Narrative

At the conference last week, there were many different papers that had come from a seminar on the Apostle Paul. They all worked to reinterpret Paul's work for the modern age, focusing on how he applies to concepts like islamophobia and environmentalism. He is an interesting figure for sure, first bashing Christianity as a Jew, then converting and bashing Judaism. Current scholarship is working on reinterpreting him, and this is a phenomena that we also encountered in our study of the Torah and the role of women in Half the Kingdom. I think this is a hugely worthwhile action- we must update and adapt our understandings of these texts to keep them relevant and informative in the framework of our modern world. This occurs in Islam as well: As we saw with the Imam last week, Qur'an interpretation changes to add inclusivity over time as well. The discussion of the gender fluidity was a fantastic example of thought changing and adapting over time. We are constantly reframing context as we gain more information, forgetting that which needs to be left in the past to move forward.

I wonder where alternate texts come into this conversation. We are editing historical narratives, but what happens if we look for alternate narratives based off the work that history has forgotten? Or what happens if we acknowledge all the other influences that the past has had. For example, so much of popular understanding of Christianity comes from Paradise Lost, but no one addresses this.

We discussed narratives at the conference, and it has clearly got me thinking about the narratives we engage with in class.

Plots

            Zornberg’s excerpt about God’s plot was surprising to me. Through the midrash example, it seemed like God was punishing humans before they did anything wrong. Their fate was predetermined, just like the man who had decided before he even walked into the kitchen that he would hand his wife divorce papers. If there is no way to change our fate, if we are just living into God’s plot for us, as the midrash author is starting to imply, what is the point of living?

            I believe this is an overly dark way of viewing the bible. If this is true, what is the point of serving God if there is a predetermined fate? What value is there in following God’s commandments and rules if there are no decisions to be made? All humans die at a certain point, but when it is discussed in this context, it seems particularly dark. It makes humans sound like pawns in God’s plan.

            The main reasoning behind why this would be God’s plot that occurs to me, admittedly not omniscient, is so that the world can function as a natural system. But if this is God’s plot, why do some people suffer? If he has designed everything, why did God not design it to be perfect? This pessimistic view makes it seem like God is a dark force. If he has predetermined not only the pieces on his earth but also each and every decision they will make, he controls all of life. This midrash makes me glad my view of God is less dark.

Midrash and Play: The Torah as Transitional and Transformational Object

It occurs to me that midrash is a way of playing with the Torah to address a kind of attachment disturbance between the Jewish people and God, between me personally and God. Two things got me thinking about midrash and Torah this way.  First was Avivah Zornberg's suggestion in her commentary on the book of Exodus that the Torah is both a transitional object and a transformational object. Infants and children carry, embrace, and fondle something that is a kind of "piece" of their mother whose feel, smell, or sight of reminds them of their mother when she is away.  By holding and playing with this transitional object, they can hold it together when they are separated from their significant other. Like Linus' blanket in Peanuts.  But also like Linus, when he plays with his blanket, he can transform it, in the process be himself transformed as his play gives him space to grow and develop his independence, even play at being a kind of grown-up himself.


With a transitional object, we maintain the attachment of love, affection, being cared for that we need to thrive and grow, but also the separation from our significant care-giving other that we also need to thrive and grow into our own.  The creative pre-occupation involve in playing with with our transitional/transformational object makes us both remember and forget the trauma of separation we feel.

Second was the parable of the ketubbah we studied.  It also makes this point about the importance of playing with a transitional object, and specifically applies it to scripture as being the object that makes the very painful separation of God from the people of Israel bearable, just as holding, fondling, reading the ketubbah and the promises of everlasting love and devotion enable the wife to bear her separation from her beloved husband. By playing with it, engaging in it, we can evoke the feelings of being with our parent or lover as if he were still there, even though we know very well he is not.  As our spiteful neighbors remind us.  And interestingly enough, both Zornberg's commentary on the Exodus passages, and the parable of the ketubbah in Lamentations Rabbah punctuate their interpretations with the same verse from Psalms: "If your Torah had not been my delight (or "plaything"), I would have perished my affliction." (119:92). Midrash turns Torah into something we can, we must play with to keep alive our affection for its source, but also to grow and adapt with our "plaything" to new situations without being suffocated by the love of our significant, formative parental Other.  We need space to play and grow, but we need also to feel loved and cared for as we carve out that space for ourselves, or when life's circumstances inevitably separate us from those who love us and vice versa.  We still can connect.  So yes, "If your Torah had not been my delight (or "plaything"), I would have perished my affliction."

And "THIS I call to mind and therefore I have hope." (Lam 3:20)