Judy Petsonk's Blog
November 5, 2020
The fun of seeing the pieces come together
November 5, 2020
I’m baaack. With a new stage in life as grandma (“Bubbe”) to a three-year-old, and with a new historical novel, seven years in the brewing, called JUSTICE: MACCABEES AND PHARISEES.
As a grandmother, not being responsible for runny noses and toilet training, I’m able to relish the miraculous unfolding of a mind and a personality. The little boy who at eighteen months pointed to a fire truck and said, “uck!” now pulls out a small toy vehicle, drives it to the end of the table, fits a straw into the gas tank, and says, “the front-end loader needs to have his gas tank refilled, but after that the operator needs to keep working on the construction site until lunch time.”
It’s the coming together of so many abilities, each of them miraculous, that makes grandparent-hood for me such a revelation.
The emergence of a historical novel after much research and many rewrites feels to me like a similar miracle of the coming-together of parts.
In the first century BCE, women were almost invisible in the historical record. Even an extraordinary woman, Queen Salome Alexandra (Shalom-Zion), a Jewish queen who changed the course of the history of the Jews, is barely mentioned. The main account of her reign was written by Josephus Flavius, a Roman-Jewish historian who didn't approve of women gaining power. I wanted to hear the history from a woman's point of view so I had to imagine it in my novel QUEEN OF THE JEWS.
When I finished that first novel, I realized there was another story to be told. In my Hebrew school education, ancient history ended with the Maccabee victory over Antiochus IV, the Macedonian Greek ruler of Syria, when Greek idols were tossed out of the Holy Temple. I hadn't realized that the Maccabee victory was the beginning of a transformation: a turbulent and bloody century in which the Jewish people lost faith in the priests and in the efficacy of animal sacrifices as a way to be right with God. The loyalty of everyday Jews shifted to a group (called Sages by their followers, Pharisees by their enemies) who taught and re-interpreted the teachings of the Bible. That is how we became the People of the Book.
The early rabbis were trying to define a system of justice and a holy way of life. Because women’s sphere of action was almost entirely separate from men’s, we learn almost nothing from traditional sources about how women’s lives were affected by the teachings, the wars, and the shattering of Jerusalem. I decided to write the story of the emergence of the rabbis from the point of view, not of Shimon ben Shetakh, leader of the Pharisee movement, but from the point of view of his wife. For until women's voices are part of the story, the Book will not be complete.
I’m baaack. With a new stage in life as grandma (“Bubbe”) to a three-year-old, and with a new historical novel, seven years in the brewing, called JUSTICE: MACCABEES AND PHARISEES.
As a grandmother, not being responsible for runny noses and toilet training, I’m able to relish the miraculous unfolding of a mind and a personality. The little boy who at eighteen months pointed to a fire truck and said, “uck!” now pulls out a small toy vehicle, drives it to the end of the table, fits a straw into the gas tank, and says, “the front-end loader needs to have his gas tank refilled, but after that the operator needs to keep working on the construction site until lunch time.”
It’s the coming together of so many abilities, each of them miraculous, that makes grandparent-hood for me such a revelation.
The emergence of a historical novel after much research and many rewrites feels to me like a similar miracle of the coming-together of parts.
In the first century BCE, women were almost invisible in the historical record. Even an extraordinary woman, Queen Salome Alexandra (Shalom-Zion), a Jewish queen who changed the course of the history of the Jews, is barely mentioned. The main account of her reign was written by Josephus Flavius, a Roman-Jewish historian who didn't approve of women gaining power. I wanted to hear the history from a woman's point of view so I had to imagine it in my novel QUEEN OF THE JEWS.
When I finished that first novel, I realized there was another story to be told. In my Hebrew school education, ancient history ended with the Maccabee victory over Antiochus IV, the Macedonian Greek ruler of Syria, when Greek idols were tossed out of the Holy Temple. I hadn't realized that the Maccabee victory was the beginning of a transformation: a turbulent and bloody century in which the Jewish people lost faith in the priests and in the efficacy of animal sacrifices as a way to be right with God. The loyalty of everyday Jews shifted to a group (called Sages by their followers, Pharisees by their enemies) who taught and re-interpreted the teachings of the Bible. That is how we became the People of the Book.
The early rabbis were trying to define a system of justice and a holy way of life. Because women’s sphere of action was almost entirely separate from men’s, we learn almost nothing from traditional sources about how women’s lives were affected by the teachings, the wars, and the shattering of Jerusalem. I decided to write the story of the emergence of the rabbis from the point of view, not of Shimon ben Shetakh, leader of the Pharisee movement, but from the point of view of his wife. For until women's voices are part of the story, the Book will not be complete.
May 28, 2014
Women of Spirit
Judy Petsonk shared a link
.
May 26
WOMEN OF SPIRIT
May 26, 2014
Dear Friends,
All the people I love know what a terrible correspondent I am. One of the things I long for and never do is to keep in touch with you at a level of sharing and understanding both what is deepest and what is most ridiculous and shrug-worthy. I have this vision of doing this on my blog at www.judypetsonk.com
– of introducing to each other the women who are the jewels of my experience, the women I trust, admire, do my best to emulate. And having regular long and fresh conversations.
My novel Queen of the Jews came out of that quest to understand how a woman stays strong, joyful, vital – herself! – even though flawed. To uncover the mystery of spiritual and emotional strength and weakness and how they make up the fabric of a person who is able to accomplish worthy things in her life. To continue to grow in joy, humor, self-control and even, dare I say, wisdom, while aging. To treasure each day. To waste fewer hours in fruitless repetitions of what never worked before.
Busy as we all are, I hope you can respond on this blog with brief thoughts and responses. I’d like to sustain a conversation among women of all faiths and none, as begun by some of you so beautifully in the book Chapters of the Heart, edited by Rabbis Sue Levi Elwell and Nancy Fuchs Kreimer (publisher Wipf and Stock). I hope we can build an ongoing conversation, a week or a month at a time, by sharing our spiritual disciplines, our sustaining thoughts, our moments of insight, readings that touched us or made us want to argue, our sense of the ridiculous and sublime. I intend, in my new blog, “Women of Spirit,” to make a place for this conversation on my web-site (www.judypetsonk.com
). I hope we can keep in touch with each other there.
So here’s a contribution from me for May 26, 2014:
One of the disciplines I have found helpful is the omer, the counting of the 50 days between Passover and the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Not that I do it every day, the way you’re supposed to, but every few days I check in at Rabbi Yael Levy’s blog “A Way In,” on the web-site of Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia. https://mishkan.org/omer
. At least on the days I check the blog I am trying to practice the suggested meditation. (Usually while walking: I’m not a great sitter.) I am making a paper chain across my fireplace, one construction paper loop for each of the 50 days, one color for each of the weeks. In this way I am trying to move with open eyes, ears and heart from day to day and week to week, through the expanse of time. Partly paraphrasing Yael’s message today:
“Here we stand, rooted in the mystery. Take time to be aware of the earth on which you walk. Feel the ground under your feet. Take time to re-connect with a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Offer a prayer for the healing and well-being of the natural world.”
You, my friends and family, are my roots. Your love is my sustaining mystery. I’m going to walk now, to think of you, to offer a prayer for your healing and well-being. And for all those who need healing, well-being, roots. With love, Judy
Judy Petsonk.com | "Petsonk does more than tell stories -- she shows readers how to create their own."
judypetsonk.com
.
May 26
WOMEN OF SPIRIT
May 26, 2014
Dear Friends,
All the people I love know what a terrible correspondent I am. One of the things I long for and never do is to keep in touch with you at a level of sharing and understanding both what is deepest and what is most ridiculous and shrug-worthy. I have this vision of doing this on my blog at www.judypetsonk.com
– of introducing to each other the women who are the jewels of my experience, the women I trust, admire, do my best to emulate. And having regular long and fresh conversations.
My novel Queen of the Jews came out of that quest to understand how a woman stays strong, joyful, vital – herself! – even though flawed. To uncover the mystery of spiritual and emotional strength and weakness and how they make up the fabric of a person who is able to accomplish worthy things in her life. To continue to grow in joy, humor, self-control and even, dare I say, wisdom, while aging. To treasure each day. To waste fewer hours in fruitless repetitions of what never worked before.
Busy as we all are, I hope you can respond on this blog with brief thoughts and responses. I’d like to sustain a conversation among women of all faiths and none, as begun by some of you so beautifully in the book Chapters of the Heart, edited by Rabbis Sue Levi Elwell and Nancy Fuchs Kreimer (publisher Wipf and Stock). I hope we can build an ongoing conversation, a week or a month at a time, by sharing our spiritual disciplines, our sustaining thoughts, our moments of insight, readings that touched us or made us want to argue, our sense of the ridiculous and sublime. I intend, in my new blog, “Women of Spirit,” to make a place for this conversation on my web-site (www.judypetsonk.com
). I hope we can keep in touch with each other there.
So here’s a contribution from me for May 26, 2014:
One of the disciplines I have found helpful is the omer, the counting of the 50 days between Passover and the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Not that I do it every day, the way you’re supposed to, but every few days I check in at Rabbi Yael Levy’s blog “A Way In,” on the web-site of Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia. https://mishkan.org/omer
. At least on the days I check the blog I am trying to practice the suggested meditation. (Usually while walking: I’m not a great sitter.) I am making a paper chain across my fireplace, one construction paper loop for each of the 50 days, one color for each of the weeks. In this way I am trying to move with open eyes, ears and heart from day to day and week to week, through the expanse of time. Partly paraphrasing Yael’s message today:
“Here we stand, rooted in the mystery. Take time to be aware of the earth on which you walk. Feel the ground under your feet. Take time to re-connect with a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Offer a prayer for the healing and well-being of the natural world.”
You, my friends and family, are my roots. Your love is my sustaining mystery. I’m going to walk now, to think of you, to offer a prayer for your healing and well-being. And for all those who need healing, well-being, roots. With love, Judy
Judy Petsonk.com | "Petsonk does more than tell stories -- she shows readers how to create their own."
judypetsonk.com
December 23, 2013
This Jewish Queen was not named Esther
I'm Judy Petsonk. I’m the author of Taking Judaism Personally: Creating a Meaningful Spiritual Life, and the co-author, with Jim Remsen, of The Intermarriage Handbook: A Guide for Jews and Christians.
In my new novel, Queen of the Jews, I will introduce you to a real queen — dead, unfortunately — who ruled the independent nation of Judea in the century before Jesus was born. She was a contemporary of three Cleopatras, though not the one you’re thinking of. Though you may never have heard of her, she has had an enormous influence on your life and Western civilization in general. Her chaotic, colorful times may remind you a lot of our own.
In future posts, you'll learn more about the tumult that followed the Maccabee victory that Jews remember in the Hanukkah holiday.
Like Queen Salome Alexandra (Shalom-Zion), the heroine of Queen of the Jews, I am the mother of two young adults, I’ve been married for 30 years, and I’m ‘a woman of a certain age.’ But my husband and children are truly lovable and bear no resemblance to the totally dysfunctional family of Shalom-Zion.
