Listening to Eicha

Several years ago, a friend of mine who happens to be a medievalist was telling me about the the difficulty she had connecting to Tisha B'Av. I told her what I generally thought at the time, which was that if you pay attention to the book of Eicha (Lamentations), you can't fail to be depressed by it. She said, "I don't know. It sounds just like all the other descriptions of sacked cities I've been reading lately."

At first I was taken aback, but later I realized that she was making an important point. From the standpoint of traditional Jewish theology, the destruction of the Temple is unique among catastrophes, which is why we continue to mourn it in so many different ways. But I was referring to the human tragedy in the book of Eicha, and, gruesome as that is, it isn't any worse than many other catastrophes than have befallen countless peoples throughout history. Those of us who study the past learn to accept descriptions of horrible events as a matter of course. Those of us who study Jewish history may find Eicha even more difficult to relate to, as we've come to see the event it describes as a practically inevitable consequence of regional politics, one of many similar scenarios that were playing out throughout the Near East. More and more, as I read the book of Eicha, that is what I see.

The traditional solution to this would be for me to try to understand the spiritual significance of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of God's presence. But that doesn't work for me right now. Instead, I'm trying to do something much smaller: to hear Eicha in the voice of its authors, people who actually witnessed the brutal destruction of everything they held dear. I can't do this every time I hear about a tragedy; no one can have that much empathy and live. But as a Jew, I can try to connect to this one paradigmatic tragedy this one time a year, with as much of myself as I can.

Postscript:

Last year, I wrote two posts linking to my favorite Tisha B'Av reading on the web, as well as to my own previous posts (link, link). As usual, I recommend Hitzei Yehonatan for both new and old material. (There are two new relevant posts, dated July 16 and 23. Don't get too turned of by the zodiacal stuff.) I also read a nice piece by The Curious Jew about how she relates to some kinot better than others, and I'm looking forward to reading The Velveteen Rabbi's thoughts on Eicha. I'll continue to update if I come across anything worthwhile.

A safe fast to those who are observing it.

More on Women in Science

Today's New York Times Science section has a lengthy article on women in science. The article addresses some important issues, such as the difficulty of raising children while maintaining a career in academia; advancing one's career along with that of a spouse who is also a scientist; and latent predjudices that lead to women being judged less competent than their male peers, or too aggressive when they actively pursue advancement.

Still, it irritates me to no end that the New York Times, and apparently the organizers of panels and conferences on this subject, feel the need to dismiss out of hand the possibility of cognitive differences between men and women. One would think that scientists and other highly educated people would be open to all reasonable hypotheses, that they would appreciate the possibility of a single phenomenon having multiple causes, and that they would understand that statistical trends need not have implications for individuals.

Also not addressed is the possibility that affirmative action is one of the causes of the assumption that female scientists are less compentent than males -- in other words, that what is supposed to be a solution has become part of the problem.

On the bright side, the article does offer some anecdotal evidence that attitudes toward women in science have improved significantly over the past few decades. DH also suspects that this is the case. Since it takes many years to reach the top echelons in academia, and since tenured professors tend to keep their jobs for quite some time, there is inevitably a significant lag between changes in attitude and changes in the position of women in the profession. However, I think there is reason to be optimistic.

Previous comments/rants on this subject here, here, and here.

Morbid Interlude

I'm in the middle of exams, but I had to post this YouTube video before Google purges it:



I'll be back for real in about a week and a half.

The Ineffable Tetragrammaton*

The four-letter name of the Israelite Deity, called the "Tetragrammaton," was, to all appearances, once pronounced freely. Over the centuries, however, it has become shielded by many degrees of what scholars creatively call "Tetragrammaton avoidance." When the Bible was translate into Greek around the beginning of the common era, the translators substituted the word κυριοs, "Lord," for the Divine Name. By the time the biblical text was fully vocalized, the Tetragrammaton had been replaced by the Hebrew word for "Lord," adonay, in liturgical readings. To indicate the correct reading of the Divine name, the Tetragrammaton was written with the vowels of adonay (yielding the erroneous transliteration "Jehovah"). More recently, Jews began to avoid even adonay in non-liturgical contexts, substituting euphemisms such as hashem ("the Name"). The Tetragrammaton is also avoided in writing. An early substitute consisted of two yods (the first and third letters of the Tetragrammaton). That, however, was too close to the original for comfort, so today, the letter hay, representing "Hashem," is a more prevalent choice. The very pious will avoid even hay, since it is one of the letters of the Tetragrammaton, preferring dalet, the letter preceding hay in the Hebrew alphabet. Sometimes, even non-Hebrew names of God are regarded as too sacred to be written. Many Jews substitute "G-d" for "God;" DH has even seen "Hash-m."

At this point, no one really knows how the Tetragrammaton was originally pronounced, although scholars have their (highly speculative) theories. There is, however, a conventional pronunciation used in academic circles, based on what one might call an educated guess. This places scholars with traditional Jewish leanings in an awkward position. There are times when using a proper name for the Deity is warranted, and departing from the convention to use circumlocutions or alternative euphemisms can be extremely distracting. One Jewish scholar of my acquaintance pronounces the Tetragrammaton on the grounds that he is certain that the conventional pronunciation is incorrect. Another occasionally uses "Hashem" at the risk of sounding unscholarly; a third is reputed to have said, "I'll just call him Jimmy."

I have yet to come up with a personal solution, and this has, on occasion, resulted in considerable awkwardness. Once, I was asked about a book with the Tetragrammaton in the title, and I stood there, dumbly, as though I couldn't remember it. Recently, I became so frustrated at my inability to communicate that I abandoned my principles and pronounced the Divine Name. Later, I reassured myself, noting that I hadn't articulated the medial hay, and in any case, I didn't see how the final vowel could possibly be a long /e/, and even if was, it would have been pronounced as short /i/ when the Name was actually used, etc.

All of this, of course, entirely misses the point. "Tetragrammaton avoidance" is supposed to be about regarding the Deity with a certain degree of reverence -- something that biblical scholars and aspiring scholars rarely do. Most of us are religious in some sense, but at some point, tearing the Bible to shreds and attempting to reconstruct the vowels of the Tetragrammaton does take its toll. The sense of mysterium tremendum so essential to religion inevitably begins to dissipate. Then, when we need it -- say, on the Jewish Days of Awe -- it is ever so difficult to recapture.

* DH thinks that this would be a good name for a rock band.

Beginnings

A friend loaned me a copy of Chaim Potok's In the Beginning. I read it before she left town, and now I wish that I'd copied a few bits of dialogue before returning it. The novel is flawed in some ways, but it touched me, and there are parts that I wish I remembered in greater detail.

Since the book was published over thirty years ago, I don't think it's giving too much away to say that it's about an Orthodox Jewish boy who grows up to be a Bible scholar. Certain parts of David Lurie's intellectual development were achingly familiar to me: the first stirrings of doubt in a deeply religious soul; the joy of discovering a new way of reading the Bible; the fear of where it might lead. When David first begins to be convinced of the validity of the Documentary Hypothesis, he abandons his biblical studies and enrolls in a rabbinical program, hoping to find intellectual satisfaction in the study of Talmud. I remember a time in my life when I, too, was looking for something other than Bible to study -- something equally compelling, but less dangerous. In the end, I had to concede that nothing less dangerous could be so compelling. The study of the Bible appealed to me, and still does, because it touches on the origin of Who I Am and Where I Come From in ways that I still can't fully articulate. When David is asked why he insists on a career that will alienate him from friends and family, he struggles to explain his decision, but the reader, who has followed his story from the very beginning, understands. David has always loved studying the Bible, and he doesn't love it any less now that he has come to understand it differently. He has to go wherever it takes him.

Like many of Potok's characters, David is a genius. I am somewhat ashamed to say that at this point in my life I find geniuses exceedingly annoying, and only slightly less so when they are fictional. As much as I relate to David, I feel more of a kinship with his younger brother, Alex, who, as a child, slams shut a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, declaring "I hate it!" because it is above his reading level. All beginnings are hard, but they are harder when you aren't as bright as you would like to be. Some beginnings can seem to drag on forever.

These days I spend a great deal of time accomplishing very little, and I often worry that going into academia was a big mistake. Usually I worry that I'm not smart enough or talented enough to be successful, but in other, more sinister moments, I worry that I don't have passion I used to have. Then, once in a while, I read something that reminds me why I wanted to be a Bible scholar in the first place. Usually, it's a work of scholarship; sometimes it's a biblical text. Much more rarely, it's a work of fiction.

For Every Purpose

I'm a bit ashamed of that last post. It's so egocentric. But then, most of are. I think.

In any case, it appears that I won't have to take those exams just yet. Which is well and good, since this has been a pretty crazy few weeks.

My grandfather and another individual close to my heart are currently recovering from sudden, serious medical conditions that could have taken their lives. Today, a good friend's father, who was relatively young and in fine health, died of a stroke. I had been thinking that contemporary Judaism, with all its rituals and prayers for supplication and mourning, doesn't provide sufficient means for giving thanks for a loved one's recovery. Now I am thinking that what it really doesn't provide -- and perhaps nothing can -- is a means of coping with the strange combinations of joy and grief that life sends our way.

I have a tendency to react strongly to minor events and respond with relatively little emotion to more serious matters. When tragedy strikes, I tend to ignore it for as long as I can. Right now, for example, I am going to watch the Daily Show. Tomorrow, I'll go to the funeral.

Barukh Dayyan Ha-Emet.

No King But You

Like many Jewish women, I have a love/hate relationship with Passover. True, it isn't like the olden days; I have a husband who is willing to do at least as much cooking and cleaning as I am. But the knife cuts both ways: I have obligations outside the home, and the cost of neglecting them can be high.

I know that I bring some of this on myself. From a strictly halakhic perspective, it probably isn't necessary to clean as thoroughly as we do. But you know how it is -- you move a piece of furniture, discover enough dust bunnies to fill a petting zoo, and decide that you'd better check behind the next piece of furniture as well. Then the next thing you know it's four in the morning and you're picking crumbs out of your bridge chairs with a Q-tip, and you'll be damned if you show up for that morning meeting.

There are other things that don't have to be done. I could stay home from shul and study -- no prohibition there, as long as I don't take notes. But as often as I say that I'll spend the holiday studying, I never pull it off. It just isn't yuntif if I work, and, say what you will, studying is work.

Passover is often called the festival of freedom, but this isn't quite accurate. In the biblical story, when the Israelites leave the service of Pharaoh, they do so in order to serve their God. There is no total freedom in this life; the closest we come is having the freedom to choose our masters. I may have some major exams coming up, but when push comes to shove, I'd rather be a slave in the kitchen for a few weeks in honor of the festival than a slave to my exams. And when the festival arrives, I would rather enjoy the freedom of restriction from labor than take advantage of the opportunity to increase my odds of passing by a miniscule margin.

I remember sitting down next to my mother at the seder table several years ago and seeing her smile and say, "this is my favorite holiday." At the moment, I was feeling resentful of the work time I'd lost, and hearing this from someone who had worked twice as hard as I had preparing for the holiday was nothing short of shocking. But then, as the seder began, I remembered that it was my favorite holiday, too. No amount of lost work time could change that.

Two days of yuntif have passed, and there are two more to go. The time in between is just long enough to work for a few hours, then shop and prepare for the next set of meals. Or it would be if I hadn't stayed up all night worrying about those silly exams.

I'm over it now. There are more important things in life.

Hopefully the Last Summers Post

Cathy Young finally wrote a column on the Summers affair. As expected, it is the most clear-headed take on the subject that I've read, and I've read quite a bit. If you're not completely sick of the whole business by now, definitely check it out.

By the way, if you'd like to read what Summers actually said, it is available here. The groveling letters are here and here.

Summers in Deep Shit

*sigh*
Institutions suck. I've never met an institution that didn't.

SBL Resolution Results

The official summary is here. As Ed Cook notes (in somewhat different words), it doesn't account for the fuck-around factor. My opinion on the substance of the poll has not changed.

Sullivan on Summers

What he said.

I particularly like this quote, from Steven Pinker:

Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is 'offensive' even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don't get the concept of a university or free inquiry.

The Summers Controversy

As a friend pointed out this morning, it's all hearsay. There were no reporters at the conferences, and no tapes or transcripts of the speech have been made available to the public. I am trying not to jump to conclusions, but I must admit, I am very angry -- and not at Summers.

It is the height of hypocrisy when the very people who (justifiably) accused Bush of manipulating science for political purposes suggest that the relationship between biology and academic interests is not a legitimate subject for inquiry. It is a closed-minded, knee-jerk reaction to walk out of the room when you hear an economic theory that offends your sensibilities. And, in the end, the theory ought not be so offensive.

No one in academia would deny that women can be brilliant mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. It is patently obvious. The issue here is the proportion of women to men in the technical fields. Should Harvard do everything it can to ensure a one-to-one ratio of female to male scientists, even if the pool of talented female scientists is significantly smaller? Would that really be "equal opportunity employment"?

Call me a closet misogynist, but I think that men and women alike should be treated as individuals, not statistics. The notion that academic departments (the sciences, no less!) "need" more female professors is no more reasonable than the notion that every child "needs" a mother and a father. A mature individual can examine the broader picture without drawing conclusions about herself and her colleagues. It was reasonable for Summers to expect that level of maturity at an invitation-only conference at Harvard.

There is a vast middle ground between biological determinism and the idea that sex is a social construct. The more that we understand about the human mind and the human body, the more complex the nature/nurture problem seems to become. This subject should be studied honestly and openly, not in the service of some extremists' conception of gender. And those who discuss it honestly and openly should not have to apologize, especially at a so-called institution of higher learning.

UPDATE: Here is an interesting look at the "mommy factor," which Summers also mentioned.

A "Family Matter" No Longer

Biblioblogdom is abuzz with discussions of a recent SBL resolution objecting to the invocation of the Bible in defense of conservative political views. Jim West would have preferred that this remain an "in-house" matter, but at this point, I don't see the harm in weighing in. It won't take much effort, since Jim Davila has articulated my views precisely. I won't even provide an excerpt of the post. Just read the whole thing.

Ed Cook says, "this survey is the most depressing thing I have read for many days, especially since at the present moment, over 70% of the members voted AGREE." I am also disappointed, but I submit that many of those academics might not have supported the resolution if they had thought it over a bit. Ph.D.'s aren't awarded for common sense. It is easy to see how someone who supported equal marriage rights, abortion rights, and stem-cell research might think that, in voting "DISAGREE," he or she would be tacitly supporting the opponents of those causes. More power to Jim Davila and his ilk, those liberal-leaning academics who are nonetheless willing to vociferously object to this abuse of an academic institution.

UPDATE: By the time I voted, the tally was under 60% in favor. Of course, we don't know how many voters were just "fucking around."
At PaleoJudaica, an alternate formualtion of the resolution by Maxine Grossman. Better (much better, actually), but I still don't think it's SBL's place to get involved in U.S. politics.

Too Good to be True

Ha'aretz has published a list of alleged forgeries associated with Oded Golan. Ralph the Sacred River has an English version. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this.)

We're all so hungry for external witnesses to the Bible that it's easy to be duped.

I keep thinking, what kind of people are these? How can someone so well-versed in history deliberately distort our understanding of the past? Is it really for the money? Or is it for the sense of power, the knowledge that they've fooled the experts?

Is this what happens to graduates of programs like mine who can't get jobs? Or are these folks who have turned down academia for the more lucrative business of trafficking in lies? Isn't that what academia is, anyway? No, no! I didn't say that! Shhh!!

Okay, So I Lied

I just learned about the New English Translation of the Septuagint series from PaleoJudaica. This will be the greatest publication since Bernard Taylor's Analytical Dictionary of the Septuagint. (Translation: My Greek sucks.) In the meantime, there's Perseus.

I'm going to get back to writing my paper now.

PaleoJudaica brings us new reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature. Why do I always want everything? (*whine*)

DH just called from outside what he described as a "really happenin' biophysics party." I delivered some exciting news from the home front: I found the isopropanol (yey!) and I'm still working on the same batch of spaghetti. I'm sure you all wanted to know that...

Before I shut down for the night and go read some Agnon, a few things I think are worth looking at:
Cathy Young on the Gibson controversy, and Martin Kramer on Jewish philanthropy and Middle Eastern studies.

Bye.

Tomorrow is study card day, and I still haven't chosen a fourth class. This semester's choice of courses has begun to seem utterly pathetic. If I end up taking a third semester of Genesis with Professor L (as much as I love him), I may go insane. I haven't fulfilled my ancient language requirement, I have no concentration, and it doesn't appear that I can even begin to remedy either problem this spring. Meanwhile, my advisor has no time to meet and hasn't yet responded to my e-mail. I can't stop thinking that when he does write back, the message will say, "I showed your e-mail to my colleagues, and we're in general agreement that you don't belong in this program." It's that kind of week.

On the bright side, my paleography class is going to be a blast. Remember that story about the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions, discovered at Wadi el-Hol? Professor H printed this photo and asked us to practice drawing the letters. The ultimate goal is to gain a sense for the gradual development of West Semitic scripts.

No biblical theology tonight. I'm far too nervous and confused, not to mention busy. I will try to blog about the article by the end of the week.

Good night.

Here's one for the Tolkien geeks. It's obviously meant to undermine everything I do, but I love it.

On that note, I'm off to bed. Wish me luck on tomorrow's German exam. I'll need it.