the yeshiva inbetween
This sefer torah corset is based on a pregnant woman’s shape. In the Talmud in Niddah 30b, the fetus is poetically described as learning torah from an angel in the womb. On exiting, the angel strikes the baby, forming the indent in the upper lip, causing the baby to forget all the knowledge that it once knew. I have always understood this piece from the fetus’ perspective. We are to spend our lives retrieving the knowledge that was once ours. Torah is not a new thing for us, but a retracing of prior learning.
Perhaps it was due to my experiences of pregnancy, but I have revisited this Talmud, thinking about it from the mother’s point of view. Throughout the pregnancy, her body is a place of revelation, a makom torah, a primal beit midrash for the fetus. Its own personal Mount Sinai.
In the Yom Kippur prayers, on Kol Nidrei evening, we mention the Yeshiva Shel Ma’alah, and the Yeshiva Shel Matah – the Upper and Lower Yeshivot. There is a place in-between the upper and the lower worlds – the Yeshiva In-between.
Perhaps it was due to my experiences of pregnancy, but I have revisited this Talmud, thinking about it from the mother’s point of view. Throughout the pregnancy, her body is a place of revelation, a makom torah, a primal beit midrash for the fetus. Its own personal Mount Sinai.
In the Yom Kippur prayers, on Kol Nidrei evening, we mention the Yeshiva Shel Ma’alah, and the Yeshiva Shel Matah – the Upper and Lower Yeshivot. There is a place in-between the upper and the lower worlds – the Yeshiva In-between.
