ABSTRACT
While traveling home by bus from my class at the university, I had been looking through an English translation of the Yiddish Tzena Urena, the anthology of biblical commentary thought of as the “women’s Torah.” I was reading a legend in which the moon complains to God that it is the same size as the sun: no bigger and no brighter. The legend pulled me in powerfully, linked, perhaps, to all the moon-sun talk in the Old City. “Let me alone give light!” the moon pleads, and God, who does not ignore whining as a nursery school teacher would, punished the moon for its jealousy. The moon is made smaller and is given brightness only when it reflects the sun. And this works out fortuitously, the legend explains. For if the moon had its own brightness, we would not know how to differentiate night and day and we would be unable to mark the quiet, restful night that was designated for learning Torah.
