Play! For the Sake of Tradition

Last week, SVARA’s Associate Rosh Yeshiva Laynie Soloman and I spent Kabbalat Shabbat with Lab/Shul, the spiritual community of one of our Shaping Tradition honorees (and my chevruta), Shira Kline. I love Shira – she is joyful, curious, and empathetic. When she became a new parent a little over four years ago, I showed up at her house with a printout of one of SVARA’s DIY Chevruta offerings and, whenever we could, we learned together, taking almost a year to get inside of every word in the infamous “butcher sugya” from Yoma 87a.

So when Shira clued me into what we’d be doing this past Shabbat, I was excited because I knew she’d been thinking long and deeply about it. In honor of Adar, Lab/Shul’s monthly “Sabbath Queen” offering was reframed as “Sabbath Play,” and we literally flipped the service on its head.

The experience in the ritual circle was powerful. To be reminded of the order of the ritual by doing it backwards reminded me first and foremost that, at one point, Kabbalat Shabbat and Ma’ariv were thrilling new innovations! When these rituals, which now feel like a beloved sweater, were being constructed, people probably shifted uncomfortably in their seats and laughed more often than not.

The Rabbis began the experiments that would be recorded in the Talmud only after years of deep study and love of Torah. When they took a law from the Torah and flipped it on its head, it was both an intense act of chutzpah and a display of deep reverence and commitment to this Gd-given tradition. Innovation works when a group of people who care deeply are willing to try: to play together and see what comes out. I felt so grateful to be a part of this new, sacred playtime.

After the Shabbat ritual, Laynie and I gathered around a dinner table and engaged in Talmud study with the community. We learned a small piece of text from Bava Batra:

אָמַר אַמֵּימָר: וְחָכָם עָדִיף מִנָּבִיא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וְנָבִא לְבַב חכְמָה״

Ameimar said: a chacham is better than a navi, as it is said, “And a prophet (navi) has a heart of wisdom (chacham). 

This text places us in the midst of an innovation that the Rabbis are defending: not only did prophecy transfer to the Rabbis’ exegetical skills after the fall of the second temple, but rabbis have always been prophets! Wait a second, were there even rabbis before the temple fell? Weren’t they a rag-tag group of queer weirdos? 

Yes! And, they had the devotion to the Torah to have learned it inside and outside, so when this innovative idea bubbled up, it wasn’t because of ego, nor did it sprout from thin air. To them, this innovation was reflective of their deep, loving understanding of Torah. To someone else, it might appear to be the exact opposite: a misunderstanding. But to me, it was a sign that the Rabbis deeply understood it- so much so that their anachronous reading of themselves into the text felt holy and right.

What I was reminded of at Lab/Shul, in our ritual and our learning, was that we still have this ability. When we are as committed to rigorous study as we are here at SVARA, we can and should find ourselves in the texts of our traditions. We should feel comfortable metaphorically turning the daf on its head, shaking everything out, and putting it back together in ways that are lifegiving and liberatory. We can do this because we are players, committed to our tradition and its expansion and growth.

I am always proud of the work Shira Kline does. Her commitment to the tradition, its expansive future, and bringing as many people along as possible is perhaps the wildest dream of the Rabbis. I know they would be proud of how, even today, we are still playing! May this Adar inspire more and more play as the root of how we shape our traditions!