Ok. 3 days of being smacked with chains isn't a comforting post-mortem thought but, as a class member noted, death is a transition & the beating leads to new experience. I don't like thinking of my dad whacked like a dirty carpet but I do like imagining him better than the shadow he was when he died
Taught my class on Jewish Ghosts yesterday. Weird timing. It was my father's yahrzeit & I woke to a text that my sis-in-law's father had passed (z''l). Thought about them as we talked about hibbut ha-kever (the beating of the grave) where angels come whack us to shake off the dust of the world.
😆 right?
Hello, I was looking myself for Seckel pear trees to plant, and found out some interesting information I would like to share with you. The name of the pear originates from a rabbi and philosopher Sekl Löb Wormser (1768-1847), who lived in the city of Michelstadt, in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekl_Loeb_Wormser . Aside from his numerous works on philosophy and successful medical treatment of lunatics, rabbi Sekl (himself a vegetarian) also liked to cultivate plants and in his garden he had a pear tree, which was known to grow very small pears. People in Michelstadt started to call those tiny pears as Sekl Löb Birne (=Sekl Löb pears), which later was shortened to Seklöbsbirn. The first registered information about the Secklöbsbirn are dated from 1847 and are kept at the Michelstadt city museum and in Darmstadt, at the archives of the local Association of Gardening and Landscape. This small pear was very popular and sold in the markets as Feigenbirne (Fig pears). In 1848, Europe entered into revolutionary mode and after these revolutions failed, many revolutionaries had to flee repression by the monarchist governments. Some of the revolutionaries, probably from Michelstadt, immigrated to the US and brought with them the Seklöbsbirn, which is known as Seckel pear in the US. The German sources I could find do not state that rabbi Sekl Löb was an specialist on fruit trees. He travelled widely, being a recognized philosopher and physician at the time, he probable found out the small pears by chance and brought some seeds home, which he planted in his garden. As an interesting information, there is a small pear variety called Bambinella, which originated from the island of Malta, in the Mediterranean. From Malta its cultivation spread to Italy and that is not too far from Southern Germany, where rabbi Löb lived. He lived in several cities in Germany and in 1825 he returned definitely to his home town, Michelstadt. He never travelled to Italy. Just as a wild guess…
Me: Hey honey, what do you think of planting pear trees this spring.
Wife: Fun! Yum! Wait, does this involve Jewish magic stuff somehow?
Me: So there was a Baal Shem in Michelstadt....
Wife: 🙄
That's great!
I'm sad that this is the last class of this year's series but also relieved. whew...takes a lot of work to prep.
I'm hoping to create a sense of the drama of the soul's transition; shaking off the dust of the world in order to move on to Gehenna and Gan Eden as well as the fear that Jews have felt over the proximity of the dead. We talked about connection Jews have felt with the dead in the previous class.
Teaching this on Sunday at TBE about ghosts in Jewish lore. The class will cover hibbut ha-kever (the beating of the grave) about the experience of the soul in the days after death; Coming out of the Graves, about Jewish ghosts; and Walking Dead, about Jewish revenants (bodies leaving the grave).
so cool
Book Cover. It's orange. I love orange.
Inside book jacket
Outside book cover
New book! "The Baal Shem of Michelstat" by Judeaus, translated by Manfred Kutter. It's a set of stories about Sekl Loeb Wormser 1768–1846, a rabbi and Baal Shem who lived in Michelstat, Germany and was known for cures and amulets and being a vegetarian.
Book covers
New books! Vera Basch Moreen's "In Queen Esther's Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature" (2000) and Debra Kaplan & Elisheva Carlebach's "A Woman is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe" (2025).
On Sunday talked demons and divination with a Jewish urban fantasy writer and yesterday talked ba'al shem, cemetery measuring, and dybbuks with a Jewish tv writer. super fun and hopefully useful for them.
Sitting in a coffee shop (for the first time in weeks) reading Devir Kahan's discussion of Hashgacha Partis "Divine Intervention" in prep for my necromancy class. Nothing like a Rambam vs Ramban argument to get the day going :)
dafaleph.com/home/2015/11...
Great. It’s so good!
I've read Neugroschel's translation for "Radiant Days, Haunted Nights: Great Tales from the Treasury of Yiddish Folk Literature." That's the one that I'll be recommending. If you're aware of a different translation, let me know.
that's really interesting. I'm hoping I can coax a couple of my students to go read the whole poem.
Cool
😂
ok..wow. I did not know about Noah or his idea lost tribes ideas about Native Americans (though that is not nearly the weirdest idea about lost tribes out there). thanks for the pointer.
@bluma.bsky.social's substack "Diary of a Bad Yiddishist" is great. blumalangerobertson.substack.com
When I teach Jewish werewolves tomorrow I want to get everyone out of monster movie territory, so we're starting by reading from H. Leyvik's magnificent Yiddish poem The Wolf. Here's Dara Horn's thoughts about it
www.tabletmag.com/sections/art...
h/t to @bluma.bsky.social who introduced me to Leyvik
I ran across the Jacob and the wolf story, referenced in Rabbi Daniel Glatstein's lecture" Parshas Vayechi: More on Werewolves"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k2j...
And h/t to Jeffery Salkin for his article "You have never heard the story of Joseph this way"
religionnews.com/2024/12/20/j...
To read the Sefer Ha-Yashar in context, see www.sefaria.org/Sefer_HaYash...
Jacob said: “He’s looking for his child, Just like me; two streams of tears of blood Flow from his eyes; without doubt, He is afflicted, just like me. He is mourning his child; he is stunned and afflicted.” Aloud, he said: “Come, let us cry together: We have both lost our beloved children.”
This story was also retold in the Jewish-Persian epic poem Jacob and the Wolf by Mowlana Shahin-i-Shirazi (1300s) which was translated into English and published in the collection "In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature.”
yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
Drawing of a wolf head. Caption reads "The Captured Wolf Answers Jacob"
Prepping for tomorrow's Werewolves in Jewish Lore class and ran across the Sefer Ha-Yashar story of Jacob and the wolf. At Jacob's instance, his sons have brought him the beast they claimed killed Joseph. God has opened the wolfs mouth and he claims innocence and that he too has lost a son.
Very cool
Shabbat shalom everyone. Dunno about you but I need Shabbat extra this week.
Fun. I’ll need to track that down
The giants, from the Nephalim in Genesis through the rabbinic stories of Og to Joshua, Caleb, and David's battles with the Anakites, play such an outsized and complex role in the Tanakh that it's sometimes amazes that, unlike, shedim, their story just ends.
I wonder if God misses them?
The painting in the previous post is The Giant by N. C. Wyeth (1882 – 1945)
www.westtown.edu/about/histor...
