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March 25, 2005/Adar II 14 5765, Volume 57, No. 30
'Tell the story a different way'
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
With Purim upon us and Passover on the way, what better time to think about the role Jewish storytelling plays in our tradition?
The reciting of the Purim megillah, not once but twice, and the retelling of the seminal story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt not only remind us who we are but who we can become. Rabbi Jill Hammer embraces the midrashic tradition, filling in the blank spaces in biblical narrative, infusing her knowledge of text with imaginative power and literary intensity.
Her book, "Sisters at Sinai, New Tales of Biblical Women" (The Jewish Publication Society, $16 paperback), is a collection of 24 original midrashim. Hammer, a senior associate at Ma'yan: The Jewish Women's Project of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, offers creative interpretations of the women of the Bible, infusing the new stories with fresh insights and perspectives.
"I have come to interpret the words that are at the heart of the Torah to be a positive commandment," Hammer writes in the introduction. "Make midrash. Interpret. Tell the story a different way. Reveal something new."
And so in "Havdalah" Hammer invites Lilith into the Garden of Eden to meet Eve. Lilith, according to medieval lore, is Adam's first wife, who rebels against him, claims to be his equal and is banished from Eden. Rabbinic midrash portrays her as evil; modern feminist interpreters idealize her as the original liberated woman. Lilith is portrayed in legend as a danger to unborn children and pregnant women; Eve is seen as the mother of mankind. Hammer imagines the encounter between the two, who, she implies, might be two sides of the same character.
She writes with sensuous imagery, a glut of simply crafted sentences heavy with description.
"Eve crouched on the green world-carpet. Her feet were pleasantly nestled in the soft grass. She was watching goats and peacocks perform their favorite dance. ... Above her, the golden sky-ball was slowly falling onto the mountains. Scarlet painted itself onto the soft blue bowl of the sky. The wolves and cats gathered on a hill and began to howl."
The surfeit of colorful words and phrases may deter some readers. Yet Hammer's style purposely makes the reader slow down and absorb the picture she is painting. Midrash, she explains, is suffused with vivid imagery to enhance its imaginative power. It requires the reader to both exercise the mind and open the heart.
In "Miriam under the Mountains," Hammer weaves a story of what Miriam was doing as Moses ascended Mount Sinai and how the waters of the well of Miriam were conceived.
Expanding the stories, filling in what was left unsaid, or in the margins, as Hammer puts it, is the midrash writer's holy task.
Of course, a substantive understanding of text and respect for the endeavor is required. Hammer, who currently serves as editor of Journey and has edited "Living Text: The Journal of Contemporary Midrash, has also contributed to numerous Jewish publications, journals and anthologies. "Sisters at Sinai" includes substantial sourcing; each midrash has a corresponding section of notes to provide necessary textual substantiation. She also includes an excellent bibliography of ancient sources of midrash and commentators.
Also of note, Marsha Mirkin's "The Women Who Danced at the Sea, Finding Ourselves in the Stories of our Biblical Foremothers" (Monkfish Book Publishing, $16.95 paperback) offers another take on midrash writing, this time with a psychological bent. Mirkin, a clinical psychologist and resident scholar at Brandeis University Women's' Studies Research Center, delves into the women of the Bible to find new meanings for emotional, spiritual and social development.
Studying Torah, begun when Mirkin was a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, led her to psychology; and psychology led her back to the Torah, she writes.
Each of the stories of the foremothers is interspersed with anecdotes from Mirkin's clinical practice. So we meet not only Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Miriam and Ruth, among others, in her pages, but also Darlene, Claire, Jill and Josh. The interplay of ancient characters and their stories and their contemporary counterparts is affecting - and effective. Mirkin deals with modern day angst - depression, eating disorders, infertility, sibling rivalry - drawing on age-old wisdom and current psychological theory.
Mirkin writes that when she returned to Torah study as an adult, she was looking to learn the old truths but also to uncover new ones.
"If our Holy Book could survive all these years, if it is going to survive long after I'm gone, then it has to resonate with each of us, across gender, race, class, ethnicity and across time."
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