30 Minutes of Torah to Nourish Our Souls

Two weeks ago—and wow does it feel longer than two weeks—we (Ren Finkel and Olivia Devorah) had a choice to make: would we hold SVARA’s daily drop-in Mishnah Collective as scheduled, or would we take the day off to reel from the election results? We agreed almost immediately that we’d go forward with Mishnah Collective as planned. Olivia would teach the regularly scheduled text, the next line in Masechet Yoma, which just so happened to be a fabulously emotionally-incongruous text: a euphemistic statement about the High Priest’s bathroom time on the morning of Yom Kippur.

We’re writing this Hot Off the Shtender to share some of our philosophy around why we felt it was so important to learn together on that day, in hopes that it will offer some tools for what’s to come. 

Olivia Opines:

It was November 2023—now, if it’s safe and if you have a glass of water or some tea, let yourself sink back into the range of emotions you may have been feeling then. Let yourself remember what you witnessed and what you witnessed being said about it; what you might have been trying to do about it; what you wished you could do but couldn’t. It was last November, when I found myself teaching a 5-week shiur with our friends at Shel Maala, a class about Tree-dwelling Demons in Talmud (Pesachim 111b, if that’s piqued your interest). 

For me, every week the news was more devastating, the pleas for mercy more desperate, the rifts in Jewish and queer communities more staggering, my own miniature panic attacks more frequent (hyperventilating; thinking about what I was seeing being done to the Palestinian people happening to me; remembering when the like had been done to the Jewish people; seeing my friends in Israel regularly posting about heading for the shelters; feeling so powerless to do anything about it). Classmates were being arrested and abused, people’s lives uprooted and snuffed out by the thousands—and here I was, preparing a class about supernatural imps and amulets. I felt like I needed to be doing something to stop all this death, and all I was doing was teaching Talmud to a bunch of friends on Zoom!

But here’s what my learners taught me: our demon class was exactly what they needed. They needed a space to just be focused on Torah, together. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed too. A space to play in the world of storytelling, to practice rewriting narratives or changing our understandings of them; to think about who is demonized in our world and what power people in authority feel entitled to wield against those who are demonized; ancient, magical, boundary-setting ways to respond to the human and metaphorical terrors in our lives. 

We all needed a space to learn then, and I needed it again the day after election day. It should be no surprise that I was not alone; I was greeted with the faces of Mishnah Collective regulars and faces and names I hadn’t seen in months! If you need 30 minutes a day, just to focus on torah, come to Mishnah Collective. I want to learn with you. 

Our spaces for focusing on learning Torah are not spaces for escapism; they are spaces for building our capacity to handle the world. To paraphrase author and activist Rebecca Solnit, “Joy does not betray revolutions; Joy sustains revolutions.”  Which is why, on that day and so many days since, I’ve been trying to fill my head and my heart with all of the people who I love and cherish, every activity that brings me joy and broadens my being (learning Talmud, improv class, biking around in the shifting Fall air, cuddling up with girlfriend, kitty cat, and comics), practicing gratitude along the way. And I am choosing to believe that by doing so, I’ll be more prepared for all of the unknowably awful stuff that may happen, when it happens. More prepared than if I spent my time doomscrolling and ruminating on what I dread. 

A friend (I wish I could remember who, and if it’s you, thank you) once told me that when I’m super stressing about something, I should picture myself 5 years from now, laughing about it; at the moment I see myself laughing either because, by some miracle, the future hasn’t turned out as bad as I imagined, or, a bit more dismally, because we didn’t know how good we had it.

And yes, of course I do live in the dread sometimes. As Mati in SVARA’s Pedagogy Chaburah taught us on the Thursday after the election, always being in a good mood is just as emotionally deregulated as being stuck in any mood. However, as a proper pollyanna, I will tell you something my reincarnated soul keeps reminding of: We made theater in the concentration camps, and if we have to go through it all again, that’s how I want to go out. Come closer, though, and I’ll tell you the fear which is much harder for me to answer: that I will be relatively safe, but without the courage or resources to help the people who are most vulnerable. 

So, here I am, teaching Mishnah Collective and making challah, trying to find my strengths and treat my contributions as worthwhile, as essential, in the ways that I can so easily treat the contributions of my friends as essential. I don’t believe I’m built for the front lines, but, for now, I can make a hearty chili for those who are, and I can convene 30 minutes of torah to nourish our souls.  

As it turns out, we’ve always been learning in a time of upheaval, and finding strength through learning with each other. May we continue to be so blessed ~ 

Ren Reflects:

In the lead-up and aftermath of the election, I found myself deep in a moment of despair. Most dizzying, though, was the realization that the week of the election wasn’t bringing new despair, so much as it was intensifying what had already been living inside me for months upon months upon months—and if I’m being really honest with myself, longer than that. And here comes Mishnah Yoma, bursting through the door, trying to teach me about the High Priests’ morning bathroom routine. 

There was something in the absurdity of learning about temple bathroom rituals that managed, for a moment, to break through the fog. As Olivia so brilliantly put it, we’re constantly learning in a time of upheaval. And so too were the rabbis! There’s an exercise by the “Possibility Maven” Kristianna Smith, that I’ve been sitting with a lot lately, and encourage everyone to watch. She nudges us to not use all of our imagination power to think about our enemy’s best case scenario, and instead posits, “How could I use the chaos of this moment to make my best case scenario happen?” In the video, she takes us through the steps of grieve → ground → imagine → strategize. And it’s paramount to do each and every step! After moving through grieving & grounding, then comes a minute of imagination for dreaming up a mundane moment in our imagined future, what I might call olam haba. To dream for ourselves “5 seconds of peace 20 years in the future.” With the immersions and sanctifications from Mishnah Yoma on the brain, I wonder what washing my hands will feel like in olam haba. What did it feel like for the Kohein Gadol to wash his hands? What would it feel like to wash my hands knowing that everyone everywhere—from where I wash to Palestine and back again—has unmitigated access to clean water? 

I dream up some possible answers, and move to the last step: strategize. This takes me all the way back to Pirkei Avot 1:17, and the learning we did at Mishnah Collective many moons ago. Shimon ben Gamliel reminds us:

וְלֹא הַמִּדְרָשׁ הוּא הָעִקָּר אֶלָּא הַמַּעֲשֶׂה

Study is not the essence, but rather action.

 

In her poem V’ahavta, liturgy-crafter and activist Aurora Levins Morales similarly calls on us to, “Escalate your dreams. / Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down / any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way. / Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd / Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.” I can, in the next few days, teach a little, learn a little, gather some water and supplies for my unhoused neighbors, and keep doing the work. May we all continue to find a little midrash and a lot of ma’aseh to clear the fog.