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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=579186" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Theodora And Beruriah's Sister</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The words for Handel’s “Theodora”<br>are not written in the Torah, <br>or even in the book they call<br>the gospels, or epistles Paul<br>wrote to the Romans and Galatians<br>and other gentiles whose persuasions<br>conflicted with his own. Their source<br>is neither classical nor Norse, <br>but comes from legends Christians told<br>about the martyrs in their fold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Most of these martyrs met their death<br>with Jesus’ name upon their breath, <br>impressing Romans by their dying<br>joyfully, as if relying<br>on Jesus to provide them better<br>lodging with the First Begetter, <br>His Father who ruled heaven and<br>the still unholy Roman land. <br>They threatened Theodora with<br>a far worse fate, so goes the myth.<br>This fate all legends have reported<br>by martyrdom became aborted, <br>for only by her death could she<br>make such a fate be incompli, <br>since it involved the cruel loss<br>not of her life, as on a cross, <br>but her virginity within<br>a brothel––what a heinous sin <br>this seemed to her, and so she gave<br>her life her purity to save.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her fate recalls that of a maid, <br>a famous sister Romans made<br>a prostitute like Theodora.<br>Horny men would come from fora<br>to visit her, sister-in-law<br>of Rabbi Meir, whose wise squaw<br>was Beruriah, who though he wedded<br>was, like all women, too light-headed: <br>this false charge led to suicide<br>because it caused her to backslide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her sister while in Rome would make<br>excuses like those wives who fake<br>a headache, thus remaining pure<br>till rescued by a saboteur, <br>the rabbi married to her sister.<br>In the brothel a resister<br>of all advances made by Romans, <br>she proved to him that she’d been no man’s<br>possession as unwilling harlot, <br>though widely advertized as starlet<br>whose famous father Romans knew<br>had burned because he was a Jew, <br>Teradyon’s son, a martyr burnt<br>because most of the Romans weren’t<br>as sympathetic as the man<br>who cooled him, burning, like a fan.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like Beruriah’s sister, Theodora<br>avoided brothels. Was she more a<br>saint than Beruriah’s sister, since she died<br>while Beruriah’s sister lived? Decide<br>this question for yourself! Would Handel<br>for her have ever lit a candle<br>as he for Theodora did? <br>Perhaps not. He was not a Yid, <br>and wore a wig instead of peyos, <br>but did score Judas Maccabeus, <br>and Hannah, Jewish memsahib, <br>in one of his great oratorios<br>where Jewish heroes were victorious.<br>If he had known of Beruriah’s sister<br>as he did of the other story, <br>his “Theodora” might well have<br>been “Beruriah’s sister.” Please don’t laugh.<br>George Frederic was a man who could<br>have written both oratorio––and should<br>have done, but since he didn’t, I<br>tell both curricula vitae.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Inspired by a performance of George Frederic Handel’s penultimate oratorio, “Theodora, ” by the Bach Collegium San Diego, conducted by Richard Eggar, at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica on June 28,2009. The excellent cast included Mireille Asselin (Theodore) , Darryl Taylor (Didymus) and John Polhamus (Valens) . The story of Beruriah that I discuss in the poem is mentioned in the Talmud (bAbodah Zarah 19b) .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">© 2009 Gershon Hepner	6/29/09</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Gershon+Hepner">Gershon Hepner</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=579186" data-title="Theodora And Beruriah's Sister de Gershon Hepner" data-description="The words for Handel’s “Theodora”
are not written in the Torah, 
or even in the book they call
the gospels, or epistles Paul
wrote to the Romans and Galatians
and other gentiles whose persuasions
conflicted with his own. Their source
is neit..."></div>
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