The fall holidays provide us with an annual opportunity to take stock of where we’ve been and where we are heading. A different cycle also came to a close for me with the completion of a study discipline focused on the lesser known of the two Talmuds, the Talmud of the Land of Israel, sometimes called the Jerusalem Talmud or Yerushalmi. This is distinct from the Talmud of Babylonia, the Bavli, which is regarded as the more authoritative of the two encyclopedic works.
In August 2018 I embarked on a study routine of a page of Yerushalmi a day, Daf Yomi Yerushalmi, following a worldwide study regimen, and I am pleased to have survived the process, learning the very last page at the end of October 2022. This calls for a Shehechiyanu blessing, expressing gratitude for having reached this special occasion. It also is incumbent on me to eat an extra piece of dessert, based on the teaching from the Yerushalmi (Y. Kid. 4:12) that “a person will be called to account on judgment day for every permissible thing that he might have enjoyed but did not.”
In addition to my Yerushalmi practice, I kept busy this past quarter with the rich traditions of the fall holiday cycle, co-leading services for the HaMakom Santa Fe congregation with Cantor Cindy Freedman. In order to give proper attention to the Bavli, I also instituted a Saturday afternoon Talmud class where we’ve been progressing methodically through Tractate Megilla (nominally discussing Purim but getting far afield at times). It’s been wonderful to have a dozen or more HaMakom participants in that weekly class.
The Los Alamos Jewish Center and the Albuquerque JCC also provided me with opportunities for additional adult Jewish education programs, and we’ve looked at a high-level overview of the High Holidays as well as the Jewish perspective on termination of pregnancy. I also recently spoke to a Los Alamos National Laboratory First Responders group about Jewish traditions associated with death and burial.
Recent life cycle events ran the gamut from tragedy to elation – I officiated at a funeral for a beloved teenager as well as offering blessings for special birthdays in the congregation, kiddush at the wedding of some good friends and reciting one of the sheva berachot at Beverly’s niece’s wedding.
All in all, I find myself quite content in northern New Mexico, acknowledging that the same page of the Yerushalmi also teaches that “it is forbidden to live in a town that does not have a physician or a vegetable garden.”
Books continue to be my obsession. Below are titles I read over the past quarter, and I’d love to hear your suggestions.
B’shalom, Rabbi Jack
Last quarter’s reading list is below
Poems of Jerusalem – Yehuda Amichai
Jewish Vienna 1860-1938 – ed. Helfried Seemann and Christian Lunzer
The Palace Gates: Parables for the High Holy Days – Rabbi Shalom Wallach
To Be A Man – Nicole Krauss
Seeds in the Desert – Mendel Mann; tr. Heather Valencia
The Dark Gate: Selected Poems of David Vogel; tr. A.C. Jacobs
Yiddish for Everyone – Leslie Michele Manas
Before Our Very Eyes – Danny Siegel
Tashlich and the Thirteen Attributes – translation and commentary by Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer
The Book of Alfred Kantor: An Artist’s Journal of the Holocaust – Alfred Kantor
It Is Impossible to Remain Silent – Jorge Semprun and Elie Wiesel
I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment – Xavier Amador
Letters to Camondo – Edmund deWaal
The Scout – Steven Plaut
Where We Once Gathered: Lost Synagogues of Europe – Andrea Strongwater
Hebrew Manuscript Painting – David Goldstein
Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali; translated by Marcela Sulak
Insight Israel: The View from Schechter – David Golinkin
100 Poems Without a Country – Erich Fried; tr. Stuart Hood
Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows – Arthur Lubow
