I Stood at Sinai.

Several years ago -- I do not recall when or how or where or even why -- I began remembering.

There I was, surrounded by thousands of people, all dressed similarly in fabrics of tan and brown with shades of subtle and quiet color, clothed as one would be in the midst of the desert to shield the body from the sun, to shield the face from a windy mess. Around me, there was a dark sky, loud thundering, wind blowing from every direction, flipping my hair into my eyes, around my face. I reached up with dark, tanned skin, to pull the long dark hair away from my face. And there, on my hip, in cloth wrapped around me in a swing, was a child, no more than a few months old. People around me spoke in low voices, calm but fearful, curious and questioning. But I, standing in silence, stared at the clouds swirling, the wind whipping, the light and darkness molding around the mountain. The wind continued to blow, the baby began to cry, and the cloth around my feet whipped around me, my hair again in my eyes. We were awaiting words from G-d, from Moses. I stood at Sinai, and this is what I saw.

This isn't creative fiction or narrative. It isn't me being thoughtful or pensive or hopeful as to what maybe it would have been like to be at Sinai. I've had these memories, the vivid imagery that I cannot even put into words appropriately here. The colors, the smells, the sound of the wind and the voices. It's the truth I have to accept, my neshama stood there with a child, it seems, awaiting the Torah.

Believe me if you want, if you will. Or take my words as creative fiction, my mind molding a history it could only wish for. Either way, every time I go to shul, every time I daven, this image plays out in my mind. I don't know where it came from, I don't know how it got there, but it was placed in my memory for a reason I imagine.

A mini break.

So I won't really be blogging much probably until late next week, if not beyond that, mostly because I'm en route (as my last blog mentioned) and as such I don't have easy access to internet, nor do I really have the energy necessary to dish out meaningful and relevant posts. Please keep me in mind, though, as I travel. I can use all the helpful prayers I can get.

In the meantime, here is a thought that I hope to blog on at some point in the not-so-distant future: Torah as given to Moses and the Israelites by G-d versus Torah being taught by G-d to Moses and subsequently the Israelites. Is the wordage necessarily different? Significant? Important? I think so, yes.

Until then ... Iowa from the road (circa August 13) says hello.

Let's Talk Torah: Who Wrote It?

I don't know how it happened -- I blame the 1.5-hour, corporate-style commute -- but I've become one of those people that mechanically purchases a coffee product every morning, without fail. No matter how hard I try to avoid the purchase, it happens. I haven't gotten to the point where I go to the same coffee shop or have the same barista or where the patrons happen to be the same day in and day out at the same hour every day, but it's still sort of frightening. I'll make my way to campus, avoiding Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, and still manage to get to campus and hit the Starbucks down here, or -- even after making it to my office, going back out -- to the Divinity School.

Yes, the Divinity School here at the U of Chicago is right next door, and yes there is a coffee shop in their basement. They even sell T-Shirts that says something along the lines of G-d drinks our coffee, or somethign similar. The boon to going to the Div School coffee shop is that I get to stop in the lobby and peruse the various texts that faculty in the School have published recently. So the other day, and once again today, I noticed a new book -- "Rewriting the Torah" -- and of course the title piqued my interest. I found a preview of it on Google Books, and it seems like an interesting read. Here's what the Amazon description says:

Jeffrey Stackert explores literary correspondences among the pentateuchal legal corpora and especially the relationships between similar laws in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (Lev 17-26). Through an analysis of the pentateuchal laws on asylum, seventh-year release, manumission, and tithes, he argues that the Holiness Legislation depends upon both the Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy. The author also elucidates the compositional logic of the Holiness legislators, showing that these authors employ a method of literary revision in which they reconceptualize source material according to their own ideological biases. In the end, the Holiness Legislation proves to be a "super law" that collects and distills the Priestly and non-Priestly laws that precede it. By accommodating, reformulating, and incorporating various viewpoints from these sources, the Holiness authors create a work that is intended to supersede them all.

Now, when I took Hebrew Bible many moons ago in my undergraduate education, I grew quickly fascinated with the idea of various authors composing Torah. The idea initially seemed logical, then outlandish, then made sense as we studied the literary themes and stylings of the different books and even various parashot within Torah. However, after that class, I sort of put my notes/exams/thoughts into a notebook and filed them away and haven't really thought much about it since then. In fact, I don't even know what traditional Judaism's thoughts on the idea of various authors composing the written Torah are -- is it accepted or denied, that is, among the religious community (I know the academic community is pretty much in agreeance about the concept of various authors, known as the documentary hypothesis. 

It is my understanding (and this will also work itself into my BIG POST ON THEOLOGY) that within Orthodox Judaism (note: the term Orthodox was really coined only in the early 19th century),  the belief is that Torah was given at Sinai (both oral and written?) to Moses, and that it was then transmitted throughout the generations until it was written down. The oral tradition was meant to never really be written since, well, it's the oral tradition. My blank comes with the "written" portion of the revelation, being Torah: is it believed that G-d actually gave Moses the Torah? Or that Moses composed the Torah during the revelation and that it was passed down? Or is it believed that both traditions were passed along and composed later, so the idea of multiple authors would be acceptible, if not absolutely logical under the circumstances?

So, nu? Tell me what you know. I'll probably pick up this book at some point -- likely after I move and have a shiny new UConn library card. As a writer/poet/amateur blogger, the way a person combines words into complete thoughts is fascinating and watching how different authors are and how their personal styles manage to reveal themselves even in anonymous instances absolutely excites me. So this is going to be an ongoing conversation, and I hope to glean some useful information from you -- my readers!

Be well, friends!

Everybody get High ... on Sinai!

I have to thank Cesar for pointing this story out to me. And now, I share it with you. It's brief, so I'll post the whole thing here for your viewing pleasure.

Was the Bible written while high?
From correspondents in Jerusalem
March 05, 2008 12:01am
Article from: Reuters

THE biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor.

Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an "altered state of awareness", Shanon hypothesised.

"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings," Mr Shanon wrote.

"On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being ... many identify this power as God."

Mr Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the affects of the ayahuasca plant, having "partaken of the ... brew about 160 times in various locales and contexts".

He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal, found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region as having magical and curative powers.

Some biblical scholars were unimpressed. Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio: "The Bible is trying to convey a very profound event. We have to fear not for the fate of the biblical Moses, but for the fate of science."

Yes folks, we were just hallucinating!