By HAVIV NER-DAVIDpb224(photo credit: )Extract from Issue 16, November 24, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here. Haviva Ner-David, a Jerusalem teacher and writer, is founding director of Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage. The author of "Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination," her forthcoming book is "Finding Chanah's Voice: A Feminist Rabbi's Challenge to Religious Patriarchy."
The Torah portions Vayera, Genesis 18:22, and Hayei Sarah,
23-25:18, are read on November 15 and 22, respectively
The huppa, the wedding canopy, represents
the home that the couple are joining together to build. Its covered top yet open sides embody the tension all couples face in setting public and private space at home.
The couple must stand beneath the huppa, but it is up to them to decide who should stand there with them and whether they want to face or have their backs to their guests - again a question of the boundary between pubic and private.
Folklore has it that the huppa is open on all four sides to stress the importance of hakhnasat orhim, literally "bringing guests in" or hospitality. In Avot 1:5 we are told that a Jewish home should be "open wide, to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west." Avot D'Rabbi Natan explains that this is like Job's house, which had four doors so that guests could enter from wherever they came. In fact, this text continues, Abraham was more hospitable than Job: In Genesis 18:1 itself we are told that Abraham was sitting "at the opening of his tent in the heat of the day." Rashi interprets that Abraham was actually waiting to spot wanderers and invite them in. Much attention is paid in this story to tent openings and enclosures. Abraham straddles the border between the public and the private; one gets the impression that he had one foot out the door, perhaps a bit too eager to have his private couple space invaded.
Sarah, on the other hand, sits inside the tent. Rashi explains that this was due to her modesty. But perhaps Sarah was simply a more private person than Abraham. Possibly she was not so fond of Abraham's extreme hospitality, which put a strain on their private family life. In fact, when Abraham goes off to sacrifice Isaac, he is again drawn by a voice from the outside, and rather than include Sarah, Isaac's mother, in deciding whether or not to heed this voice, he decides unilaterally to do the unspeakable. In fact, Rashi infers that Sarah died from grief, when she heard what Abraham had intended to do.
When Isaac marries Rebecca, he brings her into his mother's tent, and he is "comforted after his mother's death" (24:67). The same word used to describe Sarah's situating of herself inside the tent, haohela, is used here to describe Isaac's bringing in of Rebecca. Perhaps in reaction to his father's extremely public nature, non-compromisingly ideological yet easily influenced by the outside (which he, like Rashi, may have understood to be the cause of his mother's death), Isaac is drawn inward, protecting his privacy to the other extreme. The image we have of Isaac is that of a blind and powerless man - hardly an antidote to his father's extreme extrovert character.
A few verses later, we are told of the birth of Jacob and Esau. Jacob, our third patriarch, is referred to in that verse (25:27) as "one who sits inside tents." Ricannati, picking up on the plural "tents" writes that Jacob "sat between the tent of Abraham and the tent of Isaac and drew from both of them." But what do we know of the tent of Jacob?
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
