The Sacred & Profane
Word from: David
Israel-Music has a surprising new item-Safra has made recordings of the Chumash, or as they call it, 'The Hebrew Bible.' This collection of 13 CD's stirs debate on how to approach a sacred text. Is 'going to sleep with a chapter from "Bereshit" or driving the car listening to the most beautiful stories in the world'-as an Israeli reviewer suggested-appropriate? Must Torah be read in a formal setting? My only quibble is that the recording lacks trop (cantillation), which would recreate the Pre-Guttenberg (and Soncino) experience of solely hearing the Torah, making the humble etnachta (pause) and his musical friends (Azla, Munach, etc.) so much more important.Another development in the Seforim world is an Artscroll Siddur for women. I counted nine women thanked in the introduction for their involvement in this undertaking. Two were donors and seven were typists and copywriters, but I'd like to think a modest but influential woman, perhaps a Rebbetzin or seminary teacher was working behind the scenes. Thoughts on whether this book is a recognition that women have religous obligations (which has immense halachic and philosophical relevance) or a ponderous attempt to deal with feminism (or both) are appreciated. Nu, at least it comes in three colors.
Suffice it to say the Ohel Sarah is in better taste than the Brick Testament. For once, using the phrase 'Lehavdil' may be apropos. This site is best described as your third-grade Chumash project (surely someone out there made a mini Beit HaMikdash from Lego blocks) reinterpreted by a sardonic hipster invoking the spirit of Jacob Katz's Voltaire. Were it not for the latent political undertones sprinkled within the project, a case could have been made for this site's value as an educational tool. In related news, the American Bible Society has opened an art gallery called MoBia. This acronym fad needs to stop-and where has the display of Bibles translated to Cherokee, Tok Pisin, and thousands of other languages gone?
I leave you with this picture of rapper Lil' Jon and his overpriced zirconium-decorated goblet aka 'pimp cup.' Some would call it a silly photoshop in poor taste, but I prefer to see it as an exploration of cultural boundaries, 'The Other', and Yayin Nesech.
3 Comments:
At 3:44 PM, Jake said…
I think Safra should get Li'l Jon to narrate this "Hebrew Bible". Or maybe Jim Dale? Hehe(this is the last harry potter reference - i promise) I really think that this a good thing. All of the scary formality surrounding Torah is for sure keeping lots of people away it, and anyway I'd take a 'casual' conversation about it, raunchy in its shtenderless freedom over a set carrot-in-the-tuchis seider anytime. There are some rabbinic authorities (as well as Dena W.) who are part of this website, i wonder what the "official" take on the trend is.
At 9:01 PM, Dena said…
Unfortunately the colors of the new women's siddur sound more like paint samples than anything that might actually go with my shoes. I mean, Wedgwood royal blue? Rosedale Sienna? I'm trying to pray here not paint my garage door. Shmuly, get down from there!
Seriously, I checked out some of the features on the new model and was impressed. The larger print tehillim and the added tkhines are actually something that make sense specifically for women. An added feature which I thought was also neat and pretty progressive was a "marey mekomos" page so you can look up all them laws.
The real test would be to see if they actually changed the text of the siddur itself. Dave, did they leave "for not having made me a woman" untouched even though no woman is ever going to say it? Did they leave in all of the blessings for putting on tefillin?
I think that this is a stride towards further segregation, because now the "regular" siddur even more explicitly becomes the man's siddur. There doesn't have to be something inherently offensive about the siddur itself (although if you're looking for it it's easily found) but the sociological implications are humongous. Let's just say that I doubt the women's tefillah groups will have these on mass order in ultra white.
At 1:50 PM, Marci Yesowitch said…
Dena,
They sorta pass your test, but not.
They did leave out "who has not made me a woman" and the Tallis and Tefillin blessings and instructions (for example during the Shema), but they did NOT change the language for you in the prayers that they left, so you're still calling yourself a guy in prayers like "Modeh Ani," which could easily have been changed to "Modah Ani" without losing either the substance or the religious quality of the prayer.
I expected the Sienna to be the same colour as my brown artscroll, so they'd match. It's not. I don't want to sound like a girl here, but it's a hideous colour.
The Tekhinot section is VERY limited and their selection is somewhere between annoying and bizarre. They have 5 pregnancy related Tekhinot (one for pregnany, one for the 9th month, one for pre labour, one for IMMEDIATELY pre-labour, one for post labour, and I think another one for the first time you get out of bed after delivering a baby), two for children (one general, the other a prayer for scholarly children), a couple of pre-wedding Tekinot, and one each for a couple of holy places in Israel. There are no general purpose Tekhinot. They're all tied to occasions. And there's a letter from the RAMBAM to his son on the proper behavior one should have. The only explanation I can find for this is that the RAMBAM recommended his son read it every day. I did read through it, and I'm not saying it's not sound advice or not worth reading, but it's from a man to a man. Why is this in the Tekinot section which should be BY women FOR women? Give it its own section or something.
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