Mijal
Coming up on Wondering Jews…
Noam
Everyone’s like goes to the rabbi and kisses his hand, goes to the rabbi, kisses his hand. And I just kept on thinking, what do I do? Do I avoid do just like walk to the back? Do I go do I kiss his hand? Just kiss the hand. Just Just do it.
Mijal
Hi everyone, welcome to Wondering Juice with Mijal and Noam. I’m Mijal.
Noam
And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to unpack those really big questions being asked in the world today about Israel, about Judaism and about the Jewish experience.
Mijal
So as you might know, we’ve been starting to do a bunch of multi part series. How do we say series in plurals? Si okay, yeah, you can pronounce that. so we’ve had one on Jewish denominations, we’ve had one on what did we call it officially, like the American Jewish experience?
Noam
Jewish American yeah. I don’t know what we called it. Jewish American Heritage Month. But the Jewish American experience. Yeah.
Mijal
Right. And both both were pretty awesome and we got so much feedback and you know, just listeners writing in and asking more questions. So we are now launching another multi-part series. this one is going to be exploring the idea of family through a Jewish lens.
Noam (02:49.88)
I think a big part of this topic was you you have you know, you have a new edition in your family, so that’s a you know
Mijal
Right, right, right, right. Yeah. So that’s awesome.
Mijal
Yeah, it’s it’s very you know, I’m I’m thinking a lot about family. You know, we we have and got a beautiful beautiful baby. Yes.
Noam
Very exciting. And how did but how did your how did your family dynamic change from your from your children to your to your newest? Like meaning did they did their dynamic change?
Mijal
It’s so funny, no, so many people have asked me and and you know, we’re going straight for the personal, right? So so people have asked me a version of this question, but they mostly ask me because there’s like a six year gap between our youngest and and this our new baby. So people ask me, you know, what’s it like to be a new mom now? You know, six years later. assuming that there’s a significant difference. but you asked
Noam
Always.
Noam
I had the same question. I think exact I had people I mean they call me a mom, they call me a dad, but like we I have three older kids and then a five year gap with our with our last child. Last. Yes, yes. Yeah.
Mijal
Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So you asked how the dynamic changed. yeah, I mean I I think I’m a little bit more probably more relaxed, you know, about about the baby. and it’s interesting, like in my maternity leave, I actually felt that most of my like not the physical taking care, but like the parenting, I spent I gave so much energy to like my older kids who don’t usually have me at home so much.
Noam
Yeah.
Mijal
So it was funny because I felt like I would have this leave and it would be mostly focused on the baby. but but I feel like my older kids just just really took advantage and we’ve had a lot of time together.
Noam
But there’s no w when you have three kids, there’s not like a and there’s one, two and then three further down. There’s not like a middle sibling, right?
Mijal
I guess not. The the older two are like a pair a little bit in terms of the dynamic, yeah.
Noam
Right. Right. Right. It’s like a pair and then like now and they take care it’s yeah. It’s a good luck. Good luck with this dynamic. Over over time it’s gonna change. As someone who has watched this dynamic, having someone who had a baby daughter who then became a big sister five years later. You know. Like it’s it’s an interesting dynamic. Get ready for it. Speaking of this dynamic, you transition.
Mijal
Thank ya, thank you.
Noam
you wrote in your newsletter, in your substack, about this thing called the priestly blessing, the Birkat Koanim. And that’s the bl that’s a blessing that God gives to the to Aaron to the and then to Aaron’s sons. And every single Friday night is this something that you do in your tradition also, Sephardic, like
Mijal
Yeah, yeah, we do it Friday night and and also Saturday morning Shabbat Day. Yeah. You don’t do both? Wow, mind blown. I’m like Sephardic normativity in my head. I assume everyone does the same.
Noam
You do both? No, just Friday night. Okay. S I like it. Right. Right, you so you thought that we all like so like I also didn’t I I thought it was just a Friday night thing. Now I’m remembering reading your piece as I’ve read it. It d you did mention that you did it like seven hundred five thhous times. Okay, forty five hundred times. And I was like, wait, what’s that’s the math isn’t mathing? But then I like, it’s times two.
Mijal
Forty five hundred times.
Mijal
Right, right, right.
Noam
So that’s that’s what it was. But so on Friday night so tell me like l just like let’s let’s break this down. What is this blessing?
Mijal
Yeah, so so in the book of Numbers, in one of the Torah portions, right? So God commands the priest and says, You’re gonna bless the people of Israel and God gives like a formula, right? The words, you know, you can help me translate ’cause you know, I’m still with the baby at home, a little bit tired. Yeah, asham vehism, like may God bless you and protect you. right? Yeah yeah erashem panavaracha vihuneka, may God give
Noam
God.
Noam
Nice. One for one. Keep going. Keep going. This is great.
Noam
Illuminate.
Mijal
Il yeah, illuminate the UV Hunecha. That’s a hard word to translate. How would you translate that word? Yeah. Yeah, I’m like, is it grace, Han? Okay. Isashampana Valecha Vyasamha Shalom. Like may God turn div divine presence upon you and give you peace. Yeah, is that good? Thank you. So that was originally like a like a blessing of priests. They would literally stand in the temple and bless the people. They were the conduits for God’s blessing.
Noam
Vihunaka give you grace?
Noam
Lift. Yeah.
Nice. That’s good. That’s good.
Mijal
And could I do yeah, what Noam is doing right now, the Vulcan sign. Is that yeah, well it’s called the Vulcan sign, but it was taken from the priest. It’s what priests do when they bless the people with this blessing. My husband and son, by the way, are both priests, so they actually do this in synagogue. Yes, we are. We are. It’s a big it’s extraordinary. Noam, it’s I walk around, you know, introducing myself.
Noam
Could you do this?
Noam
Yeah.
Noam
you’re you’re a priestly family. How does that feel?
Yeah? Wow, you married up.
Mijal
Yeah. By the way, as an okay, there’s like so many as sites here. My daughter who’s six, is like obsessed with being the daughter of a priest. So she literally will ask me to explain to strangers who are not Jewish often, like
Noam
Yeah.
Noam
Okay.
Mijal
Mammy, can you please tell them that I’m like the daughter of a priest? And I’m like, what? anyway, sorry, I got distracted. so so yeah, we have this priestly blessing. and sometime in in in the 1600s, and I had to do a bit of research into this, it actually became a blessing that parents started giving their children on Shabbat. so I got I guess some people only on Friday night, and eventually other communities Friday night on Shabbat Day as well.
Noam
That’s that’s awesome. That’s great. Yeah.
Noam
Mm.
Mijal
and it’s a very special moment in which after tell I’m gonna tell you how we do it. Tell me if anything is different. But after we make kiddush, the blessing over the wine, in the Shabbat meal, in the Sabbath meal, then children walk over to their parents. parents, again, a little bit different in different communities. In my community, parents place their palms on their children’s head, they say the blessing. in my family, they also personalize it.
Noam
Yeah. Yeah.
Noam
Yeah. Yeah.
Mijal
And then people have different customs. Like in my in Middle Eastern communities you often kiss your parents’ hand when after you receive the blessing as like a form of you’re you’re like laughing here now. what do you guys do? How does it look like for you?
Noam
No, I just like that is that is regal. I I actually you know what, like this is I I the the first time I saw that was when I went to Israel n when I was eighteen and I didn’t I didn’t know that that’s something that people did. I I g I I became colo c
Mijal
You mean the kissing of the hand or the bless right. Right.
Noam
The kissing of the hand. I just never saw that. Like for rabbis also, I never I never saw anything like that. Like so I I was close friends with a lot of Syrian Jews and we would go to like this Syrian and Sephardic experiences and I and I remember this awkward moment when I’m going th the everyone’s going to the rabbi and kiss like
I felt like Larry David without l without like no like everyone’s like like goes to the rabbi and kisses his hand, goes to the rabbi, kisses his hand. And I just kept on thinking, what do I do? Do I avoid do just like walk to the back? Do I go do I kiss his hand? Just kiss the hand. Just Just do it. And I and I like so awkwardly got there, like looked him in the eyes. I’m like, Is this weird? Why am I I shouldn’t look you in the eyes before I do this? And
Mijal
Ha ha ha.
Mijal
Just kiss the hand, Noah. Kiss the kiss the ring. Kiss the hand. Just do it.
Noam
And then I just kissed his hand and I’m like and I’m like, okay, I I kissed I kissed his hand. I did it. Okay. So I did it. I did it. But I was like, do I do I walk away? Like I was like it was like such like an awkward moment. But like this is a good great example. Yeah. K kissing and kissing listen, it’s not there’s nothing it’s fine. Just d I don’t normally kiss people’s hands. It’s just not what I do. I okay, what do I do? So growing up my mother and father would do the blessings together and they would
Mijal
Wow.
Wow, okay. Wow. How
Mijal
I love knowing what makes you feel awkward. This is like the kind of thing that makes you feel awkward.
Mijal
So what did it what does it look like for you and your family?
Noam
You know, put their hands, give a they would they they would yeah, they would do it too. you do one and one?
Mijal
at the same time, both of them? That’s very efficient. We should try it. We do one on one and there’s often a lot of people.
Noam
Okay, that’s a l that see, th one of the things in Sephardic liturgy, like I will say this, you you take a long time. There’s
Mijal
Takes a while.
We take forever. Actually, like depends who. Like Moroccans take longer, Syrians are faster. We can do this later. But yes, keep going. Yours is very effective. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Noam
okay, fine. It’s a large Jewish family, see? This Sephardic, Moroccan, Ashkenazi, all these things. Okay, so whatever, that’s how I grew up. And now when their grandparents are there, by the do you get you still get blessed by your parents when they come over? Right. So that do they pless bless your children? Wow. my Lord. This is a lot But you know what? We need blessings in life. So we like so we have this process also. so w what I say to my kids
Mijal
Of course.
Mijal
Of course. And I bless my kids also. It’s a lot of blessings.
Noam
I do the same thing, I say the the brachot and I I say the blessings. I say the blessings. I do that. And then afterwards I say to every one of my kids, I love you and I’m so proud of you. And then that’s like my that’s my blessing. That’s what I whisper to them every single time. I know everyone listening knows that. And then my daughter, my third of my four children, Nisa, she always says, What are you proud of me for? And like that’s the and that’s like the bit. Like, what are you proud of me for? Yeah, I’m like
Mijal
The blessings.
Mijal
That’s so cute.
Noam
You being you. That’s it. Just that’s it. And but she loves it. But what are you proud of me for? Every single time. And that’s what we do. That’s what we do.
Mijal
What I think is really fabulous about Islam is that and you know, we had this we were joking about kissing the hands, but it’s actually a good metaphor. I think the priestly blessing really, really combines elements of of Jewish parenting that are both about love, right? The kids feel so loved.
And also about like respect. Priests, you respect priests. Priests represent something in the world, right? There’s something there that priests are supposed to be like the conduit to God or to tradition. And Jewish parenting, I think, and and this particular blessing really reflect this duality. I’ll add one more thing here. One of my favorite, favorite Alakot Jewish laws around the priestly blessing is that a priest who has beef, so let’s say, like, you’re a priest, my husband, I’ll take him.
Noam
Yeah.
Mijal
And he is in a fight with somebody in the community. He is legally not allowed to give them the blessing if his heart cannot feel full love towards them. And before the priests give the blessing, they have to say, God commanded us to bless the people of Israel beahava with love. It’s like a legal requirement that they have to love the people they are blessing. So there’s this like amazing moment here in which we’re giving our kids a blessing that tells them, Hey,
We are here in the role nearly of like priest a little bit, representing God and Jewish tradition, and also we love you unconditionally and infinitely. And this is what you know our relationship is meant to be about.
Noam
I love that. I love that because as a former teacher principal guy myself, one of the things that I loved learning and I loved teaching faculty is this. If you do not love every single one of your students, you should not be a teacher in that classroom.
It’s the same law. I didn’t re I never made that connection. And there was a there was a teacher named Aryeh Ben David who would always talk about that and I would always talk about that with my staff because I was like, If you have beef with your students, if you don’t like this kid, then you need to not teach them. And I was just with a a teacher who taught eighteen years in she taught Prophets, Navi, and she told me this story just last night. She said to me that for eighteen years she
was an amazing teacher, rock teaching. And then w once she realized that, you know, like she had issues with her students, she was like, I I I can’t be a teacher anymore. So like you have to love your you have to love if if your students are in front of you and you’re in front of your students, you have to love them. Period.
Mijal
Right. But but taking your example by the way and applying it to Jewish parenting, you’re not gonna walk away from your kids if you’re like, I have I have beef with you this week. So you have to force yourself actually to dig in and to say like I am blessing you with love and you have to feel loved.
Noam
Well you what b yeah, but but you correct, fair. But you but but may you that’s a
Noam
You have to feel yeah, th that’s a com it’s a commandment of love. We have we have this all the time. You have to you have to love Hashem your God. V ahafta Laracha Kamoha, you have to love your neighbor. Vahta et Ager, you to love the other. Yeah, vehta you have to you have to love your children. You have to love your students. You have to. They you have to. If you’re a Kohen, you have to love people around you. You have to. It’s it’s and also the now that I’m thinking about this more about this like priestly notion of like what it means, we’re called Mamlach Koanim. We’re called a
Mijal
Right.
Noam
We’re called a a a a a nation of priests, but I’m not a priest. I’m not. But we are obligated to behave in that sort of way. We’re obligated to treat others in that sort of way.
Mijal
Nation of priests.
Mijal
Right. And for me by the way, no, I’m like part of the reason that I’m I love this is that I don’t know how you feel. I don’t know if you’ve got like a parenting philosophy as a parent.
Noam
We did it, we did first of all, we did this together. You and I did an episode and an article on parenting.
Mijal
No, I remember that, but I’m saying I do know that, but I’m saying like I don’t know who are the people that you read slash follow that talk about your parents. Okay, beautiful. I follow my mom also, just putting it out there. not my that also, but I talked to her more about parenting. no, but but for example, like I I know that I have a lot of qualms, some objections.
Noam
Do you remember that?
Noam
Mm Pam and Neil Weissman.
Mijal
and disagreements with gentle parenting. It’s like a whole way of parenting that I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s very focused on the emotions you’re gonna call it an
Noam
Yeah y yeah.
Noam
annoying. Annoying. No, you once accused me of doing gentle parenting in in that episode and I was like, No, I’m not it’s not gentle parenting. Trust me, I’m not doing gentle parenting. It’s something else.
Mijal
Right. Right. R right. But so what I love about the priestly blessing is I think we are in modern parenting we’re all bought into the idea of love and making your kid feel loved, right? We we we we get that. I think we have a much harder time in terms of gentle parent in terms of this current moment, actually seeing ourselves as a little bit of like an authority, kind of like a priest, and saying there’s something vertical here, right? And that I think is almost like that’s where Jewish tradition is a little bit counter cultural for us.
Noam
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mijal
living in twenty twenty six where gentle parenting is like really very popular all around us, and where I think it’s a really important thing. and actually if we look now at like different aspects of Jewish law around parenting and children and family, it’s very interesting because we can actually describe them as multidirectional, like reciprocal. So you’ve got parents have actually certain obligations to their children, right?
Noam
Yes. Yeah.
Noam
That’s right.
Mijal
And then children have certain obligations to their parents.
Mijal
So classically, I think like some of the most famous obligations that get discussed in the Talmud are that a father has to teach his son a trade, he has to teach him Torah, Jewish wisdom, he has to teach the he has to eventually help them get married, and also really interestingly and kind of random because like it feels random compared to the others, has to teach
their children to swim. So I don’t know if you ever like, you know, thought about this, how you approach this. there’s
Noam
So on on that one I’m just gonna say, just personally, my wife is a significantly better swimmer than me. Significantly better. And so like I ri I I’m just saying, no, I th that that one see we go together, the two of us, Raisie and I go together. So she took she took that one on. She took that one on. But I but I just do I do wanna say that if the if a swimming pool is only like fifty
Mijal
Yeah.
You’re like, I failed that commandment. Did not teach my kids.
Mijal
That’s great. I mean I wasn’t like this wasn’t me being like Mm, did you teach your kids to swim? You know what?
Noam
Like if it’s like fifty feet, I will beat her in a race. But she is but she is faster than me and a better swimmer for the record. Okay. Continue, continue about swimming. Teaching about swimming. So you so p parents have the obligation to do all of these things for the children and to teach one of them is swim, and clearly which is like a random of comes across as a random of those four.
Mijal
This was really important to say here. yes, I’ll continue. Yeah.
Mijal
Yes, and by the way, I’ll say like the obligation is not necessarily that you have to, but you have to make sure it happens. So I don’t think that my husband and I have been delinquents by hiring, you know, swim teachers to help our kids swim at particular moments, learn how to swim. but but yeah, it is a bit random. There’s different opinions, by the way, here, which make it a little bit less random. Some opinions say that like this was such a clear way to prevent
Noam
Right. Right, right, right.
Mijal
like danger, you know, like, you know, you can die if you don’t know how to swim in different situations, that it was an obligation for parents to say, like, you must teach this life skill that can that if you don’t teach it, your your kid will be in danger as they grow older. other opinions by the way, which you know, that was feels fairly obvious to me. and I do think it’s a skill that it’s the kind of skill that I also, you know, even even as a even in modern times, I feel like, my gosh, if I don’t teach this to my kids, God forbid if we’re in different situations, it could be dangerous.
But there’s also like really interesting more modern Hasidic teachings that say this is not only about like literal swimming. I’m gonna paraphrase it, I’m gonna say it in my own words. This is about the ability to kind of like swim when things get really hard. Right? Like so it’s almost like the ability to like be able to be in distressing situations and be able to be like resilient, like going against the current.
Noam
Love it. Love it.
Love it. That’s I mean and that’s so good.
Mijal
love it but also no I’m I’m also like I I I love it but I’m also like nervous as a parent. I’m like wow that is such a tall order. Like teaching my kid to swim literally like we can do this. Teaching them to be resilient to the currents of life, of course we want to do it, but it’s like the work of a lifetime, you know? It’s it’s hard.
Noam
No, you have to. It’s a work of a lifetime. Yeah, it’s the obligation of parent to parent it’s I I think siblings should be working on this with siblings. I I like I I listen, all of us everyone has gone through something stressful in their life. Wait, for sure. Like something that causes anxiety, something that causes stress, something that causes some sort of paralysis maybe. And like one of the things I’m always talking as a family unit about is do do we have the skill set to deal with
incredibly difficult situations when they come up. And that is the w
Mijal
What did your parents teach you? Give us a skill that your parents gave you in this area.
Noam
I would say in in terms of s in terms of like dealing with the anxiety, dealing with stress, dealing with difficulties of
Mijal
Like, you know, being able to like swim in life?
Noam
I think they taught me to listen well as a as a skill. Like, to really kind of deal with my impatience, which is which is part of my personality, to like wanna do, wanna go, wanna produce… wanna I’ve always been like that. but if they didn’t like redirect me even a little bit to just pause and listen, pause and
and not go so fast, I think that I would have been in a I I don’t I think that that would have been v very difficult for me. So like I would say like the skill set of learning how to deal with difficult moments is the is the ability to pause, the ability to listen, the abil that sort of thing has been i beyond instrumental. And and it’s the say like listen, when I when I speak to Ayal, my son, who’s thirteen, he’s the oldest, and I’m always talking about the skill sets like he he he has this on auto repeat at Broken Record, which is you know, he’s like w if he
if you were to ask him like no AL, what do you what you what do your parent what what do your parents say to work on? Like what skills? I’m always like develop skills, develop relationships, learn how to tell stories. That’s it. I always say the same thing. Like if you if we could work on that together, you’re you’re good. Your job doesn’t exist yet. Your way to navigate through life doesn’t exist yet. Like you’re you’re like the the job that helps you that doesn’t exist yet probably. Like very good chance.
Mijal
That’s pretty good.
Noam
So like these are the broad skills that you need to be able to do. Learn how to talk, learn how to listen, learn how to engage, learn how to be in relationships, like learn how to tell stories, learn how to do these things. And it’s I th I think I think that that’s essential. What about you?
Mijal
That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, I’ll say by the way, like I was actually just remembering now that my dad taught all of us seven kids to swim, which is not a short order. Yeah, literally. And he would do it kind of like and I have this like sweet memory. I must have been, I don’t know, five. and it was like in a summer and I remember just being terrified, like not wanting to jump into the water. I I can get anxious with like changes. And at one point my dad was like, “Mijal, you have a choice. You can jump in.
Noam
Literally?
Mijal
And I will teach you and you’ll be okay. And if you don’t do it now, it was after like a few weeks, it’s like, I’m just not doing this anymore.” And I actually just like jumped and he and he he taught me and all my siblings. but it it actually it’s also like a metaphor to my parents. I don’t know how intentional this was. Like they didn’t give us like a three part, you know, you know, things you have to know. But I think my parents always put us in new situations with the assumptions that we could do it.
Noam
Right.
Mijal
Like like you know, like, yeah, you can move countries and learn a new language and go to a new school. yes, you can organize a program in Schul. yes, you can host this. you can do this. And like it wasn’t even that they told us you can do it, it was like like a natural expectations, like you can step up and do it. and I think that that that was really tremendous.
Noam
So so they taught
Right.
Noam
That’s awesome. Like they th they taught you that that that you can, that you have resilience, that you have the ability to do things. That’s pretty cool. That’s pretty great.
Noam
So we have obligations for child to parent, parent to child.
Mijal
at a wedding. I know. I know.
Mijal
Hm. Right. Was a day yeah. Yeah.
Noam
But we also can we talk a little bit about speaking of the event I was at with my brother Hanan and my other siblings, Tani Mayan, we’re not there. All good, don’t worry about it. But so like can we talk about also siblings? That’s a huge part. There’s like there’s parent, child, child, parent, and siblings.
Mijal
I’ll just say for me, I I don’t I didn’t realize this when I was young. We
Noam
Correct. Right, yeah, right.
Mijal
we fought so much. I’m again one of seven strong personalities, all of us. Strong, strong, loud, you know, p you only know me like it’s okay. And and we fought so much as kids. And I would never imagine that right now, like part of what I treasure the most about my family is my siblings. Like we we and we don’t we’re like mushy. We don’t talk every day. We’re not like I don’t like we’re not that kind of family. But
Noam
Yeah. No, no.
Mijal
But we’ve got each other’s backs. so I’m curious, you know, how have you been thinking about about siblings?
Noam
Yeah, I think that siblings, that’s the other thing that my parents taught us is the most important thing in the world that they always stress with us is that we get along. Like period. Like that is like you the the four of you, the four of us, you you you
B like more important than up down, vertical is horizontal. Like the the way the f the four of you interact with each other forever is the most important thing. That is absolutely something I’ve taken with with me. But my two my I have a son, two daughters, and then a crazy little daughter who’s amazing, but she’s crazy. But the two daughters, they’re like two years apart. What I always talk to them about is their relationship is everything. Everything to me. Like everything. And it it’s it to them. Like if you want to respect me, it’s the way the two of you get along. That’s it.
That’s that’s the only thing I care about. More important than the way you treat me and even maybe your mom, like is the way you treat each other. That is showing r respect and reverence. I like because my favorite book of all time, if you were wondering trivia question. No, what’s your favorite book of all time? Is East of Eden, John Steinbeck. Like an and it’s not close. my god. I’m I’m literally jealous of you right now. Because once you like this is Mark
Mijal
I have not read that book, Noam. I know of it, but I haven’t read it.
I should read it.
Noam
Mark my words, everyone listening. An amazing substack coming your way from Mijal Bitton after she reads he’s defeated. It’s gonna be incredible. But anyway, what Steinbeck talks about is he says that the original sin of the world is not what we think of the primordial sin of eating from the tree of knowledge. He says the original sin is actually in Genesis, yeah, the original sin is actually brothers fighting brothers and br brothers killing brothers and the story of Cain and Abel.
Mijal
Like in Genesis, you mean?
Noam
And then you see that in that and he says that that is a re reverberating theme throughout humankind. And if you look at Genesis, you look at Breshi and you see after Cain and Abel, well, what is what what’s the story after Cain and Abel? What what what how does the sibling story work well there? What Noach’s children, right? That’s not the best relationship that they have with each other. And then after that, then you have Avram separating from his from his family. And then you have Avram’s children.
Abraham, you have you have Isaac and Ishmael. And then after Isaac and Ishmael you have the story of Aesov and and Yaakov. And after the story of Asaf and Yaqov you have the you have the the the twelve tribes. And what do they do to the t twelve tribes? They sell Joseph because they’re jealous of Joseph. And Joseph is and and and it goes and goes and goes. And it’s a st
Mijal
Wait a num you are pointing out there is a pattern in Genesis throughout most of Genesis, which is most it’s narrative, right? We’ve got all of these family stories and we’ve got tremendous tension and conflict from wanting from killing each other to trying to kill each other to selling each other. We also have sisters fighting, right? To tremendous like envy and jealousy and bitterness, right? So that’s that’s like a running thread.
Noam
Yeah.
Noam
yeah. Sisters fighting with each other, but also like the the Majrash midrashic stories are kinda beautiful the rabbinic stories are kinda beautiful about the relationship between Leia and Rachel in many ways. Yeah, okay. Well that’s gonna Okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, fine, fair enough. But then the Right.
Mijal
The rabbinic glass.
Mijal
Yeah, whatever. Let’s let’s let’s stay with the plain meaning of the text because I think I I I believe the conflict a little bit more than but you’re saying there’s like a thread running here of like just sibling rivalry, jealousy and hatred almost like an overwhelming theme in the book, which is about the genesis of humanity.
Noam
Yeah. Hatred.
Noam
Yeah, yeah. And but here’s the thing that Steinbeck misses. what he misses is that the end of Bresheet, the end of Genesis, is actually when Jacob decides to give the blessings to his grandchildren, Menasha and Ephraim. The old the older one is Manasha, the younger one is Ephraim. He chooses to for whatever reason, to give the the older person status to Ephraim and not to Manasha. And you could think that, well, all right, here we go again.
Here comes fratricide, here comes hatred, here comes jealousy, here comes some sort of horrible moment. Doesn’t happen.
Mijal
So you’re saying the trigger that happened before, which was maybe like unequal treatment, right? Especially one that felt especially unfair, like the oldest gets the youngest blessing. So the trigger happens, but the children
Noam
Yeah. Yeah.
Noam
They they th there’s no enmity. And my argument would be that once you’re able to go through this process of siblings loving siblings, siblings caring about siblings, then actually you could become a people. Then you become the Jewish people and that’s the beginning of Exodus. But if you if you didn’t have that, then you then you can’t. Then you can’t.
Mijal
Right. And by the way, you have right, you have this other beautiful moment. You’ve got Joseph forgiving his brothers who sold him to slavery and reconciliation there. And then the book of Exodus actually begins with two brothers not only not having enmity, but helping each other. So Aaron, who’s the oldest brother, is okay being second in command to Moses and helping him, and there’s no jealousy there. The the Bible says he was happy for him.
Noam
Yes, yes. Yeah.
Noam
Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep.
Yep. Yep.
Mijal
so that’s so interesting. You know, Noam, I never thought about it in the way that you’re putting it. I never thought about the fact that siblings there’s no like Jewish law is so exhaustive that if you don’t have Jewish legal commandments in one area, it’s not an accident, you know? It’s like like the absence scrims in some ways. So it’s interesting that’s that’s Jewish tradition does not legislate any obligations, I mean with one exception, between
Noam
Right. Yeah.
Noam
Yeah. As far as I’m aware. As far as I’m aware.
Mijal
Siblings, right? Well, it talks about siblings in the Bible in terms of obligation towards your brother, but I think it that’s more like metaphorical, like towards your family, towards your relatives. So that that’s I think that that right. So we have we we have we have that obligation to next of kin and then you have coaster and further. we’ll double check this by the way, making sure that we’re not making up a brand new theory.
Noam
Right. Right. Right. Right. Am I my brother’s keeper? Right, exactly.
Noam
Yeah, but broadly speaking it’s it’s right. Broadly speaking.
Mijal
Right. So the same way we can talk about obligations between you know, husbands and wives and parents and children, we don’t usually t talk this way about siblings, but you’re saying alongside this, we have in our foundational text a narrative that actually tells us the only way to become a people is when siblings learn to overcome conflict and care for each other.
Mijal
You know no, I’m I I’m really excited we’re gonna be doing this series. I think there’s so much here. I’ll maybe just like take two things from what you like draw out two implications from what you just shared to kind of like conclude. Because I think this this idea that you just brought about like, you know, sibling rivalry and then reunification, you’re also giving us a lens through which to understand how Judaism approaches family. So one lens or one layer is literally talking about like close biological family. So
We spoke we started off by talking about blessings that parents give their children on Shabbat. And they give the priestly blessing. But also, especially for for boys, they say, May you be like Ephraim and Menashe, which are the two siblings you just mentioned at the end of Genesis, who were able to love each other, right? Despite competition. You’re also extending our thinking to thinking about the Jewish people as a family. So when we talk about Jewish wisdom on family, there’s both wisdom on like nuclear family, biological family, home, domestic activity, relationships, all of that. And there’s also all this wisdom that comes when we take the metaphor and we take it seriously.
And we say the Jewish people is a family. Now what do we learn from, you know, Jewish wisdom and family for how we’re supposed to behave towards each other and in the world? So it’s really, really rich and complicated and messy. And I’m excited to explore more.
Noam
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is good yeah. I’m so excited to explore family in in all the different permutations and all the different ways. it’s gonna be great. So thanks Michal. Great hanging.
Mijal
Thank you, no. Same.