One of the downsides to dating b'tzibbur (so to speak) -- especially in an egalitarian setting where you are both reasonably prominent -- is that even before you decide to get engaged you have a whole congregation watching you as their Shabbat entertainment, presumably in lieu of reality TV. Shabbat or no Shabbat, however, the congregants do not hesitate to interact with you: they use the word "beshert" until you never want to hear it again, offer to serve various roles in your (thoroughly unannounced) wedding, demand to know where the other is when only one of you shows up, keep track of which services both of you miss (there's always someone to report the off-color jokes to you later), and occasionally even corner you in the appropriate-sex bathroom demanding to know whether wedding bells are in the offing.

Then you get engaged, and everyone is delighted (although some of them convey their delight by saying "It's about time!"), and a whole new round of entertainment begins. Because, yes, you hold hands a lot, even during services (it's easier on Shabbat, without tefillin!), you mock the Hertz Chumash together during the reading, and during the rabbi's sermon you sometimes rest your head on the other's shoulder. You kiss (in a tasteful shul-appropriate sort of way) after saying "yasher koach" to each other. You joke to the floor gabbai that you keep staring into each others' eyes so that nobody can ask you to do anything else in the service. And the long-married couples around the shul absolutely cannot resist giving you advice.

For awhile there, D. and I wondered whether they were in a secret contest to come up with the most horrific things one could possibly say to a newly engaged couple over Kiddush. "You look just like brother and sister!" (Well, sure, in the sense that we're both Caucasian -- otherwise not so much. Also, ew.) "We watch you in services all the time!" (Ah, yes, because that's not the least bit creepy.) "She's got you wrapped around her little finger." (We like to think it's mutual.) When one of us happens to be out of town or davening elsewhere, it can get even worse: I was at the Orthodox women's prayer group for Shabbat Mishpatim, and evidently D. had several people come up to him and inform him that I was going to bore a hole through his ear into the doorpost. (Sadly, nobody ever pointed out that according to the same parsha D. would owe my father fifty shekels.)

Our all-time least favorite piece of advice, though, came from a couple of apparently sane shul acquaintances of ours. They had, of course, been ribbing us about our status as Cutest Couple In Shul. "Enjoy it while you can, because once you're married--" one said, trailing off meaningfully. "Yes, it's just not the same when you're married, especially once you have kids." the other chimed in. There were, I think, a couple of mildly tasteless jokes in there somewhere -- I was too busy trying frantically not to imagine the people in question (along with their respective partners) engaging in any marital activities whatsoever -- but we smiled, and said we'd see about that, and as soon as possible I grabbed D. and announced that we needed to go get something to drink.

"What on earth," I muttered as soon as we were out of earshot. "Don't we know a lot of people with multiple children? And I really don't want to think about [Person B] and her husband -- ack." Well, D. reminded me, our biologist friend Y. had told us months ago that the initial rush of pheromonal attraction in humans only lasted for five years tops. "Yes, but we've still got fifty-five months. Anyway, that's just initial attraction. But this is... weird." So, after one more bite of cake (for that extra soul, of course), we decided to go off and take an early Shabbat nap on the strength of the thing.

But it's still a little weird, because I have never been married before, and while I'm reasonably sure that we will not suddenly wake up the morning after the wedding determined to avoid touching one another for the next so many decades, external validation is always nice. Sure, there are plenty of affectionate couples in my family, and my future mother-in-law has let on that she gets the same Victoria's Secret offers that I do, but -- again, there are some things I just don't want to think about too closely. What you need in this situation is a perfect stranger sharing intimate details of his or her married life. So I would like to be one of approximately two people across the blogosphere to express my boundless admiration for Ayelet Waldman's recent NYT column about motherhood and libido. I mean, nevermind the motherhood -- not that we don't plan to get around to it eventually -- but, hey, they're married! And they still think the other is the sexiest thing ever! And they even occasionally demonstrate it! And their kids are not growing up noticeably warped! I was never a huge fan of Waldman's blog -- our interests simply didn't coincide enough -- but this is, like, the second most reassuring thing ever.

The most reassuring thing ever was last Shabbat, when we achieved the pre-aufruf Apotheosis of Disgusting Cuteness by leading complementary parts of the service. (At the aufruf, we are also reading Torah for each other.) We had picked the date on the basis of our schedules, but it turned out (quite fortuitously) to be the Cute Couples' service: the rabbi and his wife were both doing other parts, and the whole business came up during the announcements because they involved public congratulations and gift-presentation for a couple who were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. "We love seeing you come into shul every Shabbos," the rabbi told them, "always holding hands" -- and at this point the woman held her and her husband's linked hands up above the lectern to a wave of laughter. "Oh, good," I breathed into D.'s ear. "I don't really know them, but I like them already."

I think we'll try for sixty years, actually -- and leading the service then would be nice too. But for now we'll just enjoy what we have. And, yes, we'll keep holding hands in shul. A lot.

Last year I did a reasonably sustained Purim post, enunciating all the things I enjoy about the holiday. This year I was too busy baking, fasting, dressing up, humming the Musaf Kedushat Ha-Yom, and making far too many jokes about the Purim/Good Friday coincidence to work out a good blog-based Purimspiel, although I was especially taken by Yudel's critical introduction to the "Jewish Nights" Publications edition of Goodnight Moon.

However, I would like to go on record as saying that Purim -- in addition to its many other merits -- is clearly one of those holidays which reveals hitherto hidden things about loved ones. For instance, I have discovered that I am marrying one of those heretics who does not adequately appreciate poppy-seed hamentaschen, but I graciously agreed to make him and his apikorus family some apricot ones (hey, more mun for me!). Also, while D. is fond of the concept of Purim costuming, he is admittedly weak on execution; luckily, I have enough intermittent craftiness for both of us, and in the unlikely event anyone needs to make a fake beard for under ten bucks, I can now tell you exactly how to do it.* The Ritual Committee Chairwoman enjoined us to come to Thursday night's reading in "traditional" costume, which I naturally interpreted as an open invitation for us to dress as Marduk and Ishtar.** Although most casual passers-by pegged us for an inexplicably militaristic Esther and Ahasuerus, the Ritual Committee and related individuals all appreciated the joke, especially since we kept chirping "say 'avodah zarah'!" while snapping photos.

I envy those of you who got to relax over Purim, though; I completely missed out on the whole drunkenness bit and spent most of Friday stressing out thanks to a combination of bad news from work and severe Jewish overscheduling. But my Shabbat debut as baalat musaf went very well (I stumbled over one word in "Tikanta," which is about par for the course), and D. did his usual excellent job on shacharit. Then this morning I managed to get through layning despite way too many animal body parts and roughly twenty bazillion differently voweled variations on the verb stem קרו,*** D. got stuck leading the entire service (I think I might have to learn Pesukei d'Zimra next just to spare him), and we both managed to stay awake throughout, which is nothing short of a (hidden) miracle.

Things in my life are complicated at the moment -- not the wedding planning, which is going just fine (our families are taking turns driving us nuts with new ideas, but everything seems to get resolved within a few days), but arguably everything else. I want to compose informational (yet fun!) posts about any number of topics, but I really, really don't have time, so I'll just remind everyone that the best discussions are usually in my comments. And for those of you still recovering from weekend-long hangovers, I hope -- very piously, as befits a recently dethroned Ancient Near Eastern goddess -- that someone makes you layn Leviticus in the near future.

* -- Should you ever need to manufacture a fake beard ex nihilo, here's what you do: buy a skein of black chenille yarn, a package of black chenille pipecleaners, and a black spandex dome-style headcap (which conveniently doubles as halakhic headcovering during ma'ariv). Loop about half the skein of yarn -- achieving your desired beard-length with each loop -- around two pipecleaners twisted together, tying the ends of the yarn to one pipecleaner and twisting the edges of both pipecleaners upward at each end. Use another two pipecleaners to make loops on these ends, then tie a length of yarn through each loop and draw them through the two small holes you have cut just in front of your victim's ears through the elastic band of the headcap s/he is now wearing. Adjust beard height to suit and tie yarn lengths onto cap. This takes about ten minutes (most of it yarn-looping) and makes a fake beard that looks exactly like a fake beard. (If you want a fake beard that looks like a real beard, you go to a carnival or costume supply place, but that's cheating.)
** -- I am also now fairly proficient at the manufacture of crowns, spears, quasi-Biblical robes (thanks to Cecil B. DeMille, primary stripes are your friend), and serpents. Also, I can tell you that while Wal-Mart is a great place to find $1/yard fabric and cheap plastic jewelry, its offerings are sadly lacking in the dragon and fake-premodern-weapon departments.
*** -- I know, I know, welcome to Leviticus.

[Sixth in an extremely occasional series about Jewish prayer, with increasingly loose relationships to the Shemonah Esrei.]

One of the things that really fascinates me about congregational prayer is the elaborate dance of participation: who does what when, who assigns what how, and why some people will do certain things and not others. When I was growing up, you see, participation was never an issue: whether I was attending services at Temple Hometown or at the large Orthodox and Conservative shuls in Coast City where Mom's family went for holidays, the service was something perfectly choreographed happening Up There and we were Down Here reading or counting yarmulkes or passing cough drops or what-have-you. But I wanted to be Doing Something so badly I could taste it. I would join in whenever the congregation did anything reasonably tuneful together -- I didn't know much Hebrew, but I pick up sounds and tunes quickly -- and I talked my way into the Temple Hometown holiday choir while straining against our then-rabbi's insistence on allowing the "children" to lead only carefully proscribed service segments at their B'nai Mitzvot. In those days, I knew more of the service than anyone else my age (mostly because I paid attention), and I loved praying in Hebrew: I hugged the sounds and tunes to myself like a security blanket, prided myself on knowing them well, and mourned when I forgot any of them. In the years after my Bat Mitzvah, I recited them at night looking up at the stars, in the backseat of the car on long trips, walking on the beach, in the shower in the morning, for fun during lazy afternoons, and even while Dad was trying to teach me how to merge onto a highway.* I couldn't've told you for the life of me what required a minyan, and I didn't pay much attention to the time of day, but I loved the words of tefillah and I could pray them out loud anytime I liked -- except during services, when they had to be performed by the Authorized People. Not surprisingly, I didn't go to a whole heck of a lot of non-choir services.

When I got to college, Shabbat services at the Jewish Center were rabbi-less, which I found exciting, but they were run by a group of upperclassman I dubbed the Long Island Mafia. They all knew the same prayers, which were Conservative and just enough different from mine to throw me off; they all looked at me funny when I asked about the differences; they had all gone to the same day schools and Jewish camps, or so it seemed; they didn't recognize forms of Judaism from outside New York State; they mostly droned tunelessly through prayer, which I found it difficult to follow. I learned a couple of good zmirot tunes from them, but the one time I tried to lead services on Friday night, I stumbled over the extra parts of the Kaddish Shalem (which Reform services leave out) and walked away feeling ignorant. In retrospect, it wasn't all the Mafia's fault: I was embarrassed, unwilling to acknowledge that I hadn't already learned everything, and unable to ask for help in learning more. Instead of leading more services, I did what I knew I was good at: I dropped in from time to time and cooked Shabbos dinner, taking over from the hapless first-years who usually got suckered into it. And while I chopped vegetables and mixed sauces, I sung my prayers under my breath where nobody could correct me.

In grad school, my neighborhood featured a number of Jewish options, but none of them were quite right for someone who had convinced herself she was retarded at practical Judaism: synagogues were for families, there weren't regular Reform services at the local Hillel, and I was wary of anything right of Reform. It probably didn't help that Aunt Miriam, the only other person in my family who shares my interest in attending services**, tended to correct my Hebrew pronunciation (which wavers randomly between Ashkenazic and Sephardic) every time I attended (Conservative) services with her family. So I led prayers occasionally in grad school, and I even sang in choirs, but only in (mostly) English, at the sorts of interfaith events that the "real" Jewish students generally couldn't be bothered to attend. I joked that I was better at being a Jew among Christians than among Jews, and I still think it's important for there to be a Jewish voice speaking out among Christians (which is another post altogether). But something was missing in my spiritual life, and I promised myself that when I got a job and a permanent address I'd get involved in real live Jewish community. So I joined Temple Boondoggle, and I enjoyed meeting people there, but the services were still led by a combination of rabbis and musicians. Then, reading TB's email newsletter, I saw a notice about the first meeting of the Marvelous Monthly Minyan and -- steeling myself for a Scary Non-Reform Prayer Experience -- turned up.

It was better than any synagogue: no rabbi, no Mafia, and no One True Way of performing a given service, since everyone had their own slightly different tunes and traditions. We used Artscroll Nusach Sfard at that first meeting, so I spent a good deal of the time being totally lost, but the prayers that I knew came up just often enough, and everyone did something in the service (we had exactly ten adults that first day, I think). People occasionally made errors in davening or layning, and others called their attention to it, but nobody seemed embarrassed or even particularly self-conscious. I loved the feeling of the minyan, and I loved the way they invited everyone to do whatever they liked: I wasn't about to tackle the big bad prayerbook, but I figured I could re-learn how to read Torah easily enough, and so I did. Then I learned how to read Haftarah. Somewhere in there, I'd started attending more and more Conservative services (only the ones where my friends from the minyan were leading, so they were safe); it took me awhile to notice that Siddur Sim Shalom had gone from scary to standard, that even Artscroll (especially Nusach Ashkenaz) was reasonably familiar, and that I actually knew more of the "scary" prayers and tunes than I had realized.

It took me even longer to realize that Congregation Beth Boondoggle, like the minyan, had a strong ethic of congregational participation, and everyone assumed that a young woman with a nice strong voice who seemed to know her way around the prayerbook could join in. All my friends were, in fact, doing it. I had even started dating one of the congregation's go-to shlichim. So why wasn't I stepping up to lead services? I thought about it, and decided that while it would be nice if I were really fluent in Hebrew, that shouldn't actually stop me from leading: my Hebrew reading skills are decent, and (more to the point) I'm familiar enough with most of the service to go through at a reasonable clip. It would also be nice if I had a systematic concept of how the different weekday and Shabbat nusachs ought to relate to one another (any reading suggestions?), but again, I'm perfectly capable of learning tunes in isolation. I've never been too nervous about taking an aliyah, or being gabbai, or giving public d'vars for heaven's sake, so it's not as if I have bad stage fright. And I certainly know enough about the structure of the services involved to avoid obvious errors. I finally decided that my reluctance to lead prayers in a non-Reform context stemmed from something a lot sillier: a combination of unwillingness to forgive myself for not knowing more than everyone else (see above) and pure irrational phobia of getting up in front of other Jews and doing things I haven't had memorized for nearly two decades. I suppose I could've have gone in for counseling, but this is where the nice strong contrarian streak from the Scotch-Irish side of the family (the same one that had me pulling out into traffic with the Amidah) came in handy. I just gritted my teeth and started offering to do things.

Actually, I started with the Birkat Ha-Mazon, but that was cheating: I'd done it with my family, we had transliteration in our benchers just in case, and most of the Seudat Shlishit crowd joins in at full volume for 90% of the thing. Still, it was a Long Scary Set Of Prayers I Hadn't Learned For My Bat Mitzvah, performed in front of a bunch of non-Reform Jews, and I got through them just fine. Then I started reading occasional morning Torah at CBB, only to discover that this meant I was calling people up and leading prayers on either end of the reading -- which I did with only moderate freaking out and one episode of the wrong nusach, while D. kept telling me that it was no big deal. (He is fundamentally right, which in no way invalidates my perfectly natural homicidal urges.) Finally, last month, I decided that enough was enough -- or, more precisely, I started thinking about telling my hypothetical daughter that she should learn to lead prayers when her mother can't.*** So I listened to tapes in the car for a few weeks and pored over prayerbooks preparatory to leading weekday ma'ariv, realizing along the way that this would be a lot easier if I weren't such a perfectionistic, competitive bundle of neuroses with pretensions to musical literacy. There's not so much in the siddur that I don't know or can't sound my way through, but half the time I'm convinced I'm going to stumble in the Hebrew (which is usually a self-fulfilling prophecy) and the other half I'm busy trying to locate a halfway melodic and reasonably consistent nusach distinct from all other services (that is, for a weekday service I refuse to either mumble or default to Shabbat melodies).

Sometimes I envy those older gentlemen (yes, always gentlemen) who just get up there when they have an obligation and soldier their way through a given service. The thing is, while I'm fine with the occasional aesthetically imperfect worship experience as a result of "soldiering through",*** I just can't do it that way. I have to be -- OK, not perfect, but good. A few weeks ago, I led ma'ariv in public for the first time, and I wasn't quite perfect, but the world did not end. In fact, it went fairly well -- once I got used to facing away from the congregation, a configuration in which I'd never led prayers before (yes, you'd think I'd've noticed that about two years ago), and once I got my voice up to "audible," which took about halfway through Keriat Shema. I had a tune, which was not anything from Shabbat, and I'm pretty sure everyone knew what I was doing. Of course, I probably need to do it two or three more times before I'm entirely comfortable with it, and I'm still a little confused about whether the Kaddish Shalem nusach is really supposed to be fixed, but... hey, did I mention the world didn't end?

I like to think that the phobia is losing ground. At the Marvelous Monthly Minyan last weekend, we realized that nobody'd been assigned to do the first half of the Torah service, so I shrugged and offered -- and it was a lot easier than leading ma'ariv, because most people agree on the tunes in question (and that there are, y'know, tunes). In fact, I've been to enough Shabbat Torah services in the past several years to have memorized the whole thing without trying. Next weekend, in a moment of mild insanity, I have offered to lead Shabbat Musaf, and apart from wishing I knew more inventive Yiddish curses to use on the German Reformers and that there were better tunes for "Tikanta Shabbat" and that that I had not scheduled this two days before a really long chunk of Torah reading, I'm... okay, a little nervous, but basically fine, really.

I mean, the possibility still exists that I might screw up in front of everyone, but the only way I'm going to get really good at this is to do it, and screwing up just a little would probably be... okay. At least, in theory. If God can forgive abundantly, I figure the least I can do is forgive myself occasionally.

* -- He was not amused, but I genuinely felt the need for prayer. There's a section of old U.S. 52 with nonexistent entrance ramps that I still associate with the beginning of the Amidah. ("Baruch atah Adonai--" *SCREECH" "--Eloheinu, v'elohai avoteinu....")
** -- There is a difference between attending services and being interested in doing so. (I have hopes for Cousin A.J., though.)
*** -- It seems to me that a well-educated Jewish adult should actually be able to lead all the weekday and Shabbat services (festivals optional) in a pinch. And since kids are very good at picking up on hypocrisy, if I plan to convince my children of this, I should really do it myself first. (The idea of trying to explain that Daddy can lead prayers but Mommy can't is filed under "no, world of.")
**** -- Except for people who do the whole thing in a monotone. They should be shot.

It sure would be nice to have some free time. I hear other people have it. I am jealous of those people. (I am also already behind on Daf Yomi, although in fairness that's because I foolishly forgot to take the book along on a trip to My Hometown last week.) Instead of vanishing altogether, I will simply offer Shallow Thoughts:

- Every now and then, I get email from one of my professional lists about the American Maritain Society. Every time, I spend at least a minute staring at the screen, wondering how long there have been American Martians and whether they wouldn't properly refer to themselves as Martian-Americans.

- In possibly the first ever advantage of being Jewish at the particular (not peculiar) institution at which I work, I have Ta'anit Esther off. Of course, that removes any excuse I had not to fast (because, really, it would have been cruel to subject my third class of the day to me on extremely low blood sugar). Drat.

- On the plus side, this year it is possible to consume high-fructose-corn-syrup-containing Easter candy without Pesach-related guilt for a change. Except that I may be too busy scarfing down hamentaschen to -- well, maybe just a couple of Jordan almonds. And a high-quality chocolate Purim Bunny. (See, Ishtar was a fertility goddess, so... um... why the heck not?)

- Oh, and on the Great Hamentaschen Question: mun, aka poppy-seed. Prune are OK, but mun are the Real Thing, and I have a really heavy mortar and pestle that agree with me on this, so there. (Also, sugar-cookie dough, not yeast-raised.)

- By the way, the sixth aliyah for Vayikra is really really boring. It also features lots of dead critters. I wonder if D. will eventually notice that the more I read it, the more I keep selecting fish and tofu when I shop for dinner?

- I know my mom just wants to tell the world that I bagged a nice Jewish almost-doctor, but I wish she would (a) remember that if she feels compelled to list his adjunct appointments (including the magic words "medical school") on a three-month-overdue engagement announcement in the Hometown newspaper, she should also list mine, and (b) remember the name of my department, while we're at it. You know, the one I've been working in for almost three years now? Oy.

- By the time my third-year review process is over, an entire forest will have died for it. I do not approve, and I am not resigned, but sometimes it feels like a near thing.

- Why doesn't anyone believe me when I say that I want to plan Shavuot study topics right before my wedding? There's study, there's cheesecake, there's distraction from the imminent arrival of Way Too Much Family. What's not to like?

- And speaking of not to like, I have mentally accepted Virginia Tech as part of the ACC, but I think I may have kicked Florida State out in order to do so. Oh well -- let them play football. My brackets and I will be over here in the corner with our suspicions that they kept all my Home State's teams out of the Chicago quadrant just to allow for diversity in the Final Four.*

- There will be content here eventually. Meanwhile, I sorta-kinda updated my blogroll, and it turns out that some of you do still read the blog page instead of the RSS feed, so I'm glad I did. Tell me, will it cramp anyone's style if I switch the comments to Typepad with moderation on anonymous comments? I treasure my assorted anons, but I'm really tired of sweeping out the comments.

- In other semi-technical news, why won't my Frankenstylesheet obey me? I don't want underlines on links in the sidebars, just in body text. Why is this not working?

- Oops, I'm getting whiny. I should really have gone and eaten lunch instead of typing this. Sunkist Lemon Bars are yummy, which of course explains why they're being discontinued.

- But here's another reason to visit Manhattan keep a blog -- random people will meet and discuss Daf Yomi because of you! (Gotta catch up this weekend.)

- I promise that there will be content here soon. Right after I catch up. With everything. OK, most of it.

* -- No, I'm kidding; I think only two ACC teams max will make it that far, but I wouldn't mind being wrong. And my bracket picks usually do go horribly wrong, but not in the happy way, usually. (I still tear up when I think about 1983, though.)

After catching the Unidentified Winter Crud in late January (and reading Torah all the way through it; I think some people at morning minyan still believe me to be a baritone), I figured that was my cold for the season. Hahahahahaha. Sometime around about Sunday night I started feeling headachy and scratchy-throated and stuffed up and sniffly and easily fatigued and -- hey, look, if I can't complain on my blog, where I can I complain? Also, if you still had sixty essays to mark before calculating midterm grades, you'd be whiny too. But I have found the sovereign cure for colds -- besides toast and tea and chicken-or-equivalent soup and frequent hugs, all of which should be pretty obvious -- and it consists of two things: echinacea and Talmud.

Echinacea is, of course, a plant-based dietary supplement from somewhere in the daisy family, and I'm told it's a great help in recovering from colds, which is why I've been having orange-strawberry smoothies (high in vitamin C!) with an echinacea "booster" in it for my lunch. It's not just me, either; apparently, the smoothie place is doing quite a trade in echinacea-based boosters this week. Yes, echinacea is a wonderful thing, and I'm sure it's not just the smoothies (or the benzocaine throat lozenges) that temporarily soothed my scratchy throat. As for Talmud, the question of the week in my corner of the Jewish blogosphere has been whether Daf Yomi study -- especially via Artscroll Talmud volumes -- is more like echinacea or more like the smoothie: that is, is it actually a supplement which aids one's health (spiritual, in this case) or is it a particularly creative way of enjoying and congratulating oneself at the same time but not getting much genuine healing learning done? There are interesting takes on the question here, and here. [ETA: Oh, and here. Judith posted while I was writing this, and she's much better about hunting up links than I am.]

Me, I have mixed feelings about the Artscroll Talmud, as I do about many Artscroll products and any translation project, but on the whole they come down positive -- Making Torah Available To A Wider Public is something I don't want to quarrel with and am even happy to support with my own money. (And, of course, my wedding guests' money.) Moreover, I feel that anyone who has participated in Talmud study daily, over a seven-year period, and generally while holding down other jobs, should be congratulated profusely. Me, I just read email from time to time. But I think I'm going to try to, um, kick it up a notch (I watch lots of Food Network when I'm sick) and try to actually read the daf in question for this cycle, with the option of catching up on Shabbat if when I fall behind. My Artscroll volumes of Berachot (excuse me, "Berachos") are waiting for me on D.'s coffee table, and Artscroll has quite a sale going on through mid-March; it may be that your local Judaica shop, like mine, discounts even further or will at least save you shipping.

I'm not sure I can keep it up for seven years without some external encouragement, of course. I've read the articles about Daf Yomi classes on trains, in synagogues, at office buildings, and I envy those people: I doubt I could pull off attending a class every single day either, but I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. Sadly, I won't get the opportunity to test my resolve, because the only Daf Yomi shiurim in Boondoggle appear to be located in Orthodox shuls which clearly list them under "Men's Learning."* The other day, since I was calling the local Judaica store anyway about my book order, I thought I'd ask the nice man who runs it he knew of any women's Daf Yomi classes starting up (he's Chabad and tends to be reasonably up on local Orthodox education options). What I got was an explanation of what gemara is and a suggestion that I attend a women's class on -- I kid you not -- challah-baking and women in midrash. I was momentarily tempted to point out that I could actually teach both of the class topics in a pinch, and if I was asking about Daf Yomi classes I'd darn well better know what gemara is -- but he was clearly trying to be helpful, so I said some combination of "thank you" and "goodbye" instead. And he really didn't need to know the part where I fantasized about baking peasant rye instead of traditional challah this coming Friday -- because the challah I occasionally make is delicious but rather soft -- and whapping him over the head with a nice big braided loaf of it.

This exchange could have come at a less frustrating point in the Daf Yomi cycle than most of the way through Tractate Niddah, but I'm not sure what that would be. I had thought Niddah would be a fascinating respite from all the stuff about sacrifices and Temple operation (intriguing in their own right, but with limited practical application). The problem was that aside from a certain amount of entertainment (green blood, marrying an owl's sister, and so forth) and the suspicion that we ought to register for burgundy sheets, Niddah featured the sort of topics that I felt I needed to study in much greater depth or not at all. Since I was skimming rather than studying properly, I just wound up with an overall feeling of low-grade irritation and uncomfortable bodily awareness as I tried to make sense of rabbinic biology and how any of this actually applied to contemporary laws of taharat hamishpacha -- in five minutes a day max. No, that doesn't really work. Yes, I'll definitely need to return to this one, possibly in less than seven years.

That said, the ending to Niddah is what helped distract me from my cold. There I was feeling (a) sniffly and (b) puzzled by a tradition that seemingly wouldn't recognize a uterus if it met one on the way to shul yet expects me to be simultaneously worrying about niddah and zavah while men do whatever they damn well please** (Dear Rabbis and Daughters of Israel: With all due respect, what exactly were you smoking again?) -- anyway, there I was, reaching new heights of crankiness, and finally I read the Very Last Verse and Completely Random Baraita about how learning halachot every day merits the world to come. My first thought was "oh thank God I'm so tired of thinking about my uterus bring on the time for saying the morning Shema eeee-yah!"*** My second thought, which is the one I should probably have been having in the first place, was something more like, "hang on, I bet someone tries to make a connection between this baraita and the end of Niddah. Hmmmm."

There are in fact several possible connections -- the Kollel Iyun Hadaf "Insights" email on this daf was particularly helpful -- and what interested me most was the point that, after all, the same baraita turns up in Megillah 28b preceded by the exact same topic of niddah/zivah calculations. From this their commentary moves to the famous teaching of R. Elazar ben Chisma in Pirke Avot (3:18) about the laws of bird-offerings (kinim, a few tractates back) and the beginning of niddah being "gufei halachot," which my nice Kravitz/Olitzky translation renders "the main elements of the law" following Bartinoro. And this started me thinking, because while I've read that verse in Avot plenty of times, I never stopped and thought about the literal translation of "guf" as "body." Huh. So this stuff is, like, the body (bodies) of halakhah? That makes sense -- in fact, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who's felt rather more embodied than I wanted to for the past several months. And it's reassuring to feel that maybe that's the idea. And I'm still looking forward to the morning Shema, and I'm still idly contemplating bread-related battery, and I still don't understand how my possession of a uterus can make much difference in a Daf Yomi class, but I think my cold's clearing up. Must've been the echinacea.

* -- There were several seconds in which I contemplated pulling a Yentl before remembering that I am short, curvy, and rosy-cheeked, hence especially ill-suited to male disguise -- and also not fictional. Drat.
** -- I am well aware that this is neither an entirely accurate nor entirely fair summation of the laws of taharat hamishpacha, but darned if I'm going to try to do that in a footnote. :) I said I was cranky, right?
*** -- You will have to imagine a mental rebel yell there; it's my local minhag for celebrating the end of a tractate of Talmud. At least, that's what I tell people.