Talmudic tradition has it that the world is saved in every generation by thirty-six righteous individuals, the tzadikim. What if, for the first time in history, poet Julie R. Enszer asks, this esteemed group was composed entirely of women? Answers are provided in this experimental, at times comically hermetic, collection. Enszer’s book features persona poems in mostly free verse by “the thirty-six” (the literal meaning of the title), as well as commentary and reflections by Tirza, a member of G‑d’s angelic office team.
Usually understood to be one of the daughters appearing before Moses in the Book of Numbers (Bemidbar), Tirza here is a member of the Hashmah, an elevated group in the angelic hierarchy (as explained by Maimonides). Accordingly, Enszer reenvisions Tirza as a beleaguered but determined head angel who is “in charge of the lamed-vovniks / I have been on this beat for only thirty-six years / and I have another 324 to go” (“Tirza’s Rimas”).
Divided into seven (the kabbalistic number for completion) sections, Enszer’s book presents feisty characters — many of whom are frustrated with the Jewish state of things and all of whom are determined, each in their small or large way, to make the world a better place. Early in the collection, a poetic speaker named Miriam Bat Murray becomes impatient when she can’t recite Kaddish for her father, because her orthodox community is short one man. She departs Hoboken for Anchorage, only to reappear near the end of the book with a transformed voice. “I felt as though / On that day I counted / That my prayers mattered / In some special way / To G!d even though / To my father’s rabbi / They did not” (“Miriam From The Diaspora Of Alaska”).
Elsewhere, a grocery store bagger earnestly contemplates the complexity of her job, a hotel cleaner explains why she lets her new colleague pick up more room tips, and a Chicago matriarch celebrates her legacy as a political organizer.
The angelic hosts are confused by these new developments, and things get difficult bureaucratically among Tirza and her colleagues. The divine assignment of women instead of men prompts considerable pushback: “Ephraim is enraged / About Irene’s appointment /
Demanding reassignment.” Nevertheless, Irene, who is a sex worker, manages to hold on to her new position. “… [N]ow she will hold all of us up / ” Tirza states. “I will guide her” (“Tirza Ponders Who Holds The World Together?”).
These poetic portraits celebrate the dignity and energy of ordinary women — Jewish and not — and suggest that Jewish creativity truly thrives when we wrestle with and rethink the patriarchal lineages of Jewish traditions.
Stephane Barbé Hammer’s new collection of magical realist stories about a private girls’ school in New York, The Warbler School Chronicles, will appear in March with Bamboo Dart Press.
