Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript)

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David Wolkin: B'reshit bara elokim et ha-shamayim ve'et ha-aretz ve'ha-aretz ha-yit ha-tohu v'avohu v'choshach al-p'nei te'om. Ve'ruach elokim merachafet al-p'nei ha-maim. Vayomer elokim yehi-or v'yehi-or v'yar elokim et ha-or ki-tob v'yavdel elokim b'in ha-or v'v'nei ha-choshach v'yikra elokim. Laor yaom, Laachoshech, Kara, Layla, Vayer, Vayivoker, Yom Echad. Sefer Breshit, Psukim 1-5.

[Music: "Invisible Touch" by Genesis.]

Chris Sims: Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. It's the podcast where usually two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it, but we're doing things a little bit different this week. Not in that we are going to try to be jerks, but in that we do not have a Bible reading to do today. Instead, we're doing something a little different. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?

Benito Cereno: Very good, because there's a third set of footprints this time.

C: It's true. There's a mysterious third set of footprints.

B: My understanding is that this is the part when Jesus was a centaur and carried us down the beach. Is that not correct?

C: That's the worst thing I've ever heard.

B: Yeah. No, it seems they're normal person footprints. So it seems we have a special guest with us today.

C: That's right. Our special guest this week, David Wolkin, is here on the show. David, welcome to Apocrypals.

D: Hi, everybody. I just want to be up front and say there's actually still one set of footprints because I'm clearly going to be carrying the whole sho– the whole show tonight.

B: Ooooooooh whoa!

C: Would have been better if you had made it through that without stumbling over your words

D: Yeah that was the problem, I'm sorry. I need more footsteps.

B: All right, do you want to try you want to try that sweet burn again with a clean take?

D: Sure

C: I would– No! I'm leaving it in. I'm leaving it in. Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god.

D: That's true. Pride cometh before the fall.

B: Hey David, why don't you tell all of our listeners, our dear Theophiloi, why don't you tell them a little bit here about who you are, where they might know you from, also why you're the kind of person we might want to have on this show. Just a brief bio.

D: Absolutely. People who know this show through Chris and Benito's comics background might know me as a former comics blogger and a part of the Comics Alliance crew. However, for most of my career, I have worked as a Jewish educator, teaching various forms of Judaism, including biblical texts, to a wide range of audiences, largely within Jewish settings. I no longer do that work. I work as a writer now, but I do still, in a lay capacity, still act as a teacher and a community builder. And I have lived my life as a liberal Jew. I've also lived in various different kinds of communities, including Orthodox ones. I have a Masters degree in Jewish education. I went to private Jewish schools all the way through high school and summer camps and all kinds of other things. And I have a more than passing familiarity with a lot of the issues being discussed here, though I'm not going to claim the status of scholar or expert, but I do have an interesting take on how Jews and Jewish communities typically engage in this kind of text study, but also innovative and creative approaches to doing so.

C: I have known you since comics blogs were a thing, because that is how we know each other through the comics blogging circuit. I did not know you had a master's in Jewish education.

D: It's true. Yeah. From 2004 to 2007, I was studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary. I actually wrote my master's thesis. The title was "Reading Between the Panels, Considering the Comics Medium as a Jewish Educational Resource." It was a very pretentious title. And if you ever have a hard time sleeping, I'm happy to send you a PDF of the thesis.

C: How often do you talk about Batman in it?

D: Not nearly enough.

B: But I think for people who know you from Comics Alliance, they probably might best know you from you and Laura Hudson together doing the reviews of Batman Odyssey. Is that probably the thing most people hit you up about?

D: Yes, absolutely. It certainly wasn't me mashing up Marvel characters and Pokemon. Because that's a thing I did.

B: Yeah, sure. And also correct, you're a rabbi's son. Is that correct?

D: My father is indeed a rabbi. Yes.

B: Okay. Just want to get those details out there as well. Very cool. As you know, David, one of the things we do on this show is we like to dig into the etymology of names. Chris and I did it for our own on our very special birthday episode. And you've got a Bible name, of course, a very famous Bible name: David. So it's a Hebrew name. Is it correct that in biblical Hebrew it would be pronounced more like "Daveed"? Is that correct? Or close?

D: That is 100% correct.

B: Okay, cool. My understanding is that is a name that means beloved. Is that right?

D: Yes.

B: But it also has connotations of uncle. Like it's what you might call an uncle that you like.

D: The Hebrew word for uncle is dode. And so it technically has the same spelling. Though I don't know if that directly connects them linguistically. Because dode might be a modern word, but I also could be wrong about that because there's a vast difference between modern and biblical Hebrew.

B: Sure, of course. From what I saw in looking it up quickly, and of course, you know this way better than I would, but the actual word element that David comes from actually is from a verb that means to boil. And the word is the same spelling is used to mean a cauldron in the Old Testament somewhere. And so the fact that it means beloved is something of a metaphor derived from boiling in some way. Does that sound right to you at all?

D: I've never heard this in my life, but that doesn't mean it's not correct. It just means you're more educated than I am.

B: It just means I looked into an etymological dictionary. That's all it means.

C: It just means that you, Benito, are more educated on this than masters in Jewish education, David Wolkin over here. That's very diplomatic, David, I appreciate it.

D: I don't have a masters in Bible.

B: It literally means I went to an etymological dictionary and I looked this up and I wanted to ask you about it to see if it was right. But yeah, cool. So, of course, the king of the United Kingdom of Israel, the second, but I guess technically third king, if you count Saul's son for a hot minute. Cool.

B: I was wondering about this. Do you know the origin of your last name? Is it German? Is it Polish? Do you have any idea?

D: It's hard to say. There are a lot of Wolkins in America. I am related to some of them. I am not related to all of them. Some people were Wolkovich or like Wolkinsky. And it's, you know, it's a lot of American or Ellis Island changeover.

B: Oh, sure.

D: The last I've heard was that the last name on my side was originally something like Wowoletsky or something far more convoluted than that. But I have no way of knowing.

B: I see. Okay. I was trying to figure out because if it was, if it was from German, it might have something to do with clouds. If it was Polish, it might have something to do with wolves, but if it was something completely different then I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to see. I was just wondering about that one. If you knew at all.

D: It's going to be, it's going to be Polish or Russian. It's somewhere, it's somewhere in Eastern Europe and it probably does originate with some wolf stuff. I hope.

B: Nice. Yeah, sure. You could be the beloved wolf, man. Let's go with that. Let's just run with it.

D: I will stick with that.

C: That's a good Halloween themed Twitter name for you.

B: The beloved Wolfman. You could be Uncle Wolfman. All right. One more quick thing before we start a kind of deep dive, I feel like we should hit on this because it is this week. Should I say Chag Sameach to you, David, on this lovely Sukkot?

D: You can say Chag Sameach. You can also say Moadim L'simcha, which sort of also means happy holidays.

B: Am I correct that the Yiddish would be "good yontif?" Would that be happy holiday as well or good holiday?

D: Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to go with that.

B: We did talk about Sukkot on the show, not when it was Sukkot, but during our discussion of the Gospel of John, because that's the one where we see Jesus in a strange way celebrating Sukkot, which is the Feast of the Tabernacles, right? And that's the one where Jesus goes in disguise until they uncover him. Go back and listen to our episode of John to hear Jesus celebrating both Sukkot and Hanukkah both. But can we just like real fast, like what are things that people actually do? Like I understand it's supposed to be, you know, it's an end of the harvest festival, right? And that's why it's in, you know, fall. Do you say the month, do you say Tishri or do you say Tishrei or does it make a difference?

D: Tishrei.

B: Tishrei. It's supposed to be also a remembrance of, is it traveled through the desert? Is that why it's quick shelters, like you built a little tents?

D: Yeah, it's meant to sort of be reminiscent of the temporary shelters that the Israelites depended on during their time traveling through the desert wilderness post-Exodus. Sukkot is one of what are known as the three pilgrimage festivals, also in Hebrew called the Shalosh Regalim, which also can technically translate to three feet, which is Passover, Shavuot, which I know you've talked about the celebration of the tabernacles– no, that's the Pentecost and Sukkot. Those were the three holidays when in the time of a Jewish kingdom and in the time of a temple in Jerusalem, that the people were commanded to actually come into Jerusalem and go to what was then the temple in Jerusalem where all sort of Jewish sacrificial ritual was centralized.

D: And so it is, again, a harvest festival. It does match up with the time of year. Things we do, there's what is called a lulav and an etrog. An etrog is a citron fruit. And the lulav is a sort of gathering of four different plant species into a sort of wand. And it's called the four species, which are leaves from the myrtle tree, leaves from the willow tree, a frond from a date palm tree, and then also the etrog, which is the citron fruit. And there are rituals involving. You sort of shake them around all the corners of the earth. This is the point at which when there are a lot of people who say that Judaism was a rejection of ancient pagan ritual, I point out that for a week every year we shake leaves at the sky. So, in fact, you know, we see that paganism found its way into a lot of the early development of ritual, whatever the current justification is for those practices.

B: Sure.

D: One of my favorite practices of Sukkot is what's called ushpizin, which is a custom that originated with Kabbalists, Jewish mystics, to invite what are called exalted guests into the Sukkah to sort of spiritually invoke different figures. And so the sort of original tradition is to invoke forefather biblical figures like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. More modern traditions allow us to invite whoever we may like in more liberal traditions. So I know that there's a leader in New York City who says, like, anybody, send me a picture of so-and-so, and I will make them part of my ushpizin. So at some point, that guy once hung a picture of my dad in his sukkah for a week.

B: Nice. Can I ask a question that's only tangentially related to what you just said?

D: Sure.

B: Why is Joseph not considered one of the patriarchs? Why does Isaac get it who's barely in anything in the Bible and not Joseph who gets like a full quarter of Genesis? Why is he not a patriarch?

D: I don't have a good answer to that.

B: Okay. Just a question I wanted to bring up.

D: I think it would be a good discussion, a good theory for listeners. My understanding is, and I want to be totally willing to be wrong because again, I don't claim expertise or scholar status and I've not read all of genesis in a bit, but I don't have the sense that Joseph had a sort of direct relationship with god in the way that some of the other forefathers did.

B: That seems fair

B: He didn't wrestle him for sure.

D: Nor was he promised anything so...

C: Didn't make him five gallons of bread a very, very large amount of bread.

B: On a more practical level like what are some of the things that jewish families celebrating this festival which is a festival of approximately one week, which is true. And Chris is going to laugh that that's actually true. It's approximately one week.

C: You do not like definite amounts of time.

B: This is– it's an approximately one week festival. You talked about shaking the stick and there's the different foods. What are some other things that you would expect someone who is actively celebrating Sukkot might do?

D: So one thing I'll say is that in the in the land of Israel, and that is a fraught term, and we're not going to talk about that at all. Holidays like this last seven days. And then in what is called the diaspora, which is outside of Israel, which is where we live, they go for eight days. The core aspect of observing Sukkot would be obviously the sukkah, which is the hut, the dwelling, which is required to have at least, I believe, three or three and a half walls and a natural or tree-based ceiling through which you can see the stars. And the the requirements traditionally are that you would eat all of your meals in the sukkah. The sort of truly, truly hardcore observant people are known to sleep in the sukkah at night during that week. I always wanted to as a child, but my parents wouldn't let me. Thanks, Dad. And you're actually commanded to do so, and there is a special blessing that you say when you're inside the sukkah, saying, like, thank you for the commandment of dwelling within the sukkah.

D: It also, you know, changes the prayers and liturgy for that particular week. So the first two days of Sukkot have a special holiday status, and the last two days do as well. And then the intermediate days are called Chol Hamoed. So on the first two days, and the last two days, you would refrain from work and many of the same kinds of actions that, you know, an observant person might refrain from on the Sabbath, you know, like building a fire or actually going to work or spending money. And at synagogue, there would be some additions to the services, the Torah readings that would be chanted during the Jewish prayers would be attached to Sukkot and changed. And there is also a prayer called Hoshana Rabbah, which means the Great Supplication, during which people in the synagogue will carry the lulav and the etrog, which is the palm frond and the citron, in a sort of procession around the sanctuary.

D: And there is also a holiday that some people celebrate during the intermediate days called Simchat Beit HaShoeva, which translates to celebration of the place of water drawing. And that goes back to a particular kind of offering that would be presented during the holiday of Sukkot way back in the days of the temple in Jerusalem.

B: All right. So would you say then that this holiday is intense?

D: You know, it depends on how...

B: Intense.

D: They're not tense. I'm not going to go along with this.

B: That's fair. That's fair. You shouldn't.

D: Thank you.

B: A more serious question though. How does somebody that lives in a city like say New York, how would you fulfill the commandment of the booths? Do these people, they build them on the rooftops of buildings or they go to the park or inside their home? or like, how do they do it?

D: You know, it really, it, first of all, it depends on the personal level of observance. I've never built my own sukkah, obviously for somebody with a backyard, it's really easy. It actually presents a really interesting little class issue. You know, every synagogue in a given city or town will have built a sukkah. And so that's always going to provide a place for people to eat at least. You know, and if you look at some really, really, for example, religious communities in parts of New York City, like in Crown Heights or Borough Park, and there are photos of, you know, big apartment buildings where every balcony has been, you know, sort of jury rigged into a sukkah.

B: Oh, nice. While we're talking about it, I remembered in that book, "The Year of Living Biblically" that got changed– got adapted into a really terrible and quickly canceled sitcom that was on last year. In that book, he tries to follow every commandment that he can, including the building of the Sukkah. And he lives in New York, so he builds it in his living room, if I recall correctly.

D: Yeah, he takes some liberties.

B: Cool. So of course, the main reason we had you on the show is we want to talk about Genesis as part of our kind of Genesis wrap-up, but also more broadly, the Torah and study of Torah. And that's something that Chris and I, as ethnically Christian people, we don't have the same experience that you would have. Can you speak to, I mean, obviously only through your own personal experience, but can you speak to the experience of engaging with the Torah in your life and the way that other people might do it, different approaches?

D: Sure. I want to largely speak to my life because it does encompass a lot of different kinds of experiences. I remember that, you know, I went to a Jewish day school and in fourth grade, we started studying the book of Genesis with my teacher in Hebrew with her sort of doing the translation and interpretation and explanation. She glossed over a lot of the sort of ugly and upsetting parts in a way that when you're 10, you take notice. And then when you end up studying those things, you understand why.

D: But I think a good thing to understand about Jewish Torah study is that it's rarely taken on its own. There is a vast and expansive tradition of rabbinic commentary that goes back thousands of years, probably back to the origin of the Torah, and continues on to this day. And so that includes the Talmud, which I know you've mentioned and other similar books. But a lot of rabbinic commentary is also just directly on the text of the Torah and interpreting the laws and how to observe the laws that are given. But also, as you've said, trying to really understand what is happening in the narrative portions, which you refer to and we refer to as Midrash.

D: And so, you know, there's a saying, some say that the Torah is black fire on white fire. And the black fire is the actual words that you see there on the text. And the white fire is all of this other stuff that seeks to understand what is happening between the lines.

B: That's an excellent metaphor.

D: I will take no credit for it, but it's very effective. And so commentators that, you know, if you were to pull up a standard book of Torah study, one that is most commonly known is a guy named Rashi, who was, that is either an acrostic or an acronym. His actual name is Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki. And he was a medieval French rabbi. I believe he also made his own wine. I think I've been to his house and seen his old vineyard. And he was this incredibly prolific commentator. And so he wrote a comprehensive commentary on Talmud and all of Tanakh. And he had a particular form of Hebrew script that was entirely his own. And so in almost any sort of standard Hebrew version of these books, right next to the text, there's going to be a section that says Rashi, where he is giving his interpretation of what is happening in the text. And he's not the only one. He's one of many. So when you refer to Genesis Rabbah, that is a book of other rabbis, including Rashi, commenting on these texts.

D: And I think that tradition continues to this day. While the sort of classical commentators may have been canonized to the extent that they're included in these publications, and a lot of that, you know, sort of trends towards the more orthodox part of the Jewish community, that you have all kinds of different commentators that are across the sort of ideological spectrum. So I can tell you that there have been, you know, queer interpretations of the Torah that have been written and, you know, feminist interpretations and all other different kinds of ways of looking at this. And so the interpretive process and tradition is a really powerful ongoing conversation that evolves and puts you not only in dialogue with the original text, but with all the people who were studying it before you and were commenting on it before you. And that's sort of, I think, core to this is that you're always engaging with these different minds like Maimonides as well, who you referred to as Rambam.

B: Yeah.

D: So I want to correct that. It's not like Ram bam, thank you ma'am, it's more "Rahmbahm", thank you, mom.

B: Right.

D: You know, he's a part of that tradition as well. And there's just, you know, countless, countless rabbis who are giving these commentaries.

B: I do want to interject since you mentioned it. You were talking, was it Rashi you were saying? Was that one name? And that was...

D: Rashi, yeah.

B: Yeah. And then you've got Rambam. And then there's also who we haven't discussed on the show, but there's also the Besht, right? And all of these guys are known by these names that are acronyms. And then, of course, we've got the Tanakh, of course, is the acronym that we've talked about on the show as well. And I gotta say, surely of all the language things that we've discussed on the show that's got to be what what about Hebrew appeals to Chris the most because if I...

C: Love it.

B: Because if I know anything about Chris, Chris is LTA. Is that right Chris? You say you're LTA?

C: I am loving the abbreves.

B: Loving the abbreves.

D: You love the abbreves.

C: I love abbreves and then I specifically love acronyms which will surprise no one who is familiar with my background in comics.

B: Right, and I just– and Hebrew is just like replete with acronyms in my experience, which is that– is that true? I mean, am I going to continue to uncover more completely dope acronyms as we keep digging into this stuff?

D: Largely with the rabbinic figures, more than anything else,

B: Is it a lot a lot of those guys, they just get these as kind of like cool nicknames, basically?

D: A lot of them I mean there's one rabbi who is just called the Rav, which means the rabbi, which is pretty raw when you think about it.

C: That's pretty great. I noticed you mentioned the Besht earlier, which also sounds like a cool name one would give himself.

B: It is cool. Correct me if I'm wrong, David, but I believe Besht stands for Baal Shem Tov, right? Is that correct?

D: Yes. Which means master of the good name.

B: Yeah.

C: No way.

B: So those are all three words. Those are all three words we've done on the show because Baal, right, is master or lord. And we've encountered that as the name of the Canaanite god. But then there's Shem, which we've seen as the name as in Hashem. And then Toph, we've seen in Tobit and also Shana Tova, right? And Mazel Tov, of course, is good. So we've seen all three of those words. And it's a super dope name.

D: Not all the names end up being across the size or acronyms or what have you. Like, for example, there is there was a famous Hasidic rabbi in 19th century Poland. His name was Shlomo Hakohen Rabinowitz. And he was called the Tiferis Shlomo, which was the name of a book that he had written.

B: I know Shlomo is just Solomon. I know that. But that's quite a name to hear in English. Well, while we're on the subject, actually, of Hebrew and English and how Hebrew things sound in English.

D: Yes.

B: You have warned me that you wanted to call me out on some of my Hebrew pronunciation on the show. So we might as well jump in that pool.

D: Yeah. I mean, so in my own talk just now, I've covered a couple of them. It's not mid-rash.

B: I said that like one time. But also that one, I did get called out on that one by another friend of mine.

C: Honestly, how much of this is because we're unfamiliar with Hebrew and how much of it is because we're just southern?

D: I mean, it's 100% that you're unfamiliar with Hebrew. But I mean, for me as a Chicagoan, it basically sounds like people from Michigan talking. No offense to people from Michigan. I don't know how I could have not offended people from Michigan saying this, but it's just that without knowing Hebrew, you're not going to understand the sort of proper emphasis or punctuation. If you've looked at Hebrew, you've seen the symbols around it, and that tells you where the emphasis goes on the syllable and how to properly pronounce it. But you look at it in Hebrew, rash looks like rash, but in Hebrew, it's rash.

B: That one was not so much me thinking like, oh, if I were speaking Hebrew, I would say mid-rash. It was more that I was saying it in an context. English, in my experience, is pretty much the only major language that has that flat aaa sound like other languages don't do that. English has different vowels from other languages. There was a whole shift in the 1400. We don't need to talk about it right now. That's a whole other show that has nothing to do with Bible.

B: But yeah, quick Hebrew tips. In my experience looking at it, generally speaking, and I know there's no way that this is true for every word, But generally speaking, the stress goes on the ultima, the last syllable of a word, right? Shana tova, right?

D: Are you talking Latin to me?

B: I am a little bit. Ultima is Latin. It just means last. The last syllable usually gets the stress. Is that true or nah?

D: I don't know if I could speak to that as a rule now.

B: Okay.

D: I'd say one thing to keep in mind, and this is like a very Jewish sound, but the "kh".

B: Yeah.

D: So you're going to look at, you're going to be like Melchizedek. But it's Melchi, so you should practice saying that sound just look at yourself in the mirror for a while just be like KHHH KHHHH...

B: I can do the KHH sound they have it in German and they have it in Greek which I've studied to some extent so it's like I'm not unfamiliar with the sound I'm not as practiced in it as surely you are, but I can do a KHH when I want to if I need to.

B: But yeah, on the topic generally speaking, because a couple of people have come come to me, not quite come at me. Some people have come at me, but some people have come to me regarding pronunciation of names specifically. Like specifically, we had a guy who came and said, when we were talking about the king who had Isaiah killed, on the show, we pronounced it Manasseh. And he said, well, it should be Manasha. And I had another guy who was an expert in Assyrian culture and language come to me on Twitter. And he said, you're saying Sennacherib, but it's more like SennaKHherib. And my answer to both of those things is like, yes, in those languages, that's true. But in English, you know, the language in which we're recording this podcast and the audience for which we're producing it, like these names have standard English pronunciations. Like, for example, you, I mean, we're calling you David. We're not calling you David, right, while we do the show.

D: I hope someone corrects you on Twitter.

B: They might, and like, I mean it's the same reason that, you know, on the show I don't talk about like Yulius Kaiser and Soacratays and Kikaro went to gay Paree in Buenos Eye-rays to sing ka-da-okay and eat some nice brusquette, right? It's the same it's just an it's a different idiom there's an English pronunciation and so I'm just I'm trying to provide the– and if I can if I can do the Hebrew pronunciation, if I can, if I can identify it for major names, I'm absolutely going to do my best. I feel like I definitely said Avraham and Yitzhak and Yaakov. I pretty sure I said all those names in a close approximation to the appropriate Hebrew pronunciation on the show.

D: I want to say, I think you've gotten a ton better. I just, I mean, I just said without, without trying to offend your whole audience. Like I think the constant, constant correction is sort of the action of someone who I wouldn't want to have in my home for a dinner party. At the same time, I've been doing that to you for weeks. So, you know, it's not, I don't take it super personally. I think it's the fun for me, but it's just, I know these texts sort of so intimately spoken in a certain way. So I think part of my adjustment is to hear you sort of, you know, translate it into the idiom of the translator, because that's, you know, that's how these things have been put into English terms. And I think what I hope is to just sort of work towards getting all of the, you know, the sort of emphases moving in the right direction. Wow we are just having a buck wild time.

B: No it's...

D: We're getting– we're getting crazy!

B: Let me tell you, this is gonna sound like a joke, but this is absolutely true. If I know I'm going to have to put emphasis on a specific Hebrew phrase, like if I'm talking about like the name of a holiday or the greeting for a holiday or the major names, here's what I actually do I go to multiple english dictionaries including a biblical dictionary to confirm the english pronunciation of the name. Then I look up the name in Hebrew. I go to a multi-language dictionary. I look up the Hebrew pronunciation, if I can find it. Then I enter the word or phrase into the search on YouTube. And then I scroll through the results until I see a guy with a yarmulke and sidelocks saying it. And then I listen to how he says it.

D: You're putting a bananas amount of work into this and that's super super cool, I just, trying to find a website, I googled "how to say things in Hebrew," and actually what happened was Google translate automatically gave me the translation of the word "things."

B: I don't know if you understand how much I dislike making mistakes on this show, David. I take it very seriously

C: I get phone calls.

B: All right, that was a good one. Let's talk a little bit more then David, about some of your work and creative ways of working with and engaging with the Torah. What can you tell us about what are some approaches that you've seen and done in your work that you think people might enjoy hearing about?

D: Absolutely. So there's two things I want to talk about. The first is called Bibliodrama, which is a sort of fusion of psychodrama and Bible study. It was created by a man named Peter Pitzele, who I trained under a whole bunch about a decade ago. And the story goes that he's actually, I believe he's like a practicing psychologist or something. He was a psychodramatist professionally. And at Jewish Theological Seminary where I went to school, the professor who typically taught what is called pastoral care to the rabbinical students had to be out for the day and Peter Pitzele ended up subbing and didn't really know what to talk about. He just sort of like, apparently, as the story goes on the spot just started thinking about things in the Torah, and you know was thinking like "what do you think Sarah was thinking about in this moment?" and then stepped into psychodrama mode, and started getting all of the rabbinical students occupying the biblical voices of the characters.

D: And so he developed an educational practice based on this. And I think it's really powerful after to study a particular piece of text, because what it does is one, it puts the learner into a powerful position of personal interpretation and sort of creating their own midrash. It also allows learners to give a sort of emotional voice to biblical figures who are not given voice within the narrative itself. And that often happens to women of the Bible.

D: And so, you know one of the core sort of narratives that you would sort of learn to sort of facilitate bibliodrama would be the binding of Isaac, because there's so many powerful dramatic moments where, you know, the Torah often doesn't give voice to the inner lives of these people. So you just have an adult man who's bound up, ready to be slaughtered by his father. And it's not like the text steps back and is like, "and Isaac thought, 'oh my God, what's happening? It seems like my father is about to kill me and hasn't really given me much of an explanation.'" So we don't know what's going through his mind. Is it fear? Is it confusion? Is it betrayal? It could be all of those things. But to have a learner step into that voice and say, "I'm Isaac in this moment, I'm feeling this thing and this thing." And then to have another learner occupy the voice of Abraham and say, "I have to do this. I can't explain why. God says I have to." And it just allows people to sort of plumb the emotional depths and layers of the text that are almost always not really explicitly made clear. And so you're not necessarily deciding for yourself, well, this is what's happening in the text, but you're sort of exploring the possibilities of these really powerful and profound interactions between individuals in the text.

D: There's also object-based bibliodrama where within the practice where you're the Ark of the Covenant and you're being presented to the Israelites. What do you think? And it's just a fascinating way to sort of go into the text that I'm really, really fond of. And I wanted to put y'all on the spot with it, but Benito was too afraid.

B: Yes.

C: He was sore afraid.

B: I was sore afraid. Yeah. I want to say that sounds like a very cool thing that I might sit quietly in the back of a room and watch, but I'm not super interested in trying to do that on our podcast right now. We might do it in a future episode because we're definitely going to have you back, David, because you're awesome. And you've got a really great perspective.

D: Thank you.

C: I am really curious though, David, as to whether or not you've had like a particular experience with a bibliodrama of kind of uncovering a meaning that you were not previously familiar with or hadn't previously thought of.

D: I don't know that I can think of a particular instance, but here's, here's what I want to say. And it's a good segue into another thing that I've, I've been involved with. And this is actually, this gets into some really interesting Torah ritual history, if you're cool with it. But for a long time when I lived in New York, I was part of what was called the Jewish Ritual Theater Company called Storahtelling. And Storahtelling has since evolved into a New York City sort of experimental synagogue that is called Lab Shul, shul being the Yiddish term for synagogue.

D: But in a synagogue on Mondays and Thursdays and on the Sabbath and on holidays, the part of the ritual, as I did at the intro to this episode, is to ritually chant portions of the five books of Moses, the Torah, followed by on Sabbath and holidays, what's called a haftarah, which is where you chant with a different melody selections of the prophetic texts, typically, the Na in the Tanakh. Or like the book of Esther is also chanted on the holiday known as Purim. But, you know, and this is actually tracked in a certain part of the Bible where I believe it's around Ezra and Nehemia. And I'm going to get some details wrong here, but there is a point at which the people have forgotten the relationship with God once again and are all kinds of trouble. And whichever king or leader, maybe it's Josiah, you'll come to this, you know, discovers this book and reads it out loud to the people. And the Mevinim, the Hebrew, those who understand, translate it to the people because the language of the Tanakh has never, really was not the spoken language at any given time. So you can't assume that people actually understood what these texts said. You know, there was a certain level of education that was needed.

D: But within the synagogue up until about a thousand years ago, when the chanting of the Torah would it would be accompanied by live translation into the vernacular of the time. And so there was literally a translator that would stand there next to the Torah reader and make sure that the people understood what was being there. And so you actually technically have a sort of dramatic reading and this practice of sacred storytelling. And about a thousand years ago, that practice died out for any number of different reasons. And Storahtelling originated with an attempt to revive that practice with a man who is now a rabbi. His name is Amichai-Lau Lavie. He's a teacher of mine, a wonderful, fascinating figure. And what Storahtelling or this practice attempted to revive this component of the ritual by really blending theatrical techniques and theater with this practice of live translation of the Torah chanting. And so that, especially within the lab shul or within synagogues where Storahtellers have training or go to perform, that you would actually bring biblical figures to life and do some theatrical interpretation of translating the story.

D: But bibliodrama would also be a component of it, where in the middle of this deep bringing the text to life, that some core question would be turned to the community about what was going on in the text. So for example, if the binding of Isaac were to be chanted, and it would be in the Storahtelling fashion, that at this core moment, you might turn to the community and say, you know, "I'm Abraham, what do I do right now? Do I go through with this? God is telling me to go through with this, but this is my only son." And you actually engage people in the community in this really deep conversation about what's happening in the text, when the sort of previous traditional alternative was that someone would chant it out loud in Hebrew, and you might have a translation in front of you, and maybe you'll read it or maybe you'll totally be turned out. So it's actually a really, in my mind, a powerful way of fusing the ancient and the old with the new and making everything sacred again.

D: And, you know, that is a long way of saying just to Chris, by virtue of, I think, being part of that community and being part of that performing company for a long time, we would do trainings, you know, behind the scenes as a community and where we would do our own, you know, Torah chantings and go into some ugly and difficult and painful and triggering parts of the Torah. And as a community, use this process to wrestle with the events taking place or with the commandments being given, some of which, you know, really clash with our modern values. And so, you know, some of those events are things you've referred to in previous parts of Genesis. But for us, you know, an important thing for me to point out, right, is that Jacob's original name is Israel, and it's one who wrestles with God. And I think to the sort of modern liberal minded Jew, and maybe not just to the liberal minded Jew, that, you know, to be Jewish is to wrestle with God and to engage in that process, because the original name of our people was not Jews. It was the Israelites. And so, you know, a learning or ritual process like that gave us a really powerful venue to be vulnerable and to literally, or in the most literal sense of a figurative way, to really, really wrestle with these texts because of this book that we love and consider to be sacred, whatever we feel about its origins, that there are things in it that we experience as being ugly or offensive. And so how do we wrap that up into our understanding and our love for this book?

C: When someone is doing the live translation, how much memorization goes into it versus like actually translating in the moment, and maybe giving like different meanings to words. I'm very curious about that.

D: Well, I would say within the performative exercise, it's not something done on the spot. You know with this group we spent a lot of time studying the text when developing a particular, you know, chanting or performance, and looking at all of the different translations and all the different possibilities of what could be said there and also you know different commentaries and interpret you know. But, you know one of the most interesting and popular exercises associated with this practice was called the Sh'ma exercise. And the Sh'ma is a Jewish prayer. It's sort of the core prayer. It's the creed where it's in Hebrew, it translates to "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." What you would do with this exercise, how many different ways could you say "hear?" You know, listen, step up, pay attention, you know, look this way, right? Oh, Israel. And so you could create a 10, 50, an infinite number of ways of actually saying that text just to indicate the sort of the vastness of translation. And so a lot of thought was given to that when when these performances were being developed, when it's the hands of the performers and what have you.

C: Yeah, that is super fascinating to me. Like, I think about just the discussion we had on the show when we did the Gospel of John and "in the beginning was the word," and how that goes and how, like, how would you translate that, if you were reading that live, what would you go with to get that meaning across? That's a really fascinating thing.

D: I mean, something that occurs to me just now is in the origin of this practice, when the first time, you know, the book was chanted out loud to the Israelites in ancient Israel and the so-called Mevinim, the people who knew walked among the people and made them understand, they were probably saying lots of different things as well. And so perhaps the first time this book was chanted to the Israelites, that they were hearing different translations depending on the person who is nearest to them translating.

C: That is super fascinating.

B: Very cool subject.

C: Since you brought up Jacob, and since you brought up Jacob's name being Israel, I do think we should talk a little bit specifically about Genesis. Because we are fresh off of Genesis. And it is, as I said last week, it's a strange read to take it all together as one piece because it feels– the story of Jacob, the story of Joseph especially, doesn't feel like the beginning. Like there is such a gulf between the way that the story of, say, Noah feels versus the story of Joseph. What's been your experience with Genesis?

D: It's a big question. I would say that the drum beat on In the Air Tonight is probably my most powerful experience.

[Music: "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins]

D: Except that, is that just Phil Collins?

B: That's Phil Collins. Yeah.

D: My roommate, my first year of college, at the time in 1998, was like the manager of what was the Peter Gabriel fan site Web Ring.

B: Wow.

D: Do you remember Web Rings?

B: I sure do. Yeah.

C: I do. talking about being around for the comics blogger circuit.

D: So, I mean Genesis– you know an interesting thing about listening to this podcast is that it, you know, I'm I'm listening to you all talking about it, and it's been a while for me and I sort of want to go back to it. Because it's this like one whole– like the next four books are largely, you know, about the slavery in Egypt, exodus from slavery, traveling through the wilderness, but it's a narrative about a particular sort of group of people. And then in this one book, you capture what is meant to be understood as the whole of human history up until that exact moment. Almost as if, you know– there's just something fascinating about it because when you look at, for example, within the framework of a JEPD documentary hypothesis, as if someone was editing these stories together and then was like, we need to do something at the end of this first book to make the rest of this make sense.

D: So from a literary perspective, there's always that sort of core question. I think y'all have talked a bunch about the sort of political motivations of some of the authors, and I always think that's a really big thing to get into. I have a favorite book by an old teacher of mine that's actually called The Original Torah that explores the political motivations of the biblical writers and thinks about how narratives are shaped in light of the actual context in which the text was originally being written.

D: But I think the question is, I love this book. I have studied it, honestly, since I was a kid. The first thing I did was Genesis – Bereshit – back in fourth grade. And so a lot of these figures, I think, loom really large for me as significant and deeply flawed human beings attempting an engagement with a confusing deity.

D: And depending on where you've been taught, that sometimes you get the message that these people were somehow better than us or on a higher spiritual level than us. And I've never been comfortable with that. You know, I was always told that, you know, King David was like the most human of humans, but he was also a pretty sketchy guy and did some really reprehensible things. And so how do you square that? It's an interesting thought, I guess, in light of whatever various ongoing political moments, to think that actually that like the greatest among our ancestors were always deeply flawed people and that we can't ever forget that. And actually that our failure is to try and pretend that anybody is free of being extremely flawed.

D: And so the question is how people account to their flaws. You know, I think especially in the story of Joseph, there's something really interesting there of awful crimes being committed between siblings, whether they were provoked or not. You know, there was a lot of anger between Joseph and his brothers, and they did something awful, which also was from a narrative perspective sort of necessary for the development of the people of Israel and their trajectory through this text. But also it's in the coming back together, and where they reunite and encounter forgiveness and the regret that these 11 brothers have carried, you know, for their entire lives since that action. And so there's something deep about it. And so actually, the text itself teaches us about how we reckon with our bad past actions is that we have to account for them. So for me, that's a way in which I see this text as these utterly, utterly human people getting up and falling down and getting up and falling down and doing that within the context of a God figure who is pushing them in a certain direction.

C: Do you see that as a sort of foundational difference between Judaism and Christianity where the beginning text, like the history that we have laid out in Genesis is of extremely flawed, extremely human people. And then if you go into the gospels, there's literally a heading in the HCSB that says Jesus does everything well.

D: Hmm. I mean, but at the same time, you know, original sin, that like core to a lot of Christian theology is the first mistake that anybody makes in the Bible.

B: Since you bring that up, David, do you mind? We got a couple of questions from listeners for you specifically. And since you bring up the concept of original sin, here's a question we have from Womzilla, who's been a good, faithful listener to us on Twitter and Tumblr. He asks, "the story of Adam and Eve being driven from the garden is central to a great many Christian theodicies. I know that Judaism doesn't really have the concept of original sin that Christianity reads into that story. Given that, what role, if any, does the fall of Adam take in Jewish theodicies?"

D: If there is an answer to that question, I'm not someone who has access to it. Actually, I mean, I would say the best Jewish response to theodicy is a book by Rabbi Harold Kushner, which I think has some popularity beyond Jewish audiences called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. But Adam and Eve and that incident doesn't play the same central role, I think, other than being one of the first major conflicts in the Torah, of course. It's central in that regard. But I don't think it sort of manifests in our thinking about ourselves in that way.

B: Sure.

D: About the world.

B: Yeah. I feel like it's so much bigger in Christianity because there's the kind of almost literary desire to constantly try to parallel Adam and Jesus. So the idea is Adam causes man to sin. Jesus removes that sin from humanity. And it's supposed to be this kind of alpha omega kind of balance, you know? And I, obviously that's not going to be quite, that's not going to be baked into Judaism in the same way.

C: I am very curious about your Jewish high school.

D: Yeah.

C: Because I have a story that I thought I had shared on the show. Benito, maybe you'll remember if I have. Have I talked about the young lady when I was in a high school speech class who talked about how the world was going to end?

B: No.

C: Okay. So I'm in high school. I am in a high school speech class, public speaking, which weirdly enough, I did not do as well at as you might think, for someone who speaks into a microphone for people to listen to for about nine hours every week.

B: Yeah.

C: But there was a conversation. I don't remember the beginning of it, but there is a conversation about the world ending. And a girl that I knew because my mom had dated her dad. So she had been – there was a time when she was over at at my house fairly frequently – just was like, oh yeah, the world's going to end in 2000. Now keep in mind, I was in high school from 1997 to 2000.

D: Did you believe her?

C: No, I didn't believe her.

D: Okay.

C: But she was like, yeah, the world's going to end. And the teacher, I distinctly remember, and this is a very South Carolina story, goes, "yeah, but where does it say that though?" And the girl went, "the Bible." And instead of going, "no, it doesn't," which is true, the teacher goes, "yeah, but which Bible?"

B: Wow.

D: Wait.

C: And the student's answer was, of course, "uh, the Holy Bible."

B: Yeah.

D: Not the Bible in hell?

C: Well, you know, Corinthians has 21 chapters in the Bible in hell.

D: Exactly.

B: Hey Chris, funny you should mention that. We'll get back to that at the end of this show, the very end. Put a pin in that one. We're coming back to it.

C: Anyway, so that was my experience in high school. I'm curious to see what yours was like.

D: You know, it's interesting just because I just missed my 20-year reunion. So I've been thinking about high school a lot. I went to what would be described as a co-ed modern orthodox high school. And so when I say modern orthodox, I mean sort of living in the world, but also as observant to a certain traditional form of Jewish observance as possible. And so it meant that there was a dress code and the women wore skirts. I believe it was past the knee. And the meaner teachers would sometimes approach them with a ruler. Maybe I mean to just say patriarchal.

D: Anyways, and I had a dress code as well. I had to cover my head. I had to wear the fringed garment known as tallit katan, which is the small tallit. You'll see Jews when they pray, they wear a prayer shawl, but there's also an undergarment that is traditionally worn by many. So I had to wear that at school when the rabbis would walk up to you in the morning and they'd like greet you and they'd pat you on the back to say, "David, how are you doing?" what they were doing was checking to see whether you were wearing them or not. And you could get in trouble if you were not.

D: It was a nine hour school day starting at about 8 a.m. with morning prayers. And then from morning prayers through to lunch, you would take your Jewish classes. And so that meant studying Talmud. It meant studying Tanakh. It meant studying Torah and studying Hebrew. And then after lunch, you would have your afternoon prayers. And then you would take like a normal high school load of classes in the afternoon. But you'd be done with school. So it was like about 6 p.m.

D: So it was like a very long school day. you'd pray two to three times a day you'd learn a lot of Jewish things and you know your teachers in the morning were often orthodox rabbis and these were things having grown up in a liberal household and I know the the video you posted on tumblr of me you know refers to some of my experience with this at least as far as playing softball but it was a totally different world to me because I didn't know about a lot of orthodox practice and prayer and how to study Talmud which is a very intense sort of form of learning.

D: But also just culturally, I was a little bit out of sync. You know, my family kept kosher. We wouldn't eat pork at home, but we would eat pizza out. But at my high school, if you were to like go out in the middle of the day and, you know, grab nachos at 7-Eleven, you could be expelled because it wasn't kosher. So, you know, my senior year of high school, I spent a lot of time going to IHOP in the morning. And looking back, I was basically risking expulsion like every day. Because if a single teacher saw me, like we could get kicked out. So it was just sort of that component of it. You know, you weren't allowed physical contact between men and women. So I got one detention my freshman year when I got into a fistfight with a girl in my class. It was playful, and we were like wrestling, and I did not get a detention for any form of like misconduct or violence. It was like: you are not supposed to touch her. So like when I got to college and like women would greet me by like hugging and giving a kiss on a cheek, it took me a long time to get used to that. Cause even though that wasn't my practice in my private life, I was just very unaccustomed to women greeting me that way. Even if I was comfortable with it.

B: Yeah, sure.

D: And you know, our prom didn't have dancing.

C: What, what did you do?

D: There was entertainment. We had a dance, like, and we had like a formal dinner and there would be entertainment. We were from Chicago so we had the Jesse White Tumblers – do you know about them?

B: No.

C: No. Please continue.

D: Jesse White, who I think was the secretary of state at some point, and he's known as like a sort of legendary Chicago leader, he has like a tumbling squad, and he takes kids from the city and teaches them, you know, gymnastics and tumbling, and they like put on shows where they like flip around and fly through the air and do cool tricks. And so, you know, I think one year we had a hypnotist, one year we had the Jesse White Tumblers. But in Chicago, like, you know the Jesse White Tumblers. It's like Tommy Bartlett's Thrill Show in Wisconsin.

C: I am mystified.

B: It's like the Power Team, right Chris?

C: Yeah, it's like the Jewish Power Team.

D: No, The Jesse White Tumblers are not jewish they're just like a standard thing that entertains throughout Chicago, but they're far, far better than mixed dancing, which leads to all the bad stuff

B: Absolutely.

C: So when it was prom time, did you like, were there dates?

D: Yes.

C: So you would ask someone to prom.

D: You would. You would ask someone to winter review and you would attend the formal dinner with them, of course without touching before dinner, of course you'd split off for evening prayers. And then, and I know that like the way I talk about this now, it probably sounds strange or goofy, but even though as someone who I didn't like care that much about praying and I wasn't bought into the observance, all of this felt perfectly normal to me.

C: That is, that is very interesting. So you were also in a musicals.

D: At Jewish summer camp. Yeah, we did Hebrew musicals. So I played Tony and West Side Story when I was 15. I can sing "Someday" in Hebrew.

C: Okay.

D: Somewhere, somewhere. I'm sorry. I can sing the song "Somewhere" from West Side Story in Hebrew.

C: You know, if you would like to, I will not stop you.

B: Give us a few bars, David.

[Singing in Hebrew]

D: That's as far as I can go because I was really able to handle that song before I hit puberty and things have changed.

C: I hope you realize that you could have done that at the beginning of the show and told us it was Genesis and we would have been none the wiser.

D: Interesting. Interesting.

B: Yeah, that incredibly rules. "Hebrew School Musical." Someone make that happen. That could be a pop culture phenomenon.

C: I'm going to guess– I'm going to guess that does in fact exist.

B: Probably if I go to YouTube and search that, I'll find something probably, right?

C: Yeah, almost assuredly.

B: Yeah.

[Singing in Hebrew]

B: This is our most musical episode ever, I think. Between chanting, we got them.

D: My voice is a lot better with chanting Torah trope. It's really weird. It naturally induces a better singing.

B: It's fine, man. I think you did a great job.

C: I don't think you did too.

B: I don't think you need to be worried about it.

D: I also played Willy Wonka.

B: You played Willy Wonka.

D: I played Willy Wonka when I was 12. I played Cosmo in Singing in the Rain when I was 13. I was not cast in Shalom Birdie when I was 14. However, when I was in graduate school, there was a production of Shalom Birdie, a Hebrew production of Shalom Birdie, and I played Albert.

B: Wow.

C: No, who is Albert?

D: The Dick Van Dyke character.

C: He is the one who Kids is sung about. Kids is the only song I know from Bye Bye Birdie.

D: He doesn't sing. I think Mr. McAvee sings Kids now. He sings Rosie.

C: Okay.

D: Which I can also sing in Hebrew. I was forced to tap dance at an auditorium at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

B: Wow.

C: Were there any like specifically biblical musicals?

D: Yes. I mean, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. And also, and this is a weird thing that happened in my camp one summer. There was one age group that performed Aladdin in Hebrew. And the Israeli staff translated the play, songs from the play into Hebrew in such a way as to like make explicit references to the state of Israel in the translations, which I thought was sort of goofy. So it was like, "a whole new world. Milk and honey," which is milk and honey, reference to Israel. Which, I mean, we know that Aladdin does not take place in the land of Israel.

B: If I were doing it, I would change the lamp, the Ring of Solomon, and instead of a genie, he summons Asmodeus to do his bidding. That's what I would do. That is great.

B: Do you want to hit those questions or do you have another story you want to tell, David?

D: I don't I mean, I don't have particular stories. I think I've just had an interesting, you know, religious upbringing that I wouldn't I wouldn't trade away for for the world. And I hope for your listeners, this this gives some illumination.

B: Oh, absolutely.

D: ...into how different sort of forms of experience can be. And I also think, you know, for a lot of people upon encountering the notion that these texts are of human creation, you know, how does one encounter faith or a faith tradition in light of that? If you think of yourself as a nonbeliever or an atheist or a non-theist. And I think there are just a lot of different beautiful ways of approaching that. And so for me, I think of this as like a capital S story that really defines a group of people and their encounter with the world. And it's a starting point and it's a part of a larger story that, you know, I consider myself to be a part of.

B: Sure. Absolutely. And I think that's a pro that's an approach we try to take on this show. You know, largely, you know, looking at these things in the context of a people trying to understand the world and God and how that evolves over time with different, you know, social and historical events. You know, that's something we try to take into account on this show. And yeah, I think you did a great job. I think that was very fascinating.

C: Yeah, the number one thing I think we try to do is engage with the text on its own terms.

B: Yeah.

C: Which is not always easy, but we do try to do it.

B: Right, absolutely.

D: And look, I think for some people, I know that that's very much the way it's, that's like a lot of, I think, contemporary American Christian forms of Bible study. You know, Orthodox Jewish Bible study doesn't typically, you know, get into the documentary hypothesis because one of the core tenets of the faith is that this, you know, this text came directly from God. And so that's a real, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance involved in those two ways of reading.

B: Sure. Yeah. I can absolutely understand that because there is going to be cognitive dissonance when you try to think that this is an inspired holy thing, but at the same time people made it. And also maybe this one book wasn't by one person and maybe there's more to it than is presented at face value.

B: Yeah let's let's hit a couple questions. I got just a couple more here, and, you know, answer them to whatever degree you want to or can. I know you're not wholly prepared necessarily to answer these questions but... This is an anonymous question and this is a question on a topic that is related to something somebody straight up tried to fight me about on tumblr a couple weeks ago. It was my birthday.

C: Why are all these questions about bitterness with you and our listeners?

B: This one, someone on my birthday was trying to fight me on Tumblr. It's related to this question. This is from an anonymous person. I don't know who it was. But they say, "Back when I took my Bible course in the Bible and Western Civilization class at the University of Chicago way back in 1991, shout out to Dr. J.Z. Smith, (Hova) the professor argued that most of the Hebrew Bible, and specifically all the stories about crafty younger sons, was primarily an attempt to answer the question of what makes a good king. What we, and therefore God, really want is a ruler who is clever, even if that ruler is not the firstborn. Is this a common theory or one that is still current?" And so this relates to, yeah, somebody was trying to fight me about Cain and Abel story where I was arguing that the reason Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's was not was that it was about nomadic shepherding societies versus agrarian societies. And somebody wanted to tell me that it was strictly about the repeated tropes throughout Genesis of the younger son usurping the older son, like we see with Cain and Abel, with Jacob and Esau with Joseph and his brothers and so on. But do you think that that somehow is a reflection of the idea of what makes a good ruler: a ruler who uses smarts rather than one who's chosen strictly by primogeniture? Does that track for you?

D: You know, it's the first time I've heard that theory. I think there are so many different motivations that go into this text that it's hard for me to imagine that that was absent. Because if you're adopting the theory that there's a lot of political polemics contained within this text, and a lot of it also directed from the kingdom of Judah to the kingdom of Israel and back in the other direction, and so that these are commentaries on ways for kingdoms to function and ways for people to lead and the validity of the approaches thereof. So I think there's probably a lot to be said for it, but I also haven't studied it enough. It makes me really interested. It's something I'm curious to hear about for sure. Also for someone who's studied at a university or graduate or postgraduate level with this noted scholar of religions to be directing that question in my general direction when I'm really like just a putz who went to religious school, I'm sorry. I got nothing for you.

B: That's fine, man. Like I said, some of these are pretty hard-hitting questions and without like significant preparation time, it's not something I'm expecting you to have an answer off your dome.

D: But I do want to say that like from a post-faith perspective, I think this is some of the most exciting stuff about these texts is to really understand the motivations of the people who are writing them.

B: Sure. And I think, I mean, if you look at the fact that, you know, especially from a documentary or at least, you know, a supplementary thesis or whatever version of this you're looking at, or certainly whatever modern take you have, there's pretty much no modern scholar who believes that the Torah was the work of a single person. You've definitely got different conflicts within the text.

B: So besides the geographic and political context, North versus South, which you were commenting, you would also have kind of– you'd have some conflict between different classes. You'd have the landed gentry who have their own version of things that they're interested in. Then you have the priestly class who have their own take on things. And there's going to be conflict there as well. And so there's going to be push and pull.

B: And I think between all those different motivations and these different groups who are trying to get their own word in edgewise, I think it'd be very difficult to say there's absolutely no trace of this particular political motivation or this particular idea because you've got so many different voices trying to get a word in that. Of course it's very it would be difficult to say that that's not there you know what I mean because there's just there's so much being put into the kind of melting pot that is the Torah and different sources different voices coming from different social strata and such I think it would be really difficult to completely knock something out as being part of the motivation behind something,

D: Right.

B: This one is from dm-me-your-weltanschauung, very excellent tumblr name, and yeah: "A question for David Wolkin. What is the significance of Abraham to Jewish scholarly and religious tradition? I ask because it seems like with the noteworthy exception of circumcision, a lot of the things that we consider Jewish today don't get established in Abraham's lifetime?" Is there anything else that, like we get, we pull from the story of Abraham? Obviously he's, he's father Abraham. He's got many sons, but like, yeah, is there something that he does that establishes a religious tradition besides the covenant of circumcision that we should be looking to Abraham for?

D: I mean, I don't think that's his significance, right?

B: Sure. No.

D: You know, the laws as they exist or the mitzvot are largely given later on in the Torah. Abraham exists in the liturgy when we pray. I'm just running through something in my head. But the Amidah prayer, which is meant to be said three times a day, Abraham is named there. So he's still the sort of first of everything that follows. So he clearly holds an extremely significant place. I just, I don't think I would consider that, that the sort of yardstick by which I would measure his significance necessarily.

B: Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

D: Can I tell you one more funny story from high school?

C: Yeah, please.

D: Okay. So, there was one of my Torah teachers was a very sweet old rabbi and was respected in such a way that you really weren't in a good position to question him. Or if he said something hard to believe you wouldn't, you know, say that's crazy rabbi, what are you thinking? You'd just, you know, you'd listen to what he had to say with respect. And one of the times I knew I think I didn't fit in entirely was we confronted– you know we were talking about the Genesis, the creation story, and we talked about how dinosaurs? And like dinosaur bones? And the answer that was given was that dinosaur bones were placed underground from another dimension and the conversation didn't go in such a way that a whole lot of other questions came up and were answered because I had a ton of them.

B: Yeah.

D: For example, are you saying that the multiverse is taken for granted in Jewish theology? Are you saying that there is a whole other planet made of dinosaur bones? Or is it a dinosaur planet? And God just took some bones from there. I don't know. And that was just a thing I heard in high school. And we never discussed it further.

B: Let me tell you this, David. Christians do not have necessarily a better approach to the solution. There are many different Christian approaches to the question of dinosaur bones. None of them are specifically satisfactory.

C: I think "they're from another dimension" is maybe the best one I've heard.

B: It definitely tops "the devil put them there to tempt humanity."

C: "The devil put them there to test us" is my least favorite.

B: Yeah, it definitely tops that. Of course, the Ken Ham "Answers in Genesis" approach is that dinosaurs lived well into the age of humanity because they're mentioned in the Book of Job, the Behemoth and the Leviathan. And so they were on the ark and there was room for them on the ark. And in the Garden of Eden, they were vegetarians, as all animals were. And their sharp teeth were merely for opening pineapples, watermelons, pumpkins and other thick-rinded gourds and such. So there's a number of approaches to dinosaurs, but then I think I think "they came from some kind of dinosaur bone dimension," uhhh pretty dope.

C: Dimension DB.

B: Yeah.

D: How am I not supposed to just look at the rabbi, and be like, "tell me about all the other dimensions and what God keeps there?"

B: Yeah.

C: The one that I got, and this might have been someone telling me this shortly after high school – I want to say it was high school age – but it was this: since there was no sin and death in the Garden of Eden? You know, a lizard will just keep growing as long as it's alive. They don't stop growing.

B: Like goldfish, if you don't put them in a bowl.

C: Yeah, exactly. So what it is, is just those are just regular ass lizards.

D: This actually brings up something significant as well. And this is one of my favorite commentaries. And this is a book called Pirkei Avot, which means "Teachings of the Fathers." And it's a bunch of different ethical teachings and comments from a number of different rabbis. It's actually a really, really wonderful ethical text. But there's also a commentary on the creation story. And it says that on the eve of the first Sabbath at twilight, right before that, there were 10 things that were created. So among those 10 things that were created, spoiler warning, later on in the Torah, there is a talking donkey. But on the eve of the first Shabbat–

C: I'm sorry?

B: Yeah, it's in Numbers. We'll get there eventually.

C: That's very exciting.

D: But on the eve of the first Shabbat, Sabbath, and creation, God creates the mouth of the speaking donkey. I don't know where that mouth stays until that donkey is born, but also Moses' staff is created on that day.

B: The magical transforming staff.

D: And also letters and writing, and also the tablets of the Ten Commandments. But my favorite item, and this is the final one, it says, "And some say also the first tongs," because you can't make tongs without other tongs.

B: Whoa. That's a real chicken and the egg situation there. Tongs. Yeah. That's, I mean, did Thomas Aquinas write about that? He's got the first mover, but also the first tongs. You can only go back that far. Eventually there's a point before which plus qua non, there's no tongs before the first tongs. That rules.

D: But then it raises the question, how did they make the first tongs? Someone's hands just went for that. You know, there was someone who, like, drew the short straw, and they're just like, you're going to have to lose your hands for these first tongs.

C: All right. Well, while we are wrapping up, since this is nominally our Genesis wrap-up episode, although we have spoken of many different topics, I wanted to see if there were any particular sections of Genesis that stuck out to us as readers. I think David and I probably have the same one. Benito, do you have one to start us off with?

B: Yeah, I think probably my favorite bit is just that little fragment about the Nephilim and the idea of the sons of God and the daughters of man, and just the kind of the weird implications of that. And the way that that kind of planted a seed that I know blossomed into all sorts of other weird things elsewhere. So I think it's a cool little folkloric tidbit in the middle of all that stuff that I think is weird and interesting and cool with a lot of potential to it. So that's probably my pick. What about you, Chris?

C: The part that really stuck out to me, unsurprisingly, is Jacob wrestling with God.

B: Sure.

C: For several reasons. One, because it comes out of nowhere. It's like, in the middle of a story, it's like, hey, by the way, Jacob spent nine hours wrestling with God or possibly an angel. And one of the things we've talked about is that I am a big fan of sections of Bible where things that should be metaphorical are made very, very literal.

B: Right.

C: And the idea of struggling with God and wrestling with God as a metaphor is one that I think is very easy to relate to until you make it literal. And suddenly it is not relatable at all in any way. And I find that very interesting and an interesting sort of thing to show up just in the middle of this story that is already weird. That story did not need to get any weirder. But here we are.

B: It is strange that it kind of pops up in the middle of like, some like, familial negotiations around livestock for that to just suddenly be in the middle of that stuff.

C: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

C: Yeah. It's an odd one, buddy. David?

D: I'm going to go with the same one as Chris actually for a few similar reasons and some other stuff. Obviously, you know, I mentioned earlier that the notion of wrestling with God as a result of this narrative and the metaphorical sense becomes sort of core to a lot of contemporary just Jewish understandings of what it means to live within this community and this faith tradition. And for that, it means a lot to me because I think it gives the permission to people to live with doubt and to encounter that and not to feel compelled to turn away from or abandon the faith, but that actually the wrestling and the struggle and the questioning becomes core to a religious or a faith-based identity rather than for a reason to abandon it. And that I think has brought me a lot of comfort and a lot of sort of sense of empowerment because I am someone who lives with a lot of doubts. I sort of think of myself as a "faithiest", which, you know, we're not doing a theology episode, but my relationship with God or lack thereof is something that has a lot of significance, even when it's absent. And this narrative gives me a lot of strength in that sense.

D: I think I also really love this narrative. I think it's so widely open to interpretation.

[Music: Opening guitar line of "Gay Bar" by Electric Six fades in and out.]

D: And one of the things that has been really interesting for me to study in the modern era is how queer interpretations, queer midrash have really looked at this narrative and viewed some sort of queer and erotic components to it. And that's something with, while I don't identify as queer, I have had some encounter with those interpretations. And a story that was really powerful for me is that when I was in my second year at graduate school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and I mentioned that I got a degree of Jewish education there, but it's also a place where rabbis and cantors get training. And it's also that you have graduate programs, but I was attending school in the midst of a very significant debate and decision over whether the institution was going to ordain, let me say out gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors, because the running comment had been, you know, we have been ordaining these people for years, but we forced them to stay in the closet. And there was this huge and very robust debate that was painful for a lot of people. And there was a lot of powerful advocacy in favor of this. And ultimately the decision in favor of it went forward. And frankly, that was my happiest day in graduate school, not the day I graduated.

D: But as a part of some of the advocacy and programming, the group I was involved with, I don't remember if we were asked to by whom or we just decided to do it, but we performed from selections of queer midrash in the middle of school as this decision was being made.

[Music: Opening guitar line of "Gay Bar" by Electric Six fades in and out.]

D: And I was asked to perform the Jacob Angel narrative. I think they probably could have found someone better today because I wasn't a straight dude at the time and still am. But to perform that narrative in service of that advocacy and also to really understand how multidimensional that story is was really quite powerful for me and also offers a lot of power, I think, for people who have to contend with the other parts of the Torah that invalidate their identities to actually see that there's a way of reading this narrative that says something very different.

[Music: Opening guitar line of "Gay Bar" by Electric Six fades in and out.]

D: So I'm very fond of that story.

C: And in case anybody missed it, the premise there was that it was not wrestling.

[Music: Chorus of "Gay Bar" by Electric Six]

B: We got you.

D: Yes. And I will link you all to some sources. I'm looking right now in front of me. I believe it might be a PhD thesis, but it's by a rabbi I know, a woman named Jill Hammer, who is a really brilliant teacher, and it's called "Queering the Torah, the role of contemporary midrash and claiming revelation for GLBTQ Jews." So it was part of this. I think it was originally published in French a couple of years ago. But the rabbi who wrote it is a dear friend, a teacher of mine who has done a great, a great job with this kind of work and sort of spreading these ideas.

C: Well, David, with that, let me just say you have been a wonderful guest. An extremely informative guest. Thank you for joining us and putting up with our questions from our, my somewhat limited perspectives. Extremely limited perspective. So thank you for that. Before we wrap up this week, would you like to tell anyone where they can find you online should you wish to be found?

D: I believe that social media is a modern plague that God has wrought on us to make us suffer our own iniquity in public 24 hours a day. And so I avoid using it at all costs. That said, I can be found on Instagram at DavidWolkin. You'll find pictures of my dog and cookies there.

C: And any recommendations beyond Batman: Knightfall for people to check out?

D: Yeah. Oh, my books aren't all in front of me. I love all the work of Richard Friedman. I love the biblical translations of Robert Alter. There's a great book by Bert Vizotsky called "Reading the Book," which is about really ways to study and encounter biblical text. And it really gets into the significance of midrash and interpretation. And this is all just off the top of my head. And these are all books by dudes I love. The original Torah by David Sperling. I want to find some of, some of these books about queer Midrash as well. I can send those all in advance. I will give Benito a list that can be posted to Tumblr. I don't want to be limited to the stuff that's just like right off the top of my head. But those are a few of the things that I'm particularly fond of.

C: All right. Uh, Benito, where can everybody find us?

B: We do have a Tumblr where we post all sorts of supplemental materials to the show, including links, images, sometimes music, that kind of stuff. And we will definitely include any kind of links that David sends to us that might go to books you might be interested in based on the things that he said. You can also find a video of David doing a little storytelling, kind of the Moth style, about him growing up and playing softball in his Orthodox high school. It's a very funny and interesting story that involves dogs in surprising ways. Anyway, so go to apocrypals.tumblr.com. You can find all that stuff there.

B: Also, if you like the show and you'd like to support it with your dollars, you can do that by going to ko-fi.com/apocrypals – that's Ko Fi Dot Com Slash Apocrypals. And there you can leave us donations, tips, however you want to think about it. Buy us a coffee in increments of $3, anywhere from $3 up to infinity multiples of $3, however much you would like to do just to show your support. And it's not a recurring donation like Patreon, although it can be, if you so choose.

B: Also, you know, if you, you can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, and it turns out we actually are on Spotify, not just as our music playlist, but also we are on Spotify as a podcast, it turns out.

C: Yeah. Came as news to me, but we are on there.

B: Yeah. And so if that's your preferred way of listening to podcasts, we are absolutely on there and you can find us that way. And yeah, anywhere that's your preferred method of listening, if you can leave us a review, we super appreciate it. Rating, review, anything is great. Helps us get found, helps us get featured. And, you know, it's just good for us overall. And we appreciate everyone who's done that so far. What about you, Chris?

C: People can find everything that I do at the-isb.com. That's got links to all the stuff that I do online, as well as comics I've written. Hey, I actually have a comic out this week, brand new. If you go to your comic book store on Wednesday, you can pick up Infinity War: Sleepwalker #1 that I wrote with my writing partner, Chad Bowers. It's got art by Todd Nauck. If you ever wanted to know what it looks like inside all the Infinity Stones, this is the book to read. It's going to be a weird one, but it's pretty fun. And then later in the month, on October 24th, Benito and I actually have a comic out. It's the Army of Darkness Halloween special. I wrote the lead story with Chad and Benito, you did the backup story. I've actually read the whole thing now. I think we both got to see the whole issue for the first time this week. Very, very fun stuff.

B: Yeah, it's really cool. It came out really great. Chris has a really awesome story just in time for the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard's Last Stand. So it's a really cool package altogether. Very perfect for Halloween.

C: Yeah. So definitely check those out. And if you're in the North Carolina area, I'm probably going to be doing a signing of some kind coming up this month.

C: That's it, though. Thank you to David Wolkin. If you enjoyed this show, then please know that we are going to have more guests going forward coming on to discuss things that we have discussed, bringing some different perspectives. David, we are honored and delighted to have you as the first. You were fantastic. So thank you for that.

D: You're very welcome. It's a pleasure to be here.

C: But next week, we will be back to our usual format of reading and discussing. And we're going back to the Apocrypha. Since we've done the most canonical book ever, I think now is the time for us to go back to some of the least.

B: Yeah, absolutely. We're going back to what is IMHO one of the best biblical genres there is, that is the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. But we're going to actually be looking at one that was honestly a hair's breadth away from being canon. If it weren't for millennia of systematic misogyny, it might be in the canon. We're actually going to be reading the collection of documents known as the Acts of Paul, which include the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which was very nearly canonical and was included on some early canonical lists, that include the deadliest seals you can imagine. But it also includes a story of the martyrdom of Paul, in which we find out what runs through Paul's veins instead of blood. The answer may surprise you. And–

C: I did not know there was something that ran through Paul's veins that was not blood. So any answer will surprise me at this point.

B: It turns out you never know. And then there's also some fragmentary elements included there, which feature Paul converting a talking lion to Christianity. So we've got some very interesting things coming up. Chris and I will probably be reading the majority of that text out of the Lost Scriptures, a collection of apocryphal New Testament material by Bart Ehrman. However, we will have a link to that on the Tumblr that you can find because we'll need, we ourselves will need to go look at that link to read some of the fragmentary supplemental material. But the main narrative of Paul and Thecla will be in that book if you happen to have a copy of that book. But yeah, it should be a fun one. Be glad to get back into some New Testament weirdness next week.

C: For Benito Cereno, I've been Chris Sims. Until next time, peace be with you.

B: And also with you. And also with David Wolken.

D: And you as well.

[Music: "Invisible Touch" by Genesis.]