What I wish I knew when I had to lead a seder (twice!)

When I was in the military rabbinate in hesder, I had to stay on the base for the first chag of Pesach, and again the year after because by then I was officially a non-combat hesder student and such students have to lead Pesach seders in bases around Israel. As a yeshiva student and as a member of the rabbinate corps, it was drilled into me that we had to come up with inspiring divrei torah that could potentially change the minds of the rest of the seder attendees (most of them non-religious Jews). It wasn't that we were supposed to convince them to do teshuva, it was more that the seder had a potential to be a memorable experience and it was up to us to make it so.

However, what I was not told - perhaps because no one in the largely dati/torani rabbinate corps was aware of this - was that many non-religious/traditional families in Israel conduct the seder in...well, I don't know how to really say this, but perhaps...an old-fashioned way? What I mean is that there aren't deep, convoluted divrei torah/speeches. What many families do is just read the haggadah, sing the songs together, and that's it. The seder is short, but sweet. A good old traditional seder. Sometimes they take turns reading different parts of the haggadah. And they get to the meal fast (!).

That was something I was sadly unaware of for two years in a row. I am a shy person, so naturally even the divrei torah I prepared weren't given over with much charisma (especially the second year, when I was put in a completely different unit just for the first chag). We didn't do much turn-taking during reading. So, sedarim at the army aren't particularly memorable occasions for me.* They were both pretty much flops.

What's the moral? If you're heading off to the rabbinate corps, do some background research on non-religious soldiers. Trust me, it'll be helpful, and not just for Pesach.

*However, I do have a somewhat fond memory of the on-duty base commander the second year, who was a Druze officer. IDF rules dictated that he had to attend the seder even though he wasn't Jewish. Poor guy was so bored he was skimming his phone most of the meal.

Run-down

Run-down of some things going on with me:

1. I made the honor roll. Well, actually I found out a couple of months ago, but received a official letter earlier this week. It's a nice feeling of some accomplishment.

2. I decided that my next writing side-project would be updating a paper I wrote for yeshiva last year on two forms of Arabian avodah Zara that appear in the gemara. So one thing led to another and I discovered what may be a relevant source in Midrash Aggadah, a possibly 12th-13th century midrashic compilation first published by Shlomo Buber in the 19th century. The source states that the form of idolatry Yishmael practiced involved raising a brick and kissing it, and that Hagar did this as well.

Largely until now, only one copy of Midrash Aggadah has been known to the world. However, I lucked out and found what appears to be a second copy of MA on Beresheet. It wasn't a completely original discovery because it was thus noted on the microfilm's catalog card, but the NLI website mistakenly did not call it so.

And then I made another interesting discovery: The Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, also references Yishmael worshiping a brick (but not kissing it)!

That begs the question: Did the Ramak base himself on MA or another source? And where did MA get this idea?

3. I was offered the chance to be an assistant area head once again in our excavations at Tel Tibneh, which is an exciting opportunity. Last year I mooned for only half a season, this time I'll be the entire time (three weeks) (hopefully things will work out with the war and all of that).

4. I'm still trying to make up for last time from when I was in the army, cramming in homework together with a bajillion other things. It's tough.

Huge news!!

Three days ago my paper on Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was accepted for publication!

Technically speaking, this is the second time something I've written has been accepted for publication. The first time was for the NLI's history blog, but then a few days later they changed their minds and it was rejected. But either way, this is the first time one of my academic papers has been accepted for an academic journal. It's very exciting.

I don't know when it'll be published. Probably the upcoming June issue or the one after that, the December issue.

Great news!

Well, no, the war is still ongoing.

But...I received a positive reply from the journal where I sent my paper on Rabbi Elazar ben Arach! They favor accepting it after some revisions. So I have two months now to hand in the new version. This is very exciting.

I heard once that hardly any papers get published immediately, without revisions.

Not good news, but not giving up

A month ago I was encouraged by one of my professors to send in a paper I wrote to another professor in the department. This is a paper that I put in my heart and soul and countless of hours of work over the course of 6-7 months (of course this was on and off as there were excavations and exams and such in-between). I was nervous about contacting this professor because though he's praised some of the school projects I've handed in in the past, he, how shall I say...has a certain mannerism and approach to academia and research. I was not sure he'd be impressed by the paper.

But he told me he'd read it ASAP and would contact me after. A month passed and I didn't hear from him, and I began to realize that something was up. School started this week (finally...) and I met him outside of class yesterday (well, actually, I ambushed him outside of his classroom, but whatever...) and instead of just saying something like "good work", he just asked that we set up a time to meet and discuss things. So we met today during a break period, and things were as I feared. He said what I desperately did not want to hear.

The gist was that though my schoolwork is praiseworthy, my essay was not academically up to par. I'm not dissing the compliment, I know that he meant it. But that's not what I was looking to hear. In his opinion, a paper has to deliver a metaphorical KO on its particular field of research. A paper should grab someone's attention from the start, and should be impressive from the onset. Theoretically, it may have been enough to just rearrange the paper. But it wouldn't have been enough, according to him, because, as the paper deals with a certain manuscript, I never answered the supposedly big question: Why was the text within the manuscript authored?

I have no answer to that. I have thought about this text for months now, but I don't know why it was authored. That aspect remains a mystery. But the paper presents a lot of other ideas tied to the manuscript, as well as a more solid (in my opinion) dating system. But that, in his opinion, is not a KO. It's not reason enough to try to publish this as an essay. It might be useful as a school project, but it's not on the level of a paper. He told me to come back to him (regarding this) once I had an answer to the question. Essentially, he told me to put it on a backburner indefinitely. That was very frustrating to hear. I wasn't insulted, but I am deeply frustrated.

Now, I'm obviously new in the field. I don't feel I have enough knowledge and the right tools to gauge whether what he said is true, or reflective of the majority of papers. I have come across a great number of papers who haven't delivered much of a KO, not really saying anything particularly surprising or new, but for various reasons, they were still published, often in top-tier journals. Obviously he thinks paper should be held to a high standard. But given that there are various types of papers, and not all deliver KOs as he would put it, particularly his definition of what a KO would be regarding this type of text, I wonder whether his criteria is correct.

I would like to get more opinions on the matter. I'm waiting to hear from the first professor on the matter, and maybe I'll reach out to another professor. I'm not prepared to give up so easily. I'm not planning on the moment on holding my ideas back indefinitely. If I hear all-around comments that the paper is not up to grade, I'll probably set it aside. But not just yet.

And more thoughts...

Things have both moved along and regressed. Both slightly.

On the Levitical Cities paper, it was rejected once again by the same journal. This time, though, I got to see what the reviewers thought of it. The first review made me laugh. I read it on a Motzei Shabbat a week and a half ago, at about 12:45 AM. The reviewer opened with claiming that my research did not move research in general forward but, rather, served as "a regression" (his/her words). Perhaps the kindest thing this person wrote was that the question I raised was interesting. What of the various subjects I touched was he referring to- I don't know. He then wrote a long paragraph on all the problems with dating the Levitical City lists from a minimalist-critical perspective. Then he tried to crack a joke at my expense, but the truth is that I also laughed. Because his review was just ridiculous altogether. It latched on the issue of textual dating while utterly ignoring the main portion of my paper, which is the archeology. And so, I was not insulted.

The second reviewer was considerably kinder and even recommended I try handing the paper to an archeology journal (I would, but there aren't much options in Hebrew. But see below). He also touched on the question of the dating, and I had to concede that while I had attempted to circle around the issue, it seems like I should indeed touch upon that question.

The professor who's helping me recommended sending in the yet-again revised paper (which I still haven't finished because I'm waiting for a certain book to arrive) to a journal which he had previously thought wouldn't fit the direction I was going with the paper. Chances are slim, but who knows. If not that one, then there's another, more lower-tier journal. The plus of that journal is that it's an Orthodox journal, so they wouldn't mind a paper that throws some excavation dirt piles in the eyes of critical biblical scholarship...

But if it gets rejected there, then two years of hard work would have basically gone down the drain. That's what really worries me. My professor might tell me to translate it and try to get it published in English, but it'll be a downer for sure. I have a couple of papers, this one included, that I've put in many hours of work; they've become my pride and joy. I would like to see them published in their original language (Hebrew).

In terms of other papers, nothing has moved along so far. One positive thing to say about the paper that rejected me is that other than of course, offering me a second chance to give in the paper, they were pretty quick about the review process. It took awhile for the editor to pass it along, but the reviewers themselves went through it in just a couple of weeks. Not all journals are so fast. My other pride-and-joy paper was sent in just over a month and a half ago with no new info so far, and has now beaten the top three Israeli history journals (these being the first three journals this paper was sent to) in terms of making a decision. The previous record was a month and a half. The other two were a month, and two weeks, if I'm not mistaken.

In other news, the semester has finally started here, but as I only learn on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, tomorrow will be my first day, which is exciting.

Thoughts on publishing academic papers

I've been itchy for a long time to share thoughts that are unrelated to Tanach, the subject of my other, more active blog, Tanach Thoughts.

I debated for a long time whether I should open another blog, until I remembered I still have this one. So, after a few years, here I am once again.

What's on my mind? Well, a lot of things. I mean, there's a war going on here in Israel. But in my private four amot, I'm impatiently waiting for replies from four different journals regarding academic papers I submitted.

One is on the topic of the Levitical Cities. I first handed it in to a certain Israeli journal a little over a year ago. A month later, the editor informed me that the paper was lacking for various reasons, but since I was new to the field, she was giving me the option to fix the issues and resubmit. It took about a year to go through all of the revisions, but I finally gave it in a little over a month ago. But then it took another month until I received the okay from the editor that she was sending it in to be peer reviewed. That's better than last time, to be sure, but who knows how long peer review wl take...

The second one, about the life of Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, was sent to a bunch of different journals. It has been rejected from three journals and is now in the hands of a fourth. It's been a little over a month since submission.

The third one, about Karaites and haskalah, based on an extensively-researches answer I wrote on Mi Yodeya a few years ago, was sent in as an experiment to a minor journal published by a major publishing company. The experiment was to see whether I would be able to get published on my own, without assistance from professors (as was the case with the first two papers). I figured it would be quickly rejected and I would move on to the next journal, but it has been piling dust there for over six months! Only a month and a half ago did its status change to "under review".

The fourth one, which is simply my seminary paper from last year on Jewish Messianic hopelessness in the 3rd-4th centuries CE, was sent in to an Israeli history journal which was created with the goal of publishing seminary papers, to give a leg-up to aspiring young history students. That was sent in some time last summer. I was quickly informed that the paper would only be read by the staff when the semester starts. The semester hasn't started yet.......though it will in a couple of weeks. However, who knows whether the staff are in the army or not, and when they might get around to reading it. Not that I'm optimistic they'll think it's right for the paper. I kind of invented a topic on that one, so the theory is a bit all over the place. I connected sources and situations that otherwise seem to have no relation at all. And it's super long to boot.

The fifth paper has not been submitted yet. It's still a draft. It's a particularly exciting research project regarding a fascinating manuscript that has hardly been studied before. One of my professors read it and thought it was worth publishing. He recommended I hold off with submitting it and try to use this as an opportunity to network, to get to know more experienced scholars. He suggested a number of ways to do this, each involves soliciting advice from more experienced scholars, in different manners. Right now I went with the simplest option, which is to send it to another professor of mine, who I had previously been too shy to ask for help in this. The first professor convinced me the second would be happy to help. And so, he agreed to read the paper as soon as he could. However, I took that to mean a few days at most. But it's been two weeks. Just a bit of a downer.

Anyway, here I am, waiting. I would really like to get something accepted for publication before I finish my degree. It'd be cool in itself, and I'd like to spread my ideas. Right now I needed to get all of these nerves off of my chest.