The Origins We Imagine

It’s happening, y’all. As I write this piece, all of us here at SVARA are getting ready to gather at Queer Talmud Camp—the loving, rigorous, radical, and magical space that has long been on our hearts and minds. This weekend, about ninety of us will start a five-day journey together, filled with learning, questioning, singing, wrestling, laughing, and dwelling in the ancient and ever-unfolding conversation that is our tradition. Like so many of y’all, I have deeply meaningful memories of being at camp, and I cannot wait to be back together, in person in the Bet Midrash. Together, we will dive in heart-first into the texts, practices, and wisdom our ancestors brought to the task of building meaning in the aftermath of upheaval. Whether you are packing your bags for camp or cheering us on from afar, I hope that this little bit of learning can accompany you wherever you are, drawing us all into the holy questions that sustain us and the boundless possibilities that emerge when we learn together at SVARA.

Our Rabbis’ love for mythic origins is on full display in Mesekhet Berakhot. Time and again throughout this first tractate of the Talmud (and, frankly, all the rest of them), the Rabbis share teachings and stories that address a cluster of questions: why do we dedicate specific words to Hashem at specific times of the day? How did this practice start? What authorized its continuation?

It is worth noting that Jewish prayer as we know it today—with set words for set times of day and seasons—is a rabbinic tradition. So as the Rabbis explore where our prayer practices came from, they are also constructing the very concept of a formalized Jewish prayer practice. Masekhet Berkahot begins by asking “מֵאֵימָתַי קוֹרִין אֶת שְׁמַע בְּעַרְבִית” “From when [in time] does one recite the Sh’ma in the evening?” This opening line assumes that one is to recite the Sh’ma in the evenings, and questions the time frame for doing so. Since it does NOT say “why do we recite the Sh’ma in the evenings?”, the Gemara is able to explore this second question indirectly and in ways that affirm a multitude of mythic, authorizing origins, without framing any of them as The Origin. 

Last zman in the Open Bet Midrash, I had the joy of sinking into Berakhot 26b, with a group of extraordinary SVARA-niks who got my wheels turning about why origin stories matter. I have taken for granted that they are a part of going Option 3, but I never considered the specific purpose they might serve. Berakhot 26b responds to a Mishna that proposes the appropriate time windows for praying the Amidah in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The Gemara comes in to alert us to (what it assesses are) conflicting opinions:

אִיתְּמַר רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא אָמַר תְּפִלּוֹת אָבוֹת תִּקְּנוּם רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי אָמַר תְּפִלּוֹת כְּנֶגֶד תְּמִידִין תִּקְּנוּם תַּנְיָא כְּוותֵיהּ דְּרַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא וְתַנְיָא כְּוותֵיהּ דְּרַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי

It is said [introducing a controversy] that Rabbi Yosei b’Rabbi Chanina said, “ancestors established prayer [times]” [but] Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, “according to the daily sacrifices were prayer [times] established.” The Tannaim support Rabbi Yosei b’Rabbi Chanina, and the Tannaim support Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. 

The Gemara claims that Rabbi Yosei b’Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi represent distinct and conflicting thought lineages about the origins of our prayer times. The first tradition, linked with R’ Yosei, imagines that they come from Torah. This perspective claims that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob established them by doing various actions at the three appointed prayer times (morning, afternoon, and evening). The Gemara uses a rhetorical strategy that connects distant verses of Torah to argue that each of their actions (standing, muttering, and encountering – respectively) tell us that these ancestors were in fact, praying at those times. 

Tracing the origins of our prayer times back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob creates a connection to a mythic past that provides the unfolding rabbinic tradition continuity with what came before. It authorizes the Rabbis by connecting their practices to a divine source. The customs of the Temple period were authorized because they were sourced from the Written Torah, and the rabbinic customs would be as well. The Talmud models how to harvest those practices in (re)new(ed) ways, but the commitment to seeing their practices’ origins in the Written Torah is a key throughline that offers the rabbinic Option 3 authority: divine roots. 

Through this perspective on the origins of prayer times, the Talmud models returning to and enlivening aspects of a pre-crash tradition that may have lost popularity or resonance. As the Rabbis recited texts passed down from their ancestors through hundreds of generations, I imagine them discovering mirrors of themselves – saying, “These guys were just like us! Things looked different in their lives – they had different languages, customs, and contexts –  but the human experience is the human experience. It means something that we have their stories. We have something to learn from them.” This strategy is deeply familiar to me, one that has come out of my own mouth! As I bring rabbinic perspectives and practices into alignment with my world by seeing myself in my rabbinic transcestors, I roll my eyes and smile as I realize I got this strategy from them. 

This highly creative origin story for the prayer times is (allegedly) in conflict with the story offered in support of Rabbi Yehoshua’s opinion. This second proof goes through various Temple sacrifices and explains that they happened at the same cadence as our prayer times. “Why did the Mishna say that the morning prayer time could go until midday? Because the daily Temple offering of the morning went until midday.” This origin story taps back to the context before a recent catastrophe in the Rabbis’ world and tries to obscure the rupture by presenting prayer practice as the mirror image of Temple practice. “We’re just continuing to do what we did in the Temple.” There is something spitefully resilient about this story as it holds fast to a tradition on the brink of being disappeared by empire. It reminds me of the ways many of us hold fast to the ancient roots of sacred language that have been co-opted by the Jewish ethno-state, remembering what they can mean beyond tools of oppression. The strategy conveyed by this origin story is to refuse to submit to violent forces, to remain unapologetic in resistance to attempted destruction, and to commit to a Jewish future beyond the confines of domination.

This so-called conflict between Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Yehoshua’s perspectives is solved as the Gemara comes to understand the lack of contradiction between these possible origin stories:

אֶלָּא תְּפִלּוֹת אָבוֹת תִּקְּנוּם, וְאַסְמְכִינְהוּ רַבָּנַן אַקּרְבָּנוֹת

Rather, ancestors established prayer [times] and our Rabbis leaned/rested them on the sacrifices. 

In the end, Berakhot 26b does something that the folks in Open Bet Midrash did from day one – identify the ways that these origins are not actually in conflict. They use different kinds of proof, connect to different moments in the Jewish past, and highlight different priorities for the Jewish future. Consequently, and perhaps most importantly for the success of the Talmud’s project, they convince different kinds of people to buy into and get on board with Rabbinic Judaism. For they needed all of us to participate if their big experiment was gonna work.

This all leads me to believe that it’s not that any specific origin story is particularly important as much as having lots of different origin stories. In other words, it’s not that we need to seek an Origin for our practices so that we have one, agreed upon answer about where they come from. Rather, a multitude of origin stories that get at different “whys”  behind our practices create millions of access points for each of us to find our practices meaningful. And when our practices are meaningful, we keep doing them and we teach our children (& students & beloveds & communities & & &) to do them with us. 

Having many different origin stories also helps create communities that practice holding many things as true—in our sacred stories and in ourselves. This multiplicity helps us remember that difference should exist. It is up to us to discern if/when a difference has stakes. This sugya has reminded me how important it is to be able to navigate differences without feeling immediately threatened. 

Every time we come together to learn, we bring our own origin stories—with Judaism, with SVARA, and with each other. For some, entering the Bet Midrash may feel like coming home. For others, it may feel more like a new and perhaps destabilizing portal. No matter how or why you got here, I’m glad you did and I hope that our tradition sparks something within you. May your Torah be catalyzed by the learning we do together. Because, just like the Rabbis, our big, radically queer experiment also needs all of us to create the next iteration of the Jewish future.