This morning in shul we had a special second study session because it's Rosh Hodesh Tammuz, the festival of the new moon marking the beginning of the month of Tammuz. We studied passages from Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, a staggeringly rich collection of the exegetical stories known as midrash. We focused on stories relating to the golden calf incident (Exodus 32:1-4)...specifically ones that show the role of women.

One midrash tells us that the Israelite women refused to give up their golden earrings for construction of the idol, and that therefore God gave Rosh Hodesh "as a holiday to women, and in the world to come, too, they will be rewarded for their firm faith in God. For, like the New Moon, they are monthly renewed."

Jeff asked whether any of us perceived a connection between the "monthly renewal" of women and the fact that the women didn't contribute to the making of the golden calf. My answer was, maybe because of our own cycles we know that when the moon seems to disappear, it will always return. Just so, even when God seems to disappear from our lives, we know the Presence will always return. And that's why the Israelite women didn't give up their gold: because they knew Moses' disappearance, and the concomitant apparent disappearance of YHVH, was temporary. That God, like the moon, would return. As God always does.

We also looked at a midrash which tells us that the Israelite women wanted to contribute to the making of the Tabernacle, so they came to Moses with their cloaks and their mirrors. Moses was reluctant to accept the gifts, but the women said, "Why should you reject our gifts? If it's that you don't want to adorn the sanctuary with things we use to enhance our charms, here, have our cloaks, which we use to conceal ourselves. If it's that you don't want anything which might technically belong to our husbands, here, take our mirrors, which are obviously ours alone." Moses balked because the mirrors are tools of sensuality; but God rebuked him, saying, "These mirrors are dearer to Me than other gifts," and explaining in some detail how the mirrors and the sensuality they connote led directly to the growth of the Israelite people. I like the sex-positive message encoded there; and I like that the women brought gifts which reveal and gifts which conceal, a thematic thread connecting the mirrors and the garments. And I like Jeff's observation that in that midrash Moses represents the status quo, the preexisting gendered social order, while God is pointing the way toward an ideal in which women's contributions are valued as much as men's.

Tammuz has some negative associations (Moses smashed the first tablets during Tammuz; sacrifices ceased in the Second Temple during Tammuz; Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem, you guessed it, during Tammuz), so traditional Jews begin a mourning period on 17 Tammuz which culminates on 9 Av next month. Interestingly, those 22 days of mourning are balanced by 22 days of rejoicing between Rosh Hashanah and the end of Sukkot.

Some regard Tammuz as a month of hidden light. Because of the fasting and mourning which traditionally takes place later this month, it's easy to think of Tammuz as a dark month...but in truth, the light is there, just hidden. Like the new moon: only a sliver of light is visible to the naked eye, but the moon's still there. Like God, who may seem absent in world news or in our own lives, but whose light is never gone, only hidden, waiting to shine.