L’shanah tovah to all of my readers celebrating the Jewish new year.

May you be inscribed and sealed for a happy, sweet, healthy, and prosperous year!

 לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו

Courtesy of Lennart Lehmhaus:

We would like to draw your attention to and cordially invite you to THREE upcoming events on the topic of ancient and early medieval Jewish medicine.

The Berlin based research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine medical knowledge, run by Markham J. Geller and Philip van der Eijk (AvH-professor, Humboldt University Berlin), will host Dr. Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim as a research fellow in June (20 – 29 June 2016).

Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Goldsmiths, University of London) will present and discuss in various formats (workshops/lecture) her current research into the early history of a medical tradition in Hebrew (Book of Asaf/Sefer Refu’ot) and on the transfer of medical knowledge between East (China/Tibet/Central Asia) and West (Graeco-Roman/ Persian and Arabic traditions).

Tuesday, 21 June (ca. 15:00- 17:30, TOPOI library, ground floor) Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim will host a reading workshop (texts in translation) on the topic “The Hebrew Book of Asaf on Humours and Winds”.

LINK:
<https://www.academia.edu/26247041/Workshop_The_Hebrew_Book_of_Asaf_on_Humours_and_Winds_21_June_2016_FU_Berlin>

Thursday, 23 June (16:30-18:00, TOPOI library), Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim and Lennart Lehmhaus (A03-SFB 980, FU Berlin) will discuss the issue of “Bloodletting between the Talmudim and the Hebrew Book of Asaf” from a comparative perspective (as part of the course “Medizin im Talmud”, but open to all).

LINK:
<https://www.academia.edu/26247206/Reading_Session_Bloodletting_between_the_Talmudim_and_the_Hebrew_Book_of_Asaf_Thursday_23_June_2016_FU_Berlin>

Friday, 24 June (10-12), Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim will present a lecture within the framework of the SFB 980 Jour Fixe on “The Silk-Roads as a model for exploring Eurasian transmissions of medical knowledge”
(SFB-Villa, Schwendenerstr. 8, 14195 Berlin).

LINK:

https://www.academia.edu/26247428/SFB_980_Lecture_The_Silk-Roads_as_a_model_for_exploring_Eurasian_transmissions_of_medical_knowledge._Friday_24_June_2016_SFB_980_FU_Berlin

Everyone is welcome. Due to a limited number of seats,  please RSVP to: info@sfb-episteme.de

The fellowship is generously sponsored by the Collaborative Research Center/ SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period”)

If you’re in the vicinity of London, you’re invited to join Dr. Bernadette Brady as she teaches An Introduction to Egyptian Astronomy on London Study Day, Sophia Centre for the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

During this session, participants will learn about the myth, religion, and civic roles of the sky in ancient Egypt from the time of the Old Kingdom through the Hellenistic period.

Study Day will take place on Saturday, February 6, 2016, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm, at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David London Campus, Winchester House, 11 Cranmer Rd, London SW9 6EJ.

For more information and/or to register, please visit the event web site.

‘Very Large Array With Stars’. Photo credit: Malcolm Park

The history of astronomy intersects with the study of religion in a variety of ways — not least of which being the ways in which astronomers parse and experience the night sky.

In the documentary, Star Men, which premieres September 3rd, 2015 at the 35th Cambridge Film Festival, filmmaker Alison Rose accompanies four English astronomers, Drs. Donald Lynden-Bell, Roger Griffin, Wal Sargent and Neville Woolfon, on a return road trip to the U.S. southwest as they revisit the astronomical adventures and discoveries of their youth, with their Union Jack flag in tow.

As the Star Men web site describes the astronomers’ pilgrimage to their old observing sites:

In old age and facing death, their journey through memory and the breathtaking landscape provokes them to reflect on how their profound work on the universe has reflected back on the individual, affecting their sense of religious faith, how life may have purpose, and what is knowable and unknowable.

Filmed in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the film features POV narration, and draws a character-driven, intimate portrait of friendship as the men travel from the century-old telescope on Mt. Wilson through a progression of larger and more powerful observatories. They pause at the Grand Canyon, and re-take a hike that nearly defeated them when they were young.

As blogger Barbara Kiser points out, although Star Men tells the story of the advances in astronomy taking place place fifty years ago, this film transcends the science itself, highlighting the core themes of aging, illness, death, and ultimately, meaning, set against the starry background of the cosmos. Through the eyes of the film’s subjects, the audience is privileged to explore “the worth of human spaceflight to religion, extra-terrestrial life and mortality.”

Which is, after all, precisely what historians of science and religion are reaching for as well, albeit from a slightly different direction.

“Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty” looks like a marvelous exhibit. An artistic take on the Jewish day, which begins the night before, it runs through September 20 at the CJM, 736 Mission St., San Francisco. More information available at http://www.thecjm.org.

A quote in this Jweekly.com article describing the exhibit, however, caught my eye:

According to Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, senior educator at Lehrhaus Judaica in Berkeley, the rabbis of early times had a deep understanding of astronomy: After all, the Jewish calendar follows the lunar cycle, and called upon Jews “to observe nature and be a part of this world.

“We have a tradition,” Wolf-Prusan notes, “that says, ‘Pay attention. See what’s around you.’ ”

There are certainly a number of rabbinic sources that support this viewpoint; Wolf-Prusan is not wrong, precisely. But in keeping with the old borscht belt adage “two Jews, three opinions,” I’d like to throw my own hat into the ring. While the Jewish calendar is lunisolar (not purely lunar), I would argue that the gradual move toward the fixing of the Jewish calendar (i.e., in place by the ninth-tenth centuries CE) turned rabbinic eyes away from direct celestial observation, not toward it. As per the research of Sacha Stern in ‘Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies’ (2012, Oxford University Press), this move was in keeping with the rise of the era of urbanization and fixed calendars (Stern 336). Aside from the recitation of the rosh hodesh (new month/moon) prayer (usually performed en passant) and the blessing on the sun recited every twenty-eight years (more about which, see here and here) Judaism is no longer focused on the skies. Heaven, yes, but not the heavens.

But here is the key. As is so often the case when analyzing rabbinic sources, particularly the Babylonian Talmud, multivocality reigns. This, combined with doubts cast upon the historicity of certain rabbinic institutions and astronomical-calendrical procedures makes it difficult, if not impossible, to unequivocally state that the rabbis all understood, let alone championed, the observation and study of the cosmos. In my own recent research, I demonstrate this rabbinic multivocality, highlighting views of the natural world on Earth, and perspectives on the heavens, that range from reverence and appreciation to outright scorn toward those who would waste time on any pursuit but the study of Torah.

That said, however, in addition to his own call for Jews to appreciate the natural world, Rabbi Wolf-Prusan also mentions that of the late rabbi and civil rights activist Abraham Joshua Heschel for “‘radical amazement’ — a sense of wonder that is a prerequisite to wisdom and faith.” It is on the contemporary scene that we see the opening of the floodgates of writing and political action — from Heschel’s call to similar calls for the preservation of nature as a “Torah responsibility” by the Rabbinical Council of America (Orthodox), as well as the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements. In addition, the past few decades have brought with them new Earth-based Jewish groups, including Tel Shemesh, The Walking Stick Foundation, the Adamah Fellowship, and Wilderness Torah.

While these are most welcome changes, I leave open the question of whether these were borne of the classical sources themselves or whether they are, in fact, inspired but primarily contemporary shifts toward a more grounded (and cosmos-inspired) spirituality.

Source: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2015-05/considering-heavens

I occasionally link to more confessional, interesting articles that illuminate the ways in which members of different faiths view astronomy. This one, “Considering the Heavens: Astronomer Guy Consolmagno”, is simply fascinating.

Quote:

We need the humility to say that we don’t understand it all. I know my science is true, but I also know it is not completely true, so I have to keep improving it. I think my faith is completely true, but I know I don’t understand all of it—my understanding is in constant need of revision.