S1E19: Parashat Secrets

A great episode for bears, chickpeas, angels smacking babies on the mouth, pretending your wife is your sister so the king doesn't kill you, and Chill God vs Angry God.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Put on your CCC Run shirt and pretend your wife is your sister. It's ParaShot Secrets this week on Jew Girl. Hello and welcome to Jew Girl, a New Girl podcast for the Jew Curious, in which I make my brother watch my favorite TV show New Girl for the First Time and learn some stuff about Judaism. My name is Robin.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

My name is Jay. That's me writing Jay onto the invisible whiteboard behind me. Or maybe a maybe a chalkboard, right? But I I figure I can't do chalk noises.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

The whiteboard is a lot easier. Actually, I like those chalk noises. That's satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Hopefully, it came across on the mic. Because that leads into one of my favorite jokes in this episode, which is Schmidt pretending to write his name on a chalkboard when he's like gonna school them.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I love that. I love that moment so much. It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Alright, well, let's just uh I'm gonna jump into the recap so that we can get to talking about all our favorite parts after that, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So, a few days after discovering Schmidt and Cece's secret relationship last episode, Winston can't keep the secret any longer and spills the beans to Nick, who then immediately spills the beans to Jess. Jess is really upset with both Schmidt and Cece for hiding it from her and generally upset with living in a house of lies. So at one point she starts revealing everyone else's secrets that she's been keeping, but she immediately regrets that when they reveal another secret, which is that they've all thought about her sexually before, which leads her to dress in a ski mask and winter jacket for a while, if that happens. Anyway, we learn Cece hid it from Jess because Jess is pretty judgy about Cece's choices. So they're still in a bit of a fight when they show up for the 10K that by the way they're running together. The guys are cheering them on from the sidelines, and Schmidt has a C CC run shirt on. And when Jess sees it and learns that Cece let him wear it because she thought it was funny, Jess realizes Cece actually likes Schmidt, and that's why she kept it a secret. And they talk about it and they reconcile, but Cece swears Jess to secrecy, which is in fact warranted because turns out Schmidt likes that his thing with Cece is purely sexual and actually finds it a turn off that it's out in the open now. Question mark. Meanwhile, Nick is having his own secret-related plot line because he is juggling a bunch of those college girls all at once, but trying to keep them from finding out about the others and not doing a great job. Self-loathingly, he turns to Schmidt for douchebag lessons on how to hide these girls from one another. But a couple of the girls find him out anyway, and they all start like brawling in the apartment until Winston, who's just trying to get some sleep, breaks it up by pretending to be Nick's lover Theodore K. Mullins and scaring the girls out with his righteous wrath. Great scene. Uh it's a great moment for Winston, who I think is really coming into his own as a character personally. But anyway, Nick also runs into a couple of his girls at the 10K who are angry until he makes up a couple of skillful douchebag lies to placate them. And that's sort of the end of that. I guess moral of the story, it's good to be a douchebag. I don't really know, but let's pass around the feeling shtick.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

How do you feel about this episode? What'd you like? What'd you not like? What's going on?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, Nick really doesn't learn a lesson at the end of this episode to not be a douchebag. Um no, he doesn't. So that's that's unfortunate. I was really sad when Schmidt really started hammering home that they're just sleeping together and and it's nothing romantic towards the end of the episode. And I was like, oh, okay, that's gonna be a big issue in coming episodes. Maybe only for one episode, though, because I'm shocked that they spilled the beans on the secret in the very next episode to everyone. I thought they were gonna hold on to this for a little bit and keep that tension, but nope, immediately in the episode, all of it is divulged, which was wild. I also agree that Winston had one of the best scenes in this whole episode when he is pretending to be Nick's lover. Thought that was very clever to get those girls to also stop fighting and like kind of bond together, and like one gives the other a drive home, right? Like a ride. And then I love that he like immediately snaps off that persona as soon as they step through the door. It's so good. I also really liked that at the end of the episode we had all the guys holding up the finish line as it's like deflating on top of them. It was very reminiscent of what the guys were doing for Jess at the end of every episode in like that first handful of episodes, right? Where like they would they would come together to stand by Jess or like help her out, or you know, yeah, embarrass themselves to help her.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Prove to themselves like we are one big family now.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Exactly. Exactly. And so I I really liked that. In terms of just favorite moments beyond Winston, Schmidt pretending to write his name on the invisible whiteboard, of course, or chalkboard. I love when Jess walks in and Nick and Schmidt are laying on the bed together, and she says, Is this happening too?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Oh man, I totally missed that.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

That's a good very good. And then I also like that when we find out that all of them have thought about Jess sexually before, Schmidt just says, I was just thinking about bangs and your face appeared under them. Going back to the idea that Zoe De Chanel, or at least Jess in this show, is like the epitome of person that has bangs.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Personally, the platonic ideal of bangs having person.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

So how about you? I love how about some love for my absolute favorite character who was introduced to this episode that you probably don't even remember because it's just at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

It is Nadia, one of Cece's Russian model roommates.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

One of them named Nadia. She's the one that, you know, spoilers, says, Jew in couch, Jew in couch. And they're like, Nadia, American manners, Jew person in couch. Um, but she's my favorite character. She comes back a few times. She's the best. I love her so much. But I also love the other model when Cece's making an excuse about why she can't go out, and she's like, she accidentally ate a cookie because she fell on it. And their model's like, I am devastated.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

She ate a cookie because she fell on it. I just love that idea.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Anyway, I also love when Nick is scrambling when he's like, maybe she had a guy over. I didn't say anything. If you think about what I said, I didn't say anything. He's he's just so bad at keeping Cece.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

It makes me laugh. Yeah, I really like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Since we were talking about Winston's speech, though, I'm gonna hop to my trivia real fast because that speech was basically improvised. The people just told Winston, like, go off, do your thing. It had like one line saying that he was Theodore K. Mullins, Nick's lover on the down low, and then they wanted him to just start riffing off that and not stop. Uh, so apparently you can see Schmidt break and laugh at one point. I didn't check for that after I read this, but I believe it. But they eventually sent all the rest of the actors home and just let Winston keep going and trying as much stuff as he wanted. And apparently, Lamarne Morris, who plays Winston, he said that was good for him because Nick always makes him laugh with his reactions. So it was good that Nick was not there to, you know, make him laugh at Theodore K. Mullen's. But in an interview with the AV club, Winston, Lamar Morris, he is like, yeah, Theodore K. Mullen's rant is the one. He feels like Winston arrived after a lot of character experimentation and development.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

It's so nice.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Isn't that really nice? It's so good. And this is like definitely the trajectory that Winston goes on. Like he's it's so funny, there's a little bit of weirdness, but also a little bit of realness, you know?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So good. Having that duality of embarrassing himself for the greater good and then immediately snapping into like serious mode.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

But how about any coins that drop in the douchebag Tadako box this week?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Let's empty out the whole coin jar that I have on the shelf downstairs. Let's just pour all those coins in because I I feel like I couldn't couldn't keep up with writing notes for this. I'm just gonna rattle off a lot of a lot of things real quick.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, rattle some off.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Douchebag. Winston for not keeping the secret and divulging it to everyone at the beginning. Come on, Winston. CC and Schmidt for doing it in Jess's room. Come on, have some respect for your roommates. That girl that Nick is sleeping with who says, I don't even remember who she's talking about. Oh yeah. She says, she's Asian, but she's the nicest.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yep, I wrote that one down.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Like, whoa. Yep. And then Nick asks to be taught to be a douchebag. So I'm gonna say that Nick is a douchebag for wanting to become one.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Accurate.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Schmidt, douchebag. He says, let's not fight, at least not with our shirts on, to Jess and Cece. Like, come on, Schmidt.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

But it's very Schmidt of him to say that.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And then Jess for throwing a punch into Schmidt. Douchebag.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Douchebag for physical violence.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Douchebag. Fair. Fair.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

How about you? You have any I missed?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I had a lot of those. I also had Schmidt saying, I'm having Indian every night. Thumbs down, Schmidt. Don't love that. Also, uh him calling Cece a Hindu temple. And then he's like, Because she's Indian? Okay, Schmidt, we get it. And then also, Schmidt, I think this is Schmidt saying, a winter hat, this is to Jess, a winter hat is not gonna stop us thinking about you from time to time when we delight ourselves. I was just like, So clink, clink, clink, coins, coins for that in the douchebag Tadaka box, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Clink, clink, clink.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I also did have one other piece of trivia that wasn't Theodore K. Mullins related, but it is a throwback to episode two, I believe. Remember way back in episode two when Schmidt pulls out his Lost and Found box to offer Jess some clothes because she's running out of clothes or whatever? He pulls out an I am Claire shirt. It's just like a bright yellow, I think, bright yellow shirt with the red words I am Claire or something like that. We get a flashback to Schmidt making out with Claire. She's wearing the I am Claire shirt as they're making out. So that's fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Oh wow. Did you just did you know that? Did you catch that or did you read that online?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

I caught it.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I saw the shirt this time and I was like, oh my gosh, it's the I am Claire shirt. And if you're wondering, yes, you can buy an I am Claire shirt online, but I will not because the colors are not flattering for me. But it's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Hey, what a testament to your eagle-eye viewership of this show.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Thank you. I, you know, this is the 400th time I'm watching it, so things are bound to stick eventually.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Well, let's move on to observant Jews. Jay! How observant were we this episode? Did we find any Jewish content or any bears?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yes. The most bears, I think.

unknown 11:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

It was a bear-heavy episode, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Bear with me now. Oh. Here, number one, Nick. He shouts bears as an excuse for what happened to his phone after he threw it against the wall and smashed it to pieces. He's being quizzed, like, hey, why don't you have your phone, right? Like in a test, and he just starts rattling off another good list of jokes. And of course, one of them is just bears. It's a such a good list. Do you want the list? I wrote it all down. I was hoping you would. I almost did, but I was like, I bet Robin will. I did, I did, because it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Jesus took it. A Jesus hawk on a speedboat. The environment.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Bears. Family. Magic.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

So good.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Continue.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Alright. Second bear. Elijah, the fridge bear, as always. Of course. We have some really straight-on shots with uh Cece and Just in the kitchen, and we see Elijah.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

And then third, at least that I caught, there's a bear in Nick's room, a magic bear, when other girls shows up. Yes, that's right. Oh wait, let me rephrase that. I said I just read my note for Vatum and it made absolutely no sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

There's an actual, actual magic bear in Nick's room.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah. Uh so Nick has this girl storm in looking for, I think, her scarf.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And she hears another girl who's in Nick's room that he's trying to hide from her. Right. And so he's like, what? No, you know, there's nothing over there. There's a magic bear in my room.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

That's all it is. It's just a magic bear. Great bear. Great episode for bears. How about for Jewish stuff? I guess I've already I already spilled the beans on the one Jewish joke I found.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

You already spilled the Jews on the on the joke.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

On the couch. I spilled the Jews into the couch, just like Cece did to hide Schmidt in the beginning. Jew in the couch, Jew in the couch while she claps. Nadia, American manners. And then she goes, I'm I sorry. Jew person in couch. And then Schmidt goes, She's not wrong.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

That's the best part. Schmidt's like, not wrong. Do we think that Schmidt and Cece were having like an orgy with the other two models? Oh wow. Because I was shocked when Schmidt came out of the couch.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

That's a great point. Why is he in the living room with all of them there? That's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Right? And he's like shirtless. And but I'm also confused because was Nadia surprised? Was he also hiding from them?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

No, I think they were all in on it. And she was just excited about having to hide the Jew in the couch.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

She was just getting a kick out of the whole thing, I think. Because they were making up the thing about the cookie, you know, they were helping cover for them. Right. Um, maybe they were in the living room and then she called the models in to be the alibi as Schmidt hid in the couch. I don't know. That's a great never considered the question before. Great question.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Maybe. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Who can say? Well are you interested in a schmid bit?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yes. Just a just a schmidge. Oh schmidge.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

I see. I see what you're doing there.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, this schmidbit, of course, as all our dear listeners know, the schmidbit is a segment in which I take something that Schmidt said or did this episode, however small, and I turn it a little bigger by saying, here's something Jewish about it. And this week we're talking about the end of the episode when they are all cooking together, and Cece is cutting up basil, and he accuses her of shoddy workmanship and says, I'm taking you off prep. Go clean the garbanzo beans. We're talking about garbanzo beans. We're talking about chickpeas. Hey, chickpeas. Yeah, yeah, schmidbee. So archaeology, going way back here, archaeology suggests that they are one of the earliest cultivated legumes. Did you know that? Oh, wow. One of the founder crops that helped kickstart agriculture and like human civilization as we know it. So it probably started being domesticated in Turkey and Syria around 10,000 years ago. Soon happening all over the Middle East, the whole Mediterranean world, Greece, Egypt, also across India, as far south as Ethiopia, all by the Iron Age. So it's going on. So ancient Israelites ate them. They are arguably mentioned once in the Torah and again in the Talmud. And of course, they continue to be a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine today, a huge part of Muslim culture, but also Jewish culture, particularly Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish cuisine, those being, of course, the populations of Jews who lived in Arab countries, Middle Eastern countries, and also Andalusia, you know, in Spain and Portugal. So that's how we come to find all these Jews eating hummus and falafel and stuff like that. Apparently, even though we associate Jewish chickpeas, chickpeas within Jewish cuisine, with Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, there is also like one traditional Ashkenazi chickpea dish. Because I guess, you know, chickpeas did travel, I guess. So it's called Ar Ar Arbis. I don't know. I forgot to look up how you pronounce it. But it's literally just boiled chickpeas, seasoned and eaten with your hands. Incredible. So real creative Ashkenazi.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Nothing more European than just boiling the food, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Boiling chickpeas, putting a little salt on it, calling it a day.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Um, people say it's good. Have not tried it myself. Kind of want to now. I mean, I like eating things with my hands, I guess. But anyway, anyway. This is okay, here we go. Speaking of this dish and the Ashkenazim here, apparently it is a big thing to serve chickpeas, this chickpea dish, and beer at a certain celebration for baby boys. Okay, it was such a wild ride googling chickpeas and Judaism to see if there was anything there. Because the first result is like a chabad article called Why Chickpeas and Beer at a Shalom Zahar, which means nothing. It's that's I was like, what is this? Because I had actually never heard of a shalom Zahar. So I guess when a baby boy is born, I mean, you know, boy, because we're talking about the Orthodox world to patriarchy. Boys get some special stuff, exactly. The patriarchy is is going strong over there. But uh, when a baby boy is born, there is a custom to throw a little party called uh shalom zahar, which I guess is like welcoming the male is what that means, right? M-A-L-E, not like mail time. And it happens on the first, the first Friday night.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

I want a blues clues. It's mail time, but for uh I don't know the name of the ceremony you just said, but for that.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

The shalom Zahar. Yeah, and it's like mail time spelled M-A-L-E. Oh, that's funny. I'm gonna I could make some posters and sell it to my dear orthodox friends.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

That's a great idea. Anyways, you were saying because it's a kid's thing too. Um anyway, so first Friday night after the baby's born, and they always serve chickpeas. Because are you ready for this logical leap question mark? Chickpeas are eaten by mourners. By when somebody dies. Eaten by mourners.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Are they mourning the foreskin?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

That's a good guess. Why are they eaten by mourners? I guess is one question, firstly. Um, because they are round and thus symbolize life, the circle of life.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

And also be wait. Go ahead. Can I make a second guess or should you finish with your and also?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Oh, please, by all means, Jay, tell me why you think they eat mourning food at this, because you will never get it ever. I mean, you might get one, you might get one of the explanations. You will absolutely never get the culmination of explanations. So, but please go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I was gonna say maybe they're mourning the father of the child because now that he has an heir, one day he will grow old and be replaced and is and will no longer be the man that is important in this patriarchy.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

God, what a bummer of an idea. Yeah, I mean that I like that and how depressing it is, but no, thankfully we're not just replacing the father here, poor father. No, no, no. It is because oh wait, here's one other explanation that mourners eat it before I move on. This one doesn't make any sense. The round shape has no mouth, no opening. This is nonsense. And in a sense, a mourner also has no mouth to speak in the midst of grief. I just wanted to share that because it's nonsense. It's funny. I kind of like it. Interesting in like a nonsense way.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

There's also like an indented ridge, if I'm not mistaken though.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

That you could like looks like a mouth.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It kind of looks like it could be in the mouth.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Looks pretty closely to a mouth, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

If you hand someone a chickpea and say, is there a mouth? They're gonna ascribe a mouth, prescribe a mouth to that line there.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

They absolutely are. That's you're right, actually. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

But it's not a mouth. You're right. It's literally not a mouth. I guess it's not a mouth. It can't talk.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

All right, so yes, why are we serving deaf food? You've placed your bet uh on the father thing. Well, there are a couple of interpretations, and maybe yours is just as valid. Maybe you should start circulating yours too. But one, this is the normal one, is that the baby is in mourning because it's bummed out that it's entering a world with so much negativity and bad stuff going on. Oh, depressing. Okay. The other explanation, Jay, and this is where it takes you on a wild ride here. Okay, there is a Talmudic teaching. Stay with me. A Talmudic teaching that says that while a child is in the womb, an angel teaches it the entire Torah. But right when it's born, the angel comes down and strikes the baby on the mouth. And that, for some reason, causes the baby to forget everything it learned about Torah. So the baby. Is mourning because he's lost all his Torah learning, and people are there to console him because the angel struck him on the mouth after teaching him the whole thing. So that's yeah, that's garbanzo beans. I bet in a conversation about chickpeas, you did not expect fetuses learning Torah and getting smacked in the mouth by angels, did you?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

That's so sad. Why even why even create the the theology that the baby in utero is being taught all of the Torah? Like what is there a a reason that we know today as to why they would you know I'd have to look it up.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

I have I mean it is kind of a cool idea. It's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I think you mean a huge bummer.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Well, yeah, the ending of it, for sure. For sure. The smacking on the mouth to forget it all. For sure. But it's interesting, you know, they're probably like, well, what the what's that thing doing in there for so long? It's just stewing. What's it doing? And they're like, well, must be learning Torah. That's what we'd be doing if we were sitting around for nine months, you know, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Maybe that's what they they tell the other kids, you know. They're like, why? Like, I'm gonna have a brother or a sister, but like when? Like, why is it taking so long? It's like, oh, we gotta keep learning Torah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Gotta learn the whole thing first. That's okay. I like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

We're just making up reasons, listeners. These are not actual.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

None of this. No, no, no. Disclaimer, disclaimer. Also, I'm not a Judaism expert to begin with. And this, all of this here, we're just riffing. So, you know, nonsense upon nonsense here. Just keep that all in mind. But crazy stuff. I mean, fun. I kind of like, I like the whole, you know, it's kind of cool to attribute wisdom to babies, right? Except for how they lost it all when they actually swap out. So that's that's a bummer. But I don't know. It's kind of fun. It's kind of a fun little thing. A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. Well, now for something a little bigger than a chickpea. Bigger than a schmid bit. How about a little drosh?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Drosh, drosh, drosh, drosh, drosh. You know, I really thought that your chickpea thing was gonna be about hummus.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned it in passing.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Hummus and falafel, right? Those are sort of big in in Middle Eastern Jewish cuisine.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

So I did not know that hummus was made from chickpeas until I was probably like 19 years old.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Are you joking?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Who did you think it was? Never thought about it. Never, never passed through my brain to think, hey, what's that made of? Just hey, that tastes good. Do you like hummus? Did you eat it? Oh yeah. I would put it on on an onion bagel. Just uncooked onion bagel. Put some hummus on top. Ugh, that was like one of my favorite summer snacks growing up.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

And and you know, like carrots and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yes, of course. Um, my friend gave me a hot tip. If you put hummus on a hard-boiled egg, if you like cut a hard-boiled egg in half, put some hummus on it, it's kind of like uh it kind of imitates, gives you the sense of a deviled egg.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Ooh. If you like deviled eggs. I do.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

That's good. Yeah. Anyway, chickpeas. Chickpeas. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Back to that drosh. Little tiny chickpea, huge drosh.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

That's what it is. There we go. Today's theme for this Drosh is hiding relationships. Okay. So the two plots in this episode both revolve around relationships being hidden. Being kept a secret. Maybe it is generous to call them relationships. Okay. It is physical relationships, obviously. But we've got Schmidt's physical relationship with Cece, being kept a secret, being hidden. And then also Nick's relationships, physical relationships, with a string of different college girls, all of whom he is trying to keep hidden from all the others. And in fact, he recruits Schmidt to mentor him in keeping relationships secret from other girls. Well, guess what? There is a motif in Genesis all about keeping relationships secret. And what's interesting, probably more interesting than the actual stories themselves, is that the existence of the motif gives a clue into how the Torah was written or compiled. So I'm going to tell you about these secret-keeping husbands and wives, but I'm also going to use that as an excuse to tell you all about the history of the building of the Torah.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So in the book of Genesis, there are three suspiciously similar stories about a Jewish patriarch traveling to a foreign land with his wife, worrying that the local king is going to find the wife so beautiful that the king will kill the patriarch and take the wife for himself. And so the patriarch is like, hey, wife, pretend you're my sister instead. And that way the king won't kill me. And in each of these stories, the ruler does take in the wife or is interested in the wife, and then God intervenes, and then the truth comes out. And also they all always get rich a little bit out of this somehow. So two of the stories are about Abraham and Sarah, the OG patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish people, ultimately. So story one, briefly, story one, Abraham and Sarah, who are actually still called Abram and Sarai at this point. They get name changed by God. It's not important. Every time you got to remember a part that's going to show up again, okay? Okay. They go to Egypt, ding, ding, ding, to escape a famine, ding ding. And Abraham is afraid that Pharaoh will kill him to take Sarah. So he tells her to say their siblings. Ding ding ding. Pharaoh does indeed take her without killing Abraham, obviously. But God sends some plagues upon Pharaoh. Classic God sending plagues on Pharaoh. Am I right? Classic God. So Pharaoh finds out the truth. And then somehow Abraham ends up rich. Ding ding ding. Okay? Story two. Abraham and Sarah again are moving to a place called Gerar this time, new place, Gerar. And Abraham tells King Abimelech, different king here, that Sarah is his sister. Ding ding. That's similar. This time after the king takes her, God comes to the king in a dream and warns him not to touch Sarah. And once again, the king makes Abraham rich. And also, by the way, because of sheep in a well and an oath, the story ends up as an explanation about how the city of Beersheba got its name. Ding ding-ding. Remember that one too, okay? Because the next one is also going to be about Beersheba getting its name.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

I'm really shocked that the second story was also Abraham and Sarah. They're just playing the same playbook wherever they move. They have shit luck with uh places that they move to.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah, maybe stop picking places with kings that are interested in women that I mean, maybe that was in the ancient world. Maybe that was just the thing. Everyone's passing their wives around. Wild.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Uh story three. This time we have Abraham's son, Isaac, and his wife, Rebecca. And they go to Gerar, ding ding, ding, from that second story. All right. They're going to the same place. And they go during a famine, ding ding from the first story. That was a famine in the first story. And Isaac tells the locals that Rebecca is his sister, so that nobody kills him to take her. But I get also why you have to kill the man. Just take the wife. If you're like an old timey king, like rah, I want your wife. You can just take the wife. I mean, you can't, but like, you don't also have to be killing everybody to do, you know, do the one bad thing, but like two wrongs don't make a right here.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

I really just want to emphasize how much I hate that we're just abridging all of this to the word take. You know what I mean? Just like it's so uh uh the ancient world. I know if it was anything like the story, say messed up, man.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Messed up, messed up, messed up. And like, and I think it's not forcibly in the story. Well, I mean, it is forcibly, right? But there's also this element of like it's a political pawn, you know, where he's like, hello, please let me come into your land. Here, take my beautiful sister, you know what I mean? Like, I'm no threat to you, she's just my hot sister. Of course, she can join your harem if you want her, and so that you give me shelter. I don't really know the politics of the day, but it could have been something like that. Not that that makes it any better than just like yoinking her up, right? Not any better. But anyway, so this is Isaac and Rebecca. So, okay, so again, Isaac doesn't get killed because he pretends that his wife is a sister. But I guess before King Abimelech, ding ding him again, actually takes her for himself. This time, he looks out a window and he sees Isaac and Rebecca hooking up and is like, bro, you said she was your sister. Um, but Isaac also somehow gets rich while living in Gerar, and eventually this also becomes a tale about how Beersheba got its name with Shepherds and Wells and an oath. Ding ding d-ding ding. Two stories explaining Beersheba.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

So it gets its name a second time? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

That's exactly right. Yes, which makes no sense.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

And at no point did anyone in a high-up position at the temple or a rabbi or someone think like, hey, you know, these are clearly just like the same story, and someone just mistold them a few different ways. Like, let's just like choose the one we like the best.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Well, I'm glad you're thinking these thoughts, Jay, because that leads us to the rest of what I want to say about it. So, yes, the plots, super similar, which would be kind of weird if one person had sat down and wrote out the whole Torah themselves, which by the way is what the very traditional Orthodox supposition is, is that Moses wrote the whole thing down. But modern scholarship, of course, does not think that. And so stories like this, that are basically repeats of each other with slight differences, are held up as clear signs that the narratives were patched together from multiple different, often competing sources. Um, so there are a few big academic theories about it. One of the biggest ones, or at least one that was the biggest for a while, is called the Documentary Hypothesis. And it posits that there were probably four or maybe three independent texts written by different people at different times, and then an editor or a redactor who basically chopped them up, like maybe even literally chopping up parchment, I don't know, but you know, copied and pasted and ordered them into one long narrative as chronologically as he could. Other scholars have recently explored slightly different configurations of who wrote what and when and why and how they all came together into one compilation. But the point is that the book we have today, which we still may call the book, the five books of Moses, it's really a patchwork from multiple different authors. And this is where it gets interesting. The different authors were likely writing from different places, for one thing, because specifically some of the stories seem to emphasize either the ancient kingdom of Judah or the ancient kingdom of Israel, which were two like rival neighboring kingdoms for a long time. Okay, so some of them clearly have a bias one way or another, and you can see that in the stories.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

They also sometimes appear to have had different motives. So, for example, there's one of the sources is often thought to be a priestly source, possibly written by a priest or priests in the Second Temple period, because its writing, all the all the sections that people attribute to this source, really plays up the importance of the cultic rituals that happen in the temple, the priestly caste and all the things that only priests can do and the things priests need to do. So, you know, anytime the book is like, yeah, and priests are really super important. Am I right? They're like, all right, so this is the priestly source. And this is the most interesting to me. The different authors may have even been depicting entirely different gods originally that were worshipped by different tribes. So I mentioned the two neighboring kingdoms, right? So in the northern kingdom of Israel, they seem to have worshipped a god called El E L, which is where we get Elohim. That's sort of where that comes from. Okay. And this L character, every time we're talking about God with L or Elohim as the language, you know, the name for God in these stories, L's a little more chill. He's kind of calmer. He's like more abstract and ethereal. He like talks to people through dreams and other sort of intermediary, low-key kind of communication.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

People would say, L. Oh, him. L. Oh, him. I got it. I got it right away.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

That was good.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so Israelite L God, chill. Chill dude.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Chill. Mm-hmm. And then we go south to the kingdom of Judah. And in Judah, apparently they're worshiping a god with the Yudhe Vavhe name that we talked so much about. The name, you know? Who is portrayed as more anthropomorphic for one thing, feistier, angrier. Uh, he's like a warrior who demands loyalty, and he communicates more directly and also more dramatically, like appearing in burning bushes and pillars of fire and smoke, you know? So a different vibe, for sure. Different vibe. So some of the sources that the documentary hypothesis posits, one of them is called the Elohist for like Elohim. Like these are the stories that use Elohim as the name for God. And then the other one is like Jawist or Yawist. They call it J, though, for they just give all the sources letters, but whatever. Sure. It's because it uses the Yudhe Vavhe name when it's talking about God. So you can kind of maybe pimp. I mean, people actually dispute, like, well, maybe the Elohim one isn't flim that's too flimsy to say that it's a whole source of its own. Whatever. The idea is that certain stories use different names of gods. So this sort of contributes to the idea that people from the north at one point, I mean, this is this is a thing that happened in ancient history, as far as we can tell, right? People in the northern kingdom had to flee to the southern kingdom when the Assyrian Empire conquered them. So the populations of these two kingdoms, sort of like sister kingdoms, you know, they were suddenly thrust together. And to create, intentionally create a cohesive national identity and like smooth the cultural clashes that were happening because you had these former rivals, now one population. The priests and the storytellers and whoever it was started patching together the different people group stories into one narrative so that they could say, Hey, guess what? We actually all worship the same god after all. Just the same god, just with different names. Like Yude Babe, that's sort of like the secret name for yours too. It's all the same. And it's, you know, to your point about like, well, why did nobody sit down and say maybe we should just take out one of these or something like that? There's this thought that, you know, you don't want to offend one group by getting rid of their version of the story. You sort of want to appease everybody. You're you're trying to smooth the cultural differences, make everybody one group, and so you're like, oh, we'll just keep both. Or maybe people will think it happened a few times and everyone's happy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Like, oh, these people think Isaac was the one who had to pretend to be the brother, and these people think Abraham had to pretend to be the brother. So let's just mash them together and put it all in there.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

It all happened, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

God was just running around having to like put out so many fires about like, hey, nope, nope, that's she's married. She's married king. Like, stop, chill. That's right. That's right. Just back at it. Another day, another day, as God. Another day, another wife pretending to be a sister.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Uh there is also like one person online, one scholar, I guess, is like, well, maybe also in the ancient world, that was like a like a trope. You know, like we have romantic comedy devices or like a meat cute or whatever. Maybe they were like, well, maybe in the ancient world, like the whole passing your wife off as a sister to appease the king was like a thing that people understood. And so it's just like framing different stories. I don't know if that's I, you know, I think that was like one guy. Sure. One scholar being like, well, maybe, I don't know. But, you know, if anybody finds any of this stuff interesting, which obviously I do, because I think it's really interesting to think about like the actual historical context in which people were, you know, working with these stories and the motives behind how they were put into writing and stuff. Um, there's a really interesting book called Who Wrote the Bible. It digs into the documentary hypothesis specifically, even though, you know, like I said, some scholars have sort of branched away from the exact formula of that particular hypothesis, but it, you know, it's all similar and it's just a cool introduction that um it helps you see the text as like a product of different communities, different priorities and beliefs, and then like the effort to unify all their stories into something more cohesive so that they can be like a more cohesive nation now. And it goes through all the cool, like repeating stories that have slightly confusing variations, which by the way includes the creation myth. There are multiple contradictory versions of the creation myth, like right there.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Really? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yeah, yeah. Also, this one blew my mind what exactly the Ten Commandments in the Ten Commandments are. There's like slightly different lists when you are getting that story different times. And the flood story. That's another one that has, you know, the same story multiple times with slight variations. So slight but significant variations where you're like, wait, well, whatever, one of these, and this doesn't add up. They can't both be true, you know, so it's clearly like two different populations. So, anyway, scholars, by the way, call all these parallel accounts doublets. Okay. Or in the case of the three sister wife stories, a triplet. And obviously it goes without saying that originally all of these tales were oral, oral tradition. Like every ancient culture, all the stories were passed down via oral tradition, which is how you get these shifting versions of the same stories evolving over time in the first place. So, anyway, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband, hide your college girl hookups.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Hide your hide your Jew in the couch.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Hide your Jew in the couch. That's right. And yeah, back to the episode. I think you raise a good point about women because I think you know, the women are completely silenced in these biblical narratives. We like don't hear from the women at all on how they feel about being passed off to the king for political expediency. Like, yeah, they're not given a voice. And I think that is one thing that is similar between these stories and the episode. The women are basically silenced, I think, or at least they're treated as disposable, like they are in the biblical stories. Because I mean, in Nick's case, they're definitely disposable, right? Even with Schmidt, actually, like since now he apparently likes their uh relationship less because it's not a secret, like he's almost willing to dispense with it now. I don't know. Like, also his whole thing about that, he's what he says at the end, he puts Cece in a position where she has to keep her real thoughts to herself now. So she's like kind of being silenced in that way. I don't know. Moral of the story, the women are really getting the short end of the stick in all of these stories, including the episode, I think. Which is also ironic. Where did Schmidt? How did he move to be the one in power? Cece had all the power in the relationship. He hated it. He hated that she wanted to keep a secret. How did this turn? How is now he the one with the power? Why is he the one that's like, oh, now that it's not secret, it's not as sexy.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

What? I don't know. I think she powered her way into him having an attitude that was actually contrary to what she really wanted, right? Because she was very much like a ew gross, never gonna happen, Schmidt. I'm just using you for your body. And it happened long enough and was reiterated enough that he's like, okay, yeah, you're right. I guess that's the situation. And yeah, it's almost almost, even if he did have feelings before, it's almost like he has to keep up the guise of like, oh, this is just sex and nothing more.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Uh, in order to keep that going, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Yeah, it's like a defense mechanism almost because it's like, all right, well, I'm not gonna get attached because you've made it so clear. So yeah, of course, this is what I think of the relationship. And because I know you do too, right? Like, yeah. Good point. Now I don't feel bad for CeC, do I? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I think I do a little bit because maybe I mean it was a defense mechanism on some level, her being in denial about liking him at first, right? But also the power switch, like you're saying, like when did that power switch happen? It only happened inside of her.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

True, true, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Only and us as the audience knowing what she feels inside.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Right. Yes, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

And speaking of the Bible, we don't know how those wives were feeling being passed off to the king.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Yeah. Oh man. There are good, um I mean not good. I don't know if they're all good. I've read some, they're interesting, but like there's a there's a sort of movement in modern fiction. To like write stories about the women characters in the Torah and the Bible and stuff to like give them a voice, you know, and like explore because they get so little.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

I literally was just being told that by someone this past weekend. Wow. I want to say that they were saying it was about Lilith, maybe. Let me Google this to be safe. I'm seeing something called I Am Lilith, an epic reimagining of the story of Lilith.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Cool. Cool. You know, she's an interesting character. I don't know enough about Lilith to speak off the cuff about her, but I know that she's like a Jewish mythological figure, but does not actually appear in the Torah with like she's attributed to being Adam's first wife before Eve. And I think that it's a little evil, you know, in traditional mythology. Yeah, but point is she's actually not in the creation stories at all. Like she's not there with Adam. She's it's sort of like a later folklore mythology extrapolation of something random. So oh, interesting. I would actually love to learn more about Lilith. But that's so that's really cool because she is right. Yeah, she's figure, she's like a demonized figure. As with many things in this traditionally patriarchical tradition, like a lot of the women are demonized. And so, yes, there are movements now to like reclaim that, reimagine, like, okay, well, maybe maybe that's just the patriarchy making them look so bad. Maybe they ain't so bad, you know. Woof. Give them some agency back. Yeah. Well, fun. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Very fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Thanks, uh, thanks, Jay.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

I also don't know for sure if the I am loath book is exactly what was being recommended to me, but it exists. Yeah. And it seems to be a fan creation of of what her story could be reimagined as.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I'll tell you what's a real good book. The Red Tent. That's a good book. That's about a biblical character. Actually, yeah. You would hate it. Do not read it. It's for it's for women. I mean, it's not for women, but I have never met um a man who liked it.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Okay. Talks a lot about like, you know, menstrual blood. I don't know.

unknown 46:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

It can be interesting. But it's a really good book.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

It's a really good book. Hey, all you female or female identifying, or I don't know, not male listeners out there, um, or male ones who also are interested in monthly bleeding.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Read Red 10. Hey, it's half of the human experience, you know?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

It really is. It really is. Shout out to women everywhere of all kinds.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

That's just the patriarchy. You saying that I wouldn't like this book, that's the patriarchy talking, Robin.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely Jay, you should read The Red 10.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Tisk, Tisk. I should read Red Tent once I finish all the other books that I started and haven't finished yet.

unknown 46:57

Yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

A lot of books. Speaking of which, total non sequitur, but I'll try to squeeze it in here. Ooh. Recently, my wife and I just read Animal Farm.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

The first time I'd ever heard the story of Animal Farm. Have you are you familiar?

SPEAKER_01 47:12

I am, yes. Although it's been a while.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Okay. I bring it up because you saying that the Ten Commandments are a little different depending on where in the Torah you're reading reminds me of how the commandments, for lack of a better term, the rules written on the barn wall change over the course of the book because the pigs, spoiler alert, go in with paint and change the text, but no one can remember exactly. They're just like, oh, I guess I remembered it wrong. But it was like a mini- it was a tool of the pig triarchy.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

The pig triarchy.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Yeah. Good book.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Good book, good episode.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Good uh book called the Torah from many sources.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

I think the moral of this episode, the moral of this podcast episode is that the show New Girl does more justice to women than the Bible does. In revealing their humanity uh and not just their flaws, you know, and their inner thinkings and treating them as people.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Anyone who knows anything about the Bible should not be surprised by that revelation. That's pretty, yeah, yeah, that's pretty par for the course.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Listen, it's an old text. It's an old text plural, as we learned today. Ancient world, they weren't they didn't do so right by women all the time. So it's a product of its times. The important thing is what do we do with that now? How do we move forward with this as our quote sacred text? So tune in next time when we somehow solve that giant question. How we fix the patriarchy in institutionalized religion. Let me thank everyone for listening first. If you want to get in touch with us, don't forget you can email us at JewGirlPodcast at gmail.com. And yes, next time we will solve the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

That's a that's a tall order right there. It'll be nothing. Join us next time when we find out when babies are in the womb, an angel comes down and gives them hummus and smacks it out of their mouth to erase the memory of how delicious it is from them.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Don't eat that. You're gonna choke on a chickpea. This is I guess this is chunky hummus in my bed. You're gonna choke on them. Join us next time when an angel will smack us on the mouth, and we will forget everything we know about Newgirl. Tune in next time when we find the chickpea's mouth. Once and for all, we say, There it is, and we draw some eyeballs above it.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

I looked up pictures of chickpeas, and some of them have an awful lot of things that look like mouths.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

It's a real mouty legume now that we have talked about it.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Mouty legume.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

It's a mouthy legume.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Join us next time when we find out that the real relationship that's being hidden was between Bet Hill and Shemai.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Oh love. Is this happening too?