No.148
And behold! The sages ask: "Was she righteous, or merely afraid?"
Rabbi Eliezer of Akihabara says: “She desired dominion over her fate — a holy yearning.”
But Rabbi Hanina of Shibuya replies: “No, she lusted for the past and scorned the freedom of her friend.”
And I — a humble teacher — I say: Why not both?
“And she drank of the vial of Eua, and her eyes were opened, and she saw the possibility of the eternal school year.”
The text is clear. The vial — a vessel of divine recursion — is not a blessing, but a test. Just as Avraham was tested with Yitzhak, so too is Satoko tested with… Rika.
"And Satoko saw Rika and loved her, and yet envied her, and yet clung to her, and yet desired her suffering, that they might never be parted."
A contradiction? No. A midrash. This is not love as the nations understand it. This is loop-binding affection, the kind that speaks not “I love you” but “You shall never escape me.”
She becomes, as the text says, mekalkel ha-zman — "She who corrupts the timeline."
“And the villagers knew her not, for in each world she changed her face. But Rika knew her in truth and said: ‘Have you become Pharaoh now?’”
We read this not as metaphor — no, no. This is literal divine drama. The scroll of Hinamizawa is not a fable, it is a caution.
Satoko is not villain nor heroine — she is what the mystics call the Chiddush ha-ke’ev, the innovation of pain. She introduces a new halachic category: Sorrow Repeated with Intention.
“And in the end, she saw the loops break, and her hands were empty, and the fragments were as dust in the wind.”
What then do we learn? That power is a sandbox, but time is a mikveh — you enter to be cleansed, not to stir the water forever.
And so I close the Sefer Houjou with this blessing:
May we never loop so tightly we forget to grow.
May we love without binding.
And may our timelines be short, but peaceful.
No.149
woot schizo moment