cycle of relationships in life, with lots of connections. A siyyum is an opportunity for us to celebrate and acknowledge hard work with a closure ritual. The Hadran tells us that “we will return” to a beloved text or, perhaps, to a beloved teacher.

The trivia tournament might not be Talmud. The knishes aren’t always round, or even necessarily knishes, but the connections between text, teachers, generations of learning, eating and love are real and they’re part of making Jewish meaning, too. A siyyum’s ritual of completion is always linked to food and a sense that we’re part of a bigger family and cycle of life. We return to you – whether it’s a knish made with love or a tractate of Talmud.

Speaking up for safe spaces

Although I have been doing Daf Yomi (studying a page of Talmud a page a day), I fell asleep a few days ago before I could finish learning my page of Talmud. I was worn out. And it was a page particularly relevant to my life.

Bava Kamma 99 talks about the value a craftsperson brings to the raw materials. For instance, if a customer brought wool to be dyed but something went wrong and the dyer made a mistake, the dyer would owe the customer the value of the wool. The value of the craftsperson’s enhancement is a different, additional calculation on top of the raw materials’ value. The skill and artistry that the craftsperson brings to their craft has economic value, which is part of what this tractate of Jewish law covers.

I’m a maker. I create lots of things, from baking bread to making labneh and many homemade family meals. I can make jams and pickles. I’m a hand spinner. I also dye yarn. I knit and design things. I even occasionally weave. I sew clothing, too, if in an elementary way. I appreciate it when I read about how a craftsperson adds value to raw materials in a Jewish text because it’s personally relatable. It shows that, in a time when everything was handmade, the rabbis valued the skilled work involved to make functional and sometimes beautiful things.

Since I had to study the rest of page 99 before heading on, I did half of that page and the next on the same day. Bava Kamma 100a talks about how teachers “go beyond” – not just in how they teach Torah, but in how they do mitzvot (commandments) and help others. Even though I trained as a teacher long ago, nobody’s an expert at everything. I teach some things, like hand spinning, and not others. I’m not able to “go beyond” as a sewing teacher, for example, and, instead, I searched for someone who could teach my kids.

My kids took sewing classes and attended sewing camp for two summers at a studio nearby. The small business owner was warm and inviting. It seemed to be a safe place. When she asked people to write blog posts for her, I did. It didn’t pay much but I thought it was a good community business, promoting slow fashion and reuse.

As many people were, I was in shock after Oct. 7. I didn’t immediately see anything concerning about this business, as it felt like it was “mostly” about sewing. Then, eventually, I began to realize that, in fact, there was an increasing trickle of activism on this social media feed. Like many Canadian progressives, this was part of a wider theme. Nothing was expressed in solidarity with the hostages or those who died on Oct. 7. Rather, the business began acknowledging and amplifying Palestinian influencers, posting participation in a raffle for the Red Crescent and posting ceasefire comments.

Every time I ask questions of someone I know – Why are you posting this? Do you support the right to a democracy to protect itself? – the exchanges, often disappointing, take an enormous amount of energy. Being brave and speaking out is tiring with so much antisemitism circulating.

I finally got up the nerve to ask the business owner … why are you posting about this, what does this activism about Israel and Gaza have to do with your small business? Are you Israeli or Palestinian? Are you an activist about a lot of things beyond slow fashion? If so, where is your outrage about Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, Uyghurs…?

In response, she did say she wanted all the hostages released, but she had never posted that publicly. Instead, she had reposted images promoting a tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) class. Fine, I thought, this aligned with her sewing business – but the image posted showed the outline of Israel with Arabic on top that read “PALESTINE” across the whole country. It erased Israel altogether.

I engaged via social media messaging, but saw it wasn’t likely to help. She asked, well, what do you want me to say? I suggested one could choose to be an ally of people you taught or worked with, or could choose to listen and to not amplify only one side. She didn’t choose either of those options. Instead, she decided to take down my writing from her site. I’d suggested that she could remove my name, if she chose, as it was her prerogative, that she’d bought my writing and owned it.

She then made things clear, saying it was “Only Jews who told her to ‘shut up’ or ‘stay in her lane as a Canadian.’” She said plenty of Jews aligned with her beliefs … although, based on the polls, I responded they were likely a minority. I suggested maybe only those Jewish customers brave enough to say something had spoken up.

I was initially sad to lose this community connection. I could have unfollowed this person without this discussion. My kids would never have taken another class. I’d never do business with her again. The depth of her concerning opinions wouldn’t have been revealed.

By exposing this small businessperson’s attitude, I learned more about what was “out there” in the local makers’ community. This included a willingness to lose business and relationships with students and clients who feel uncomfortable with these views.

I struggle sometimes to create a positive sewing lesson environment for my kids at home. However, there’s a different outcome here. I might grow as a person from “adding value to raw materials” as a craftsperson, to teaching more. This was something I could do. I falsely hoped that, if I tried hard to communicate, build bridges and connect with this person, things would change. But I need to continue learning and growing, too. Even this negative experience might have positive potential for growth.

When telling my family about the experience at the dinner table, my twins surprised me by saying, “Well, what took you so long? We could never go back there again.” Indeed, sometimes we give intolerant people too many chances to rise to the occasion, to become upstanding people. In this case, my kids knew the way before I did.

Critical thinking a vital skill

As a 20-something in the mid-1990s, I taught high school English. Part of my course load was a collaborative Grade 10 World Civilizations course that I co-taught with a social studies teacher. One day, I flippantly advertised our next assignment to a room of 16-year-olds, saying, “Oh, hey, we’re going to start reading Candide by Voltaire next week! You’ll love it! It’s full of sex, drugs and violence.”

To my surprise, many of those students talked to their parents. I received a flurry of concerned phone calls, messages and emails. Parents were worried about the curriculum. In the end, my explanations were successful. Yes, it’s true that Candide is probably rated R, but this fantastical satire was first published in 1759. It’s a famous classic, it’s definitely “literature,” with lots of intrigue and ideas we can learn from – and, oh yeah, it’s not true.

Literature teachers often speak of the great truths found in the classics, but fiction isn’t “the truth.” It’s complicated to untangle, and that’s why we study it to develop our critical thinking skills. In our multi-discipline history and English course, we had opportunities to discuss how history evolved, how we could examine primary sources to draw conclusions, and more. Literature was just a part of our opportunity to read and analyze important texts.

All this came to mind recently when some antisemitic posts came my way via social media concerning the Talmud. People started quoting the Talmud and inferring from brief quotations that Jews did all sorts of evil things. This was something of a modern blood libel approach; using brief snippets out of the huge body of law and literary work to condemn an entire ethnoreligious group. What followed was both a lot of nonsense and some deep belly laughs from Jews and scholars who study Talmud. Now, if you want to understand this text, buy all the tractates of the Babylonian (and don’t forget the Jerusalem) Talmud. You’re looking at a several-thousand-dollar purchase, which you can’t read unless you know Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew, as well as Rashi script, to read his commentary.

In recent years, Sefaria, an online database, has offered access to Talmud and many other Jewish texts, both in the original and in translation, for free. It’s been a tremendous gift and democratization of these ancient texts. However, having access doesn’t mean you have understanding. Like reading Candide for the first time, it’s helpful to have a teacher, some historical context, and lots of support to aid in your comprehension. These online X commenters, taking short rabbinic quotes out of context, had no idea what they were talking about. In many cases, the Talmud’s rabbinic musings explore arbitrary legal situations that never happened in order to explore and define the minutiae of Jewish law.

Also online, I saw others bemoaning how learning historical “facts” seemed solid and unquestionable – dates and events – but that, with modern events, it seemed hard to define what had happened and what was true as compared to misinformation. This anecdotal experience is common but it’s misleading. It takes a long time to establish a common narrative around a historical event, and “the winners” of war or political events create their version of history. Using multiple primary sources, as well as multiple historians’ accounts, helps learners see how historians lend their biases to their interpretation of what happened. We only get a full picture of “what happened” through exploring many perspectives from multiple sources. Even then, it’s hard to know if the history we’ve learned is “true,” or not.

Developing a mature understanding of literature and world events requires us to be critical thinkers. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 1936, “… the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

I’d say that, often, intelligent people explore complex political, historical, social or literary scenarios that hold multiple opposing ideas at once. But this kind of learning takes time and energy. It does not happen automatically. Our society loves binaries, where we get a quick yes/no answer.

My kids aren’t in high school. Yet, as a parent, I look forward to the day they come home excited about a “mature” literature assignment full of “sex, drugs and violence.” Each new milestone achieved fills me with hope. This year, for the first time, I have two kids who skate on their own, and I don’t always have to lace them up. At the same time, we’re trying to get to complex, but age-appropriate understandings of the Hamas-Israel war. We explore what is happening along with how the media depicts the situation. Who shapes our understanding of what’s happening? How? Most difficult is exploring the questions around whether anyone “wins” in a war when there is so much suffering involved.

The world is complicated. We can use literature and ideas for enjoyment, but also as tools to help think about big issues. Thinking critically about complex issues is a sign of intelligence and maturity. We must cultivate this skill. I hope it’s something my kids achieve as those long-ago high school students did.

Critical thinking is also a lens through which to examine the multiple simplistic social media and news narratives we’re facing every day. One can ask why the description of an event is so simplistic or who is consistently blamed in the narrative. Often, a short take on Talmud doesn’t demonstrate a deep understanding. A news article that fails to include the back story isn’t going to cut it. A view that always blames only one country – Israel – or one ethnoreligious group – Jews – might be similarly flawed.

Developing our thinking skills enables us to understand complexity. It also helps us discern an argument’s flaws. Let’s nurture smart thinkers so they can recognize and discard the nonsense, misinformation and hate that pops up so frequently now online and in the news.