59 — Vayeishev: On Occupiers' Time for 2500 Years

This week, we ponder creating your own separate traditions before returning to join the Jewish people, visions of angels and holy prosecuting attorneys, and calendars. Plus, some fun bonus stories  of said prosecuting attorney messing with some rabbis.

Full transcript here.

Also, a neat fact that we didn't mention in the episode is that the Orit is the five books of the Torah, plus Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, written in Ge'ez rather than Biblical Hebrew; there's a picture here.  Commedia dell'arte is an Italian theatrical genre popular in the 1400s, wherein the characters are stock caricatures that have the same names even in wildly different works. HaSatan doesn't map onto any of them particularly well, but does feel a little like Arlecchino. The Cheese Man appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer s4ep22, "Restless." The stories of HaSatan come from Job, Kiddushin 81a, Bava Batra 16a, and Rosh Hashanah 16b. You can read Aurora Levins Morales' "V'ahavta" here. Also, here's Debbie Friedman's "Not By Might, Not By Power" and the lyrics to it.

This week's reading was Zechariah 2:14–4:7. Next week's reading is Kings I 3:15–4:1.

Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Lulav Arnow, and our transcript was written by Reuben Shachar Rose. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.