That Moment of Joyful Discovery

We’re coming toward the end of a zman זמן (inside translation: time, outside translation: semester of learning) here at SVARA. Approaching the darkest month of the year, we are also in the midst of our end-of-year campaign, Practicing Possibility. My chevruta and co-teacher this zman, Kendra, has pointed out the importance of reveling in the darkness, in its mystery and potency. In other words, its possibility. It feels bashert, then, that we at SVARA are reaching out to our extended SVARA family, at a time when the light diminishes, taking a backseat to that all-encompassing darkness, to celebrate what SVARA has made possible. We are celebrating what possibilities are still to come as we all make SVARA what it can be, together. Yesterday we shared this gorgeous video with y’all to reflect upon the magic of all those possibilities. (It’s a tear-jerker, but you know how we Talmud-queers are: grammar and fierce community will open the flood gates, and our hearts.)

One of the images in the video that strikes me the most is that of two hands coming together—a close-up of one learner in the SVARA bet midrash as their hand touches the hand of their chevruta in front of them. It’s the image of a tender high-five between two people who know they are responsible for one another. We don’t know exactly what spawned this moment, but for those of us who have been in an in-person learning experience at SVARA, we know it was probably something having to do with a shared accomplishment. Maybe it was a recitation of a difficult passage, maybe it was breaking down a complicated prefix-suffix-root combination that, by moving slowly, could be found. But the point is—it was shared. Two souls in the room came together to become one in that moment of joyful discovery. In some ways, I think this is SVARA’s answer to that ancient Zen Koan—what is the sound of one-hand clapping? It’s the high-five of two hands of a chevruta coming together as one. 

So here’s something a little funny about the Talmud—while many queer rabbinic chevrutot are recorded on its pages, many of the conversations take place between folx who didn’t live at the same time, people who were often in distant places from one another as well. In other words, there are whole swathes of Talmud in which that delicious high-five of a chevruta would have been impossible. There were whole conversations—important conversations—that didn’t take place in real time but were actually the construction and imagination of a much later generation, known as the Stamma, the “sealers”, the redactors of the Talmud. When we look at the Talmud this way, it can feel a little cold. Did our queer rabbinic ancestors not have their own high-five? 

One of the most commonly seen phrases in the Talmud, and one often overlooked, offers us a deep teaching at the root of SVARA’s high-five. This phrase is a famous Stammaitic phrase that’s used when they are trying to understand the rationale of the earlier generations. The Stamma will say: מאי טעמא? Mai Taima? “What is the reason that so-and-so said….”? This question is often the building block for the Stamma to put two distant queer rabbinic figures in dialogue with one another. That word טעמא meaning “reason” holds the word “taste” טעם as its innermost root. The way we taste in the world is deeply connected with the way we smell, which is one of the earliest sensations in human development. The way that smell and taste live in us is so intimate. Thinking about the nose and mouth, the tiny hairs that pick up on even tinier particles of matter and cells, the invisible brain waves and signals that communicate back-and-forth with the pores and “taste-buds” of our tongues, the mechanics of saliva and teeth that break down food so that it can not only be digested but leave us with that deeply individual, subjective thing: a taste, a flavor, a sensation. 

And there are so many other ways of experiencing “taste”, or “flavor.” Some of us experience the act of eating through feeding tubes—my father once described eating through his feeding tube as tasting on his skin. I believe our queer rabbinic ancestors used the word “taste” טעם as the root for “reason” טעמא was because they wanted to both show their respect for others’ unique experiences which have led to the wisdom they share, and they wanted to create a sense of intimacy, of intimate knowing with their ancestors, even when they couldn’t share the same space with them. 

Today at SVARA we often are not in the same space with our chevruta, but we share a breakout room, we tag-team translations, we clap each other up and overflow our chats and Zoom rooms with loving and campy emojis. Like the Stamma, we strive for that intimacy because we know how amazing and holy our world can be when we practice the possibility of truly knowing one another, appreciating one another, celebrating one another. 

At the core of what SVARA does is that very practice—from the Stamma of the Talmud to our Zoom rooms to those high fives of Talmud Day Camp—we believe that true connection, understanding, and co-creation of a better future is possible. Our queer rabbinic ancestors gifted us not only with this belief, but this charge. We are blessed, SVARA family, to take up this charge, and I invite you, my chevrutot who I already know and chevrutot who I don’t know yet, to join me and the SVARA team, in Practicing Possibility with SVARA. May our learning together truly be a taste טעם of the World-to-Come.