Sefer Daniel

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've posted!

I've done two illustrations for two different chapters of Sefer Daniel. I'd like to do a few more of them; what I'm hoping to illustrate is not the usual angle of reading Daniel, which focuses on political predictions, but rather to show how the metaphors and the politics are all fragments of Daniel himself, of his personal abduction as a child, his physical broken body, etc.

The first is from the eighth pereq, where Daniel dreams of a ram fighting with a flying goat.

The second is of Nevukhadnetsar's transformation in the fourth pereq, where he is outcast and given "the heart of a beast." This episode illustrates fantastically how Sefer Daniel blurs the lines between reality, metaphor, and dream sequence.

פורים שמח,

יונה

R Eliezer ben Hyrcanus

A new picture is up, this time of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. R. Eliezer was born into a farming family, and was raised completely ignorant of Jewish practice and beliefs, but wanted to go study Torah anyway, much to the amusement of his family. His opportunity to leave came when he was ploughing a field and his ox's leg broke. Therefore, I drew him riding on an ox with a broken leg. Note: does not look like actual ox, more like scary cabaret nightmare cow.

To go with it, here's the second half of something I wrote about his life, the first half of which can be found here. This part is more from the perspective of R. Eliezer once he was put in cherem.



Part 2

oh, wind in the hair of the horse
of the new moon's messenger,
take me back to my family's house
where the Temple still crumbles
down their insensible cheeks
and patrol boots stamp their laughter hard

where they find my father, and drag him in,
where I lose my Torah, and stand mute at the door,
where youth means trouble, where I cannot know what happened,
where the air and knives are wet and cold -

or carry me away
to the kingdoms of the sea
I will swallow every well and wave
and drown tall ships inside of me.

Purim Dolls

I am really more of a Tisha B'Av person than a Purim person. Therefore on my Shushan Purim, I spent less time making merry and more time making creepy dolls (which I ended up using as mishloach manot).

Here you can see the results. These Russian stacking dolls depict Shaul HaMelekh's visit to the Baalat HaOv, when he tried to summon the ghost of Shmuel (pictured, upper left, in fancy shroud).

Berachot 7b: Go To Minyan

This comic, in which R Yitzchak pesters Rav Nachman to come to synagogue, was going to feature R Yitzchak holding a minyan roster with various contemporary amoraim. Sadly the formatting worked out so that only one name appears.

On the plus side, I did work in a video game of bi'ur chametz, inspired by a sugiya in Pesachim I studied early this year, and by my awesome chavruta, whose desire it was to have such a game. She wanted it such that the player would level up through stricter and stricter shitot. I want one of the final levels to be erev Pesach that falls on Shabbat according to Rambam, where you can only dispose of the chametz by eating it, but if you do so too quickly, you explode. There could be a little metre on the side showing your stomach capacity.

I keep wanting to adjust R Yitzchak's head tefillin, but it was so hard for me just to draw it with even the vaguest conformity with euclidean geometry. I cannot draw rotated cubes to save my life and it's kind of the worst.

Working...

Dear readers,

I actually am working at the moment (for once) on another comic - a real one with speech bubbles and almost more than one frame. It illustrates the proper way to guilt a person into coming to minyan.

However, meanwhile,I wrote something about R Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who has previously appeared in this comic. Here it is.

siman: memory ox food wife temple

my memory is a painted tent
my ignorance the corpse beneath it.

how long have I hated you
for never teaching me
waking and eating and working, collapsing
I pulled the plough for miles in circles
until I broke the ox's leg and ran.

was the dirt I swallowed in Jerusalem
black like lepers' gums,
or like the night of immersion?
I thought, at least
I am in the holy city,
at least I can
plug myself up.
on the second day of eating earth I vomited.
the other students complained
and I won the pity of my teacher.
at his burial
I choked down tears, furious
that he never did adopt me.

my wife does not mind
my fear of nakedness.
she says:
when God broke you,
he made you
the right shape for me.

when the temple is rebuilt
I will bring the old childhood ox.
on that day his leg will be whole
his horns crimson
his heavy head golden
his hooves annointed
his chest swollen.
I will lay my hand on his head
so that his throat will be like mine.

pour me out
cut me into my pieces
eviscerate my ignorance
wash it in water
turn it to smoke

I wrap fresh dates for the priests
I clap my hands to my ears
when my brothers curse Jerusalem
I press coins in the hand of the convert
and tell him to buy two doves.
It will be soon, now, very soon.

A Share in the World to Come

A new comic is out!

This one comes not from Masechet Berachot but from Taanit, the reason being that it was done for a Talmud drawings contest which required you to select from a few stories. This was my favourite one.

The story describes how R Beroqa Choza'ah used to go to the shuk (open market) at Bei Lapat, where he would often encounter Eliyahu HaNavi. This time, R Beroqa asked Eliyahu if there was anybody in the shuk who would go straight to Olam HaBa, without having to atone for any sins first. Eliyahu says "no" and then, after further consideration, points out three people.

The first is a man dressed completely like a goy (no tzitzit - and black shoes!!). It turns out the man is a jailor in a non-Jewish prison who conceals his identity in order to protect the female Jewish prisoners from molestation and rape. By acting like a gentile, he also learns of actions planned against the Jewish community, and can warn the rabbis.

Eliyahu then points out two other people. And what makes them so great? They're clowns.

My picture shows the shuk, with R Beroqa and Eliyahu HaNavi sitting and playing shesh-besh at the bottom. R Beroqa is asking "Is there anyone in this shuk who has a share in the World to Come?" Eliyahu is pondering: "Hmmm..."

Translation

It's been a long time since I've posted, and as it might be a week or two before the new comic is ready, I thought I would post my translation of a story in Masechet Taanith (25a). A reader recommended the masechet to me, and it was brilliant advice; I'm only going through the Ain Yaakov at the moment, but would love to do more serious study.

Since one of the primary images in Taanith is rain, please imagine that this takes place during a rainstorm. Two sidenotes: after bloodletting, the patient was supposed to eat a good meal; the Aramaic for "clove of garlic," ברא דתומא, literally means "son of garlic."

R Elazar ben Pedath, it was very hard for him
he went to get his blood let
and he had nothing to eat
he threw a clove of garlic in his mouth
his heart grew weak and he fainted

the rabbis came to ask after him
they saw him crying and smiling
a beam of light shot from his forehead
when he woke up they said to him
what's the reason you're crying and smiling?

he said to them, HaKadosh Baruch Hu
was sitting with me
I said to him, how long will I suffer in this world?
he said to me, Elazar my child, you want
I should restart the world,

so maybe you will be born
in a time of bread?
I said,
all that for only
"maybe”?

I said to him, what's more,
what I've lived or what I will live?
he said, what you've lived.
I said before him, if so,
I don't want it.

he said, because you don't want it,
I will give you thirteen rivers of pure persimmon oil
in the world to come, like the Euphrates and the Tigris
for you to enjoy.
I said to him, what, not more?

he said to me,
then what's left to give to your friends?
I said, I asked for something from someone with nothing?
he flicked me in the forehead with his finger,
he said, Elazar my child, my arrows in you,
my arrows in you.