To our members and friends, 

Our Campus Fellows throughout North America and Canada continue to develop meaningful programming that brings together a wide variety of Jewish students to discuss issues of relevance under the banner of our Institute. Please read about the many and diverse programs they are running and leading!

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar, Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

We hosted a discussion of the blessing, “SheLo Asani Isha” after reading Rabbi Avi Weiss’s piece on it.

Yael Jaffe, Brandeis

The Joy of Text LIVE went extremely well! It was a successful co-sponsorship between the Brandeis Orthodox Organization (BOO) and the Jewish Feminist Association of Brandeis (JFAB), which affirmed BOO's willingness to collaborate on and invest in compelling feminist content. 

In addition, I have continued coordinating Senior Mishmars, which has involved a great deal of helping individual seniors think through and prepare their shiur/speech. It has been extremely rewarding to see these students empowered to speak before an audience of their peers, imparting words of Torah and personal advice in the environment of the beit midrash.

Finally, I worked with the BOO education coordinator, Shira Levie, to organize a shiur from Rabbi Daniel Reifman from Drisha. I have also assisted with the planning of the YCT/Maharat Meorot Fellowship occurring at Brandeis as well. 

Albert Kohn, Columbia University

I am organizing an event with Professors Yonatan Brafman and Suzanne Stone about how we use traditional Jewish texts to discuss modern political questions. In a few weeks, I am hoping to recreate an event I did last year before my Purim Seudah in which we discuss the place of drinking in a religious context. 

Rebecca Jackson, Cornell

I am planning a women’s Purim experience with a women’s tefillah and Megillah reading, divrei Torah from women in the community and a matanot la-evyonim project for the local women’s shelter. Beyond this, I plan to continue to run Shabbat afternoon learning events (philosophy shiur on Levinas) and help facilitate participation in a new JLIC women’s learning and current events weekly event. 

Corey Gold, Harvard

Much of the funding this semester went toward funding an off-campus Shabbaton for Orthodox undergrads we just had this weekend. This was a unique opportunity for just the Orthodox undergraduates to spend quality time together. There were many opportunities for communal reflection and the sharing of divrei Torah, and Rav Dani led a text study on Shabbat afternoon.

We’re planning more programming for the rest of the semester, of course - continuing learning programs that we began last semester like “Lunch with Rav Moshe” (lunch and learns as Rav Dani give shiurim on Rav Moshe Feinstein tshuvot), semi-weekly mishmars, onegs, etc.

Ezra Newman, Harvard Law School

We’re running a similar slate of programming as last semester - 6 “lunch and learn” style learning discussions given by students at the law school. We’ve already had 1 this semester, given by Jesse Lempel, titled “The Ten Commandments and #MeToo”. The next one will be this coming Thursday - topic TBD (though presumably something related to Purim).

Eitan Zecher and Tova Rosenthal, University of Maryland

Our next program this semester is going to be a University of Maryland Sermon Slam. This is an art and slam poetry event with a Judaic theme. We have had this program the last two years and experienced great success with around 120 people showing up each time! We are still working on choosing a theme and date and when we do I will make sure to e-mail that information over to you. 

Zachary Tankel, McGill University

We have continued our Thursday Night Torah program, and this coming Thursday, we'll be holding it in a new community for the first time. Additionally, we're planning a few Shabbatons this semester, the first of which is happening this Shabbat. Atop of all that, we're also planning to start holding some lunch n learns. I'll keep you updated on everything that happens!

Sigal Spitzer, University of Pennsylvania

One program I am planning is with Rav Itamar Rosensweig. Lunch shiurim worked very well last semester so we are planning to cater a lunch and have 10-15 students come and learn. He wants to do it before Pesach so I will keep you posted!
 

Devora Chait, Queens College

We have held our third Pop-Up Mishmar, where we have two students each give a ten-minute mini-shiur followed by a discussion. Usually we discuss an article, but this time our conversation centered around Torah learning at Queens College: what we have now, what more we are looking for, and what we hope to build. In light of that discussion, we are preparing to launch a weekly Thursday Parsha chabura at a different student apartment each week, where students learn the parsha in advance and gather to discuss their questions and thoughts. The idea is to create a Torah-learning community, not necessarily one with polished answers or messages but rather one where students can be invested in their own Torah learning with each other. We are also set to run at least one more Pop-Up Mishmar this semester, but potentially we will run two or three more.

Raffi Levi and Benjamin Nechmad, Rutgers

We ran an event with Rutgers poetry professor Yehoshua November on Tuesday February 13th. Professor November read selections from his two volumes of poetry, God’s Optimism (a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize) and Two Worlds Exist (a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize). November also shared some of the experiences and teachings that inspired him to choose a life rooted in the unlikely combination of contemporary poetry and Orthodox Judaism.

Asher Naghi, UCLA

We hosted Rabbi Menachem Leibtag for our mishmar program and hope to bring Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom to speak about the Megillah in the next couple of weeks. We also hope to soon host a number of student taught mishmars in the near future.

Rachel Rolnick, Yale Law School

We have been running a Shabbat dinner & dialogue series, where Professors host students for Shabbat dinner, and we discuss Judaism and Jewish life at the law school. We will be hosting a Lunch & Learn seminar on law and Judaism later in the semester, as well as a lecture on the Bill of Rights and Religious practices. 

On the Sunday before Rosh Hashanah in 2009, an audience of 225 individuals attended a Jewish community-wide Healing Service in Baltimore, Maryland. The Healing Service was convened as a gathering for survivors of domestic, sexual, physical, verbal, and all forms of abuse; family members and friends of survivors; mental health and physical health professionals; clergy; educators; and all who wanted to learn how to “break the silence” that surrounds and permeates abuse and trauma in a community. The Healing Service was designed and sponsored by the Shofar Coalition, a program of CHANA and the ASSOCIATED Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.

Representatives from Shofar, CHANA, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, and the Baltimore Jewish Times joined with eight courageous survivors who agreed to share their experiences of trauma endured as children, adolescents, or adults. Together, they delivered a message—in words, in chants, in prayer. In doing so, they challenged the audience to cultivate a Healing Community, one that actively listens to the truths spoken by those among us who have been victimized; one that believes and accepts that these traumatic experiences affect not only the victims but all of us; and a community that responds with compassion and action rather than with silence and denial.

Why a Healing Service?

Allow me to quote from a statement publically issued several weeks before the event by Rabbi Amy Scheinerman, President of the Baltimore Board of Rabbis:

As Jews, we understand viscerally from our historical experience what it is to be victims of persecution. Time and again, we have demanded that the voices of victims be heard, that their pain be acknowledged, and that justice prevail. Yet in our own midst, many have suffered silently for far too long, as victims of abuse and trauma whose pain and suffering have gone unacknowledged, whose stories have not been believed, and whose perpetrators have been shielded from suffering the appropriate consequences their behavior warrants. Silence and inaction have re-victimized those traumatized by abuse by inflicting fear, shame, and guilt. As a community, we have participated in a conspiracy of silence: denial of the truth of abuse in our midst, the silencing of victims, and our own individual choice of silence when fear or disbelief take precedence over informed response. The silence must end.

The ethical issues and the moral imperatives raised in Rabbi Scheinerman’s statement apply to communities of all faiths, not just Jewish, and in societies across the country and the world. There is no place for denial, silence, or inaction in any community—certainly not in any Jewish community.  In a Healing Community, of any faith, all of its members share a responsibility to acknowledge the pain and to help ease the suffering of victims. Pursuing justice by holding those responsible for abuse accountable, and thus preventing other innocent individuals from being victimized, is also an integral obligation for a faith community. There is no place in a Healing Community for bystanders.

In any discussion of the ethical issues related to abuse, it is important to understand certain facts. The majority of perpetrators are not strangers to the victims. It is difficult to secure an accurate number of abuse victims in general due to the consequences of the shame, fear, and silence that typically paralyze victims and communities. If an individual feels guilt and shame over the abuse, as is often the case, he or she will not admit that the abuse occurred. If a community denies that abuse happens—and worse, blames the victim or anyone who speaks about abuse and accused abusers—then the resulting fear often gives rise to victims being forced into silence. Where there is fear and silence, suspected abuse of children or adults remains unreported to the authorities, thus allowing perpetrators to continue to victimize others, sometimes for many years. Failure to report suspected abuse means a failure to bring the perpetrators of abuse to justice.

I know of a woman in her mid-30s who was molested when she was a teenager by a well-known and greatly revered congregational rabbi in Baltimore. Shortly after the abuse occurred, her mother and two other rabbis whom she turned to for guidance told her to keep quiet so as not to destroy this much-loved rabbi’s reputation. Besides, she was told, no one would believe her anyway. All these years later, this woman continues receiving professional therapy to help her deal with intense guilt over the number of women who were molested by this same rabbi long after she was. She believed that her imposed silence had resulted in the suffering of other women. Similarly, hundreds of men who had been sexually abused when they were young boys by the same rabbi over a period of more than 20 years finally came forward to speak of their suffering only after several of this particular rabbi’s victims broke their silence, thus giving voice to so many who were re-traumatized by remaining silent for so long.

Knowing that the actual number of incidences of abuse is higher than reported, it is shocking to note that studies indicate that one in four women report that they have been victimized by domestic violence as an adult. Likewise, one in four women and one in six men report that they have been sexually abused in their lifetime. In the United States, 4 million children are reported to have been abused every year. There is no indication that these numbers are any different among Jewish individuals, nor is there any known difference in numbers among the various denominations within Judaism. A groundbreaking study published in November, 2007 entitled “History of Past Sexual Abuse in Married Observant Jewish Women” states that “Twenty-six percent of respondents in a study about the sexual lives and attitudes of married Orthodox Jewish women— 55% identifying as Modern Orthodox and about 45% as right-wing Orthodox—indicated that they had at some point suffered sexual abuse.” (American Journal of Psychiatry 164: 1700–06).

The Ethical Imperative in Judaism to Help Trauma Survivors

Rabbi Mark Dratch, Founder and President of JSafe: The Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse-Free Environment, wrote in a 2007 article entitled “Few Are Guilty, but All Are Responsible: The Obligations to Help Survivors of Abuse”:

The Torah expresses the obligation to help those under assault or subject to abuse through both positive and negative precepts: ‘Thou shalt not stand by the blood of thy neighbor’ (Lev. 19:16) and ‘And you shall restore him to himself’ (Deut. 22:2). The Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) teaches that while the latter verse teaches that one must intervene personally, the former expands that responsibility; a person may not just stand around idly while someone is being hurt.

All too often, the obligation to help victims of trauma and abuse is trumped by a fear of speaking out and getting involved—and a denial that the abuse even occurred. The resulting silence takes the place of bringing relief to the suffering of the victims and securing the safety of the community by bringing the perpetrators to justice. Both abuse victims and observers of the abuse are scared that no one will believe them if they speak up. They are afraid that exposing the abuse and the abuser will destroy their families or the families of the perpetrators.

By exploring the ways that victims are harmed by silence and inaction, whether self-imposed or imposed by others, we can best understand the importance of the Torah-based obligation stated above. The silence often sentences a victim to years upon years of isolation and feeling alone. Many of the people who come to the Shofar Coalition for help do so after years of telling no one what happened to them. Some come forward for the first time when they are in their 40s, 50s, or even 60s. An individual who attended our Healing Service last September submitted a note that stated: “I have been suffering from mental, emotional, and physical abuse for so many years. Can someone help me? I don’t feel safe.”

The prevailing silence contributes to feelings of intense shame, guilt, and low self-worth on the part of victims of trauma. People may wonder why the victim would feel guilty or ashamed about something that was done to them, not by them. As one survivor of incest explained to me, until the abuser is named, the victim carries and owns the shame and guilt. Once others know about the abuser, the shame is shifted from the victim to the abuser where it belongs. Excerpts from the testimonies of three of the eight survivors who spoke at the Shofar Healing Service gives us a window into the feelings of shame, fear, and isolation born out of silence.

A 45-year-old woman: I was a college graduate. I was a nice, Jewish girl from Pikesville [Baltimore] who married her best friend’s brother, also from Pikesville. So how in the world could I be lying in the hospital emergency room with a broken arm, caused by my own husband? This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to people like me. I was scared and embarrassed, humiliated, and so ashamed. I felt so alone, I just wanted to disappear. The physical pain didn’t even hold a candle to the mental pain I was holding inside. It was easier to keep that secret.

A 32-year-old man: I was first molested at the mikva when I was 4 years old….I was afraid to tell my father, so he never knew about it. It was like I had a Scarlet Letter on my forehead that said “easy target, molest me!” As a child, I was also molested by a female neighbor, my bar-mitzvah teacher, and while I was in yeshiva. Most of the molestations took place in a religious environment. [I was brought up to believe] that you should always have respect for your elders, that the Rabbi/teacher/parent/adult is always right. This led me to believe that I was the problem—It was my fault; I was bad.

A 65- year-old man: I didn't think that I was affected at all by these encounters with the rabbi and his friend, however 52 years later I realize that shame, embarrassment, and fear kept me from revealing the revered rabbi's insidious behavior. In fact, I could not speak out loud the name of the rabbi who molested me until I was 60 years old.

So many trauma survivors have expressed to me that perhaps even more painful than the original abuse that they have endured is the feeling that they were betrayed by the reaction of trusted individuals (parents, friends, rabbis, teachers) who were sought out for comfort, compassion, validation, support and guidance. The denial, silence and inaction on the part of trusted individuals give rise to profound feelings of being “re-victimized.” The emotional scars left by such re-victimization are often long lasting and more difficult to heal. A woman who was molested by her uncle over the course of two years beginning when she was ten, and who came to Shofar for services when she was in her mid 40s says:

For many years, I only told my closest friends about what had happened to me. The first time I told someone in a position of authority in confidence was to my rabbi when I was in my late 20s and already a mother. I went to my rabbi, whom I very much respected as a man of terrific judgment and integrity, and asked for help. He did not ask about me or my mental health, he didn’t pursue a line of questioning that might have led to accountability for my uncle, he didn’t even want me to upset my father by telling him the truth if there were some way that it could be avoided. I went back into the closet of my shame and closed the door.

Rabbi Dratch, in a 2006 article entitled “The Shame of It All: The Real Shonda in Revealing Abuse,” points out yet another way that victims and the entire Jewish community are harmed by silence, inaction, and feelings of betrayal by family and respected members of the community. He states:

Many [Jewish] victims of abuse are exploited first by their Jewish perpetrators and then are betrayed by the reaction of the family and community they thought would help them, nurture them, and find them justice. In many cases, these victims lose faith in themselves, in the community, and in God. Those who do not reject their Judaism find strength in their faith, despite all that has been done to them. But in many cases victims are disillusioned by the institutions and leaders they thought they could trust. Too many of them abandon mitzvah observance and their connections to the Jewish community are weakened. This is a real hilul hashem!

Perceived Barriers, Unique to Jewish Communities, to Revealing Abuse and Acting to Help Abuse Survivors

Concerns of Hilul Hashem

Rabbi Dratch addresses these concerns in “The Shame of It All” when he states: “this concern about protecting the reputation of God and the Jewish people by repressing public discussion of behaviors and actions that may be deemed a ‘shonda,’ scandalous and disreputable, may in fact itself be a hilul hashem. It is the abuser and not the abused that has committed hilul hashem, and it is those who cover up and silence victims, not those who seek justice and the protection of innocent victims that desecrate God’s Name.”

The Shonda Factor

 Individuals are often afraid to discuss abuse or to expose an accused abuser because of the potential harm to the perpetrator’s reputation. They fear that they and their families will be shunned or ostracized by the community. Sadly, this is often the case. Victims, and their advocates who do speak out, have become the target of verbal, written, and physical attacks. They are viewed as having brought shame to the entire community. The shonda factor is further intensified in some Jewish communities by the fear that speaking out about abuse may damage the possibilities of young people in a given family finding suitable marriage partners. All in all, these fears not only give rise to the silencing of victims but to the organized cover-up of dangerous situations and enabling of potentially harmful abusers.

Lashon haRa (Libel or Slander) and Mesirah (Informing Civil Authorities)

Some Jewish people attribute their silence and inaction in the face of abuse to their adherence to and understanding of Jewish laws prohibiting lashon haRa and mesirah. In his “Few Are Guilty” article, Rabbi Mark Dratch states that: “These principles, and others, are valid, essential principles of Jewish life and law and should be carefully observed by committed Jews. But all too often misplaced priorities and misconceived interpretations of Jewish law have trumped equally valid halakhic concerns for the safety and security of Jewish bodies and souls.”

In the same article, Rabbi Dratch eloquently expresses the ethical responsibilities of the Jewish people when those among us are suffering from the horrors of abuse. In expounding on a quotation by Abraham Joshua Heschel having to do with a Jewish response to evil (“Few are guilty, but all are responsible”), Rabbi Dratch states: “So, while a small minority of the Jewish community is actually guilty of perpetrating abuse and violence, the entire community is responsible to come to the aid of victims, to pursue justice, to demand accountability, and to protect the innocents of our community and the integrity of our faith.”

Many years ago, on a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., I saw the following line: “Thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never be a bystander.”  The Museum’s website attributes the quotation to Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I do not in any way mean to equate the evils and horrors of the Holocaust with the evils of child abuse and domestic violence.  I do, however, mean to say that we as Jews cannot and must not stand idly by while some of our fellow Jews are suffering due to no fault of their own, but rather due to the fault of abusive people and silent bystanders. Historically we as Jewish people know all too well the consequences of silence in the face of human suffering. And abuse thrives in silence.

I challenge all Jewish communities to rebuild themselves as Healing Communities. Healing Communities say to those who are hurting among us that they need not suffer in silence alone any longer. We need to replace fear, denial, and silence with compassion and truth, and inaction will be replaced with action. We as Jewish communities will attend to the healing of all those who wish to recover from the long-term effects of abuse. We will commit to bringing the perpetrators of abuse to justice and to preventing them from hurting others. We can do this! We must do this!

For information about Healing Services and other Shofar or CHANA sponsored activities, contact Elaine Witman at [email protected] or 410-843-7582.

The way most of us pray today is very different from the way prayer was originally intended. I share the opinion that what goes on in most Jewish “houses of prayer” of whatever community, denomination, sect, or form, is usually far from an exciting, uplifting spiritual experience. And if one compares what our prayer books require of us nowadays, especially over the Holy Days, to the bare bones of  Amram Gaon’s Siddur, the Mahzor Vitry, Rambam’s Seder Tefillot or the Abudraham, one wonders what happened and why.

Here is what Maimonides says in his “Laws of Prayer” Chapter 1.1:

1. It is a positive command to pray every day, as it says, “You will serve the Lord your God.” By tradition they learnt that this service is prayer, as it says, “to serve Him with all your hearts.” The rabbis said “What kind of service involves the heart? It is prayer.” There are no rules about this in the Torah nor is anything fixed about it in the Torah…

2. This obligation is that everyone should appeal to God every day and pray and praise the Holy One. Then one might ask God to address his personal needs.

It remains a Torah obligation to relate to the Almighty through personal, private prayer every day, regardless of what may or may not happen in a synagogue. This, I suggest, rarely happens.

It was with exile, Maimonides goes on to say, that the Jews lost the language, the means and the habits of personal prayer. During the Babylonian and Persian exiles, Ezra the Scribe introduced texts to the community to facilitate Jews’ obligation to pray as a sort of optional menu. Psalms (55:18) mentions the idea of praying three times a day, and in the book of Daniel (6:11), Daniel himself describes praying three times a day toward Jerusalem. In his case, he prayed privately in his loft. The Bet haKnesset, the community center and the Bet haMidrash, the house of study, may have developed in exile too. Without doubt, these institutions were developed during the Pharisaic era. But it was not until after the destruction of the temple that formal, communal prayer was officially instituted to replace the two daily “permanent” communal sacrifices, the Temidim of Shaharit and Minha. Controversially, as the Talmud records, (TB Berakhot 4b et al) Maariv was added first as an option, and only under Rabban Gamliel did it become an obligation. The text of what we now call the Amidah was fixed by the rabbis of Yavneh (with some later modifications) as the Talmud says: “Shimon Hapikuli laid out the order of prayer before Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh” (TB Berakhot 28b). The Talmud suggests that the prophets had initially done this but their innovations had been forgotten (TB Megillah 18a). With the destruction of the Temple, the study house became the central institution in Jewish life and continuity, and it tended to be conflated or merged with the House of Prayer.

I rehearse this well-known narrative because it is clear that there has always been in Judaism a dichotomy between personal, private prayer on the one hand and public, communal prayer on the other. Their functions are entirely different. Not everyone agrees with Maimonides, but if I understand his position correctly, the Torah ideal remains in force that individuals have an obligation to find very subjective and personal ways of connecting with, communicating with, or at the very least appreciating the magnitude of the divine presence in this world. Such an activity should include contemplation, meditation, and exercises in what is called “deveykut,” actually engaging with God. This can rarely be done in a crowded synagogue surrounded by other humans who often have no interest in such activity. It cannot be done while a Cantor performs, and most of all, it cannot be done “on demand.” I will concede that sometimes for moment, such as Kol Nidrei, such an effect can be achieved. But it rarely survives the initial phase except in very few situations such as those yeshivot with a strong tradition of prayer or a rebbe’s court. For the average Jew living in no such rarified situation, synagogues in general simply do not offer this experience of the divine.

I wonder if they were designed to. The Great Synagogue in Alexandria, where flags were waved to let distant parts of the building know when to say “Amen” (TB Sukkah 21b) cannot possibly been a place of personal engagement with Heaven. The services we have nowadays perform very different functions. They primarily function give us a sense of community and to actually get people together in ways that most religious obligations do not. Judaism makes demands on us both as individuals and as members of the community of Israel. Personal prayer remained personal. Yet over time, personal prayers and petitions were incorporated into the “prayer” format, as a matter of convenience. To reinforce the sense of community, it was insisted that prayer with a quorum would be more effective than without.

Jewish prayer was dramatically affected by the Medieval experience. Herded into claustrophobic, foul ghettos under Christianity and Islam, most Jews wanted to escape the overcrowded hovels they often shared with animals. The synagogue was the only large and airy building in the community. They also needed to come and go and to stay together for safety. That was where they wanted to be and spend as much time as possible. No wonder the services got longer and longer.

The prevailing culture was also one in which any and every educated person expressed him or herself in poetry. Hence the great payyatanim who spread under Islam from Israel to Spain to Northern Europe and churned out religious poetry in formal structures and conventions that were incorporated into services. But it was not without a heated debate between those who wanted more within the services and those who wanted less. And in parts of northern Italy, music was added to the services. Before Shabbat, quartets often helped create the peaceful reflective mood.

Then came the explosion of mystical Judaism. The great mystic R. Yitzhak Luria was responsible for introducing songs, for walking out into the fields, for praying on the hills of Safed. The attempt to experience God moved from human-made structures to nature and back. The existential aspect of prayer, its singing and ecstasy as much as its communal aspect, influenced the great Hassidic reformation. But then, like all revolutions, began to lose its iconoclasm and creativity and sank back into formality. Still to this day in many Hassidic courts you will hear singing and ecstatic prayer that would be unimaginable in most synagogues in the West.

And there is another dichotomy in the evolution of prayer we often overlook. Is it prayer or study that brings us closer to God? You can see this issue emerging in the debates in the Talmud, too (TB Berakhot 8a and 30b). The Study House was the essential communal building. Was it the influence of both Christianity and Islam, with their emphasis on the Church and the Mosque that affected the way Judaism evolved?

I recall most vividly the seminal experience of my youth, Be’er Yaakov yeshiva in 1958. The brilliant Rosh Yeshiva Rav Shapiro z”l, a contemporary of my father’s at Mir and from the Brisk family, was the archetypal Lithuanian. Nothing brought him closer to Heaven than the mental concentration on Talmud Torah. He, like my later influence Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz z”l of Mir, manifestly tore himself away with great reluctance from his study when the academy broke for prayers. You could sense the desire to finish the obligation as quickly as possible. Rav Volbe, the Mashgiach, also from Mir, was altogether of different nature. Prayer for him was to stand in the presence of the Almighty and to lose oneself in another world. It was compelling to see his concentration and physical transformation when he prayed. It was yeshiva prayer in Be’er Yaakov that had a greater impact on my spiritual life than any other single event or encounter. It was so different to anything I had ever experienced in any other kind of prayer building or room, not even the great atmosphere of Mir in Jerusalem on the Yamim Noraim. In Be’er Yaakov, in one Beis haMidrash, in one small institution, a person could witness two contrasting models of Jewish prayer. It is true to say that the students divided pretty evenly in the examples on which they modeled themselves.

For many years I was a pulpit rabbi in large Orthodox synagogues, where most of those present came for social reasons and for whom the synagogue service was a form of entertainment; the rabbi preaching, the hazzan singing. Prayer was burdensome. Most did not understand the words or the meaning. Personal devotion was an afterthought. Talking throughout the service in both men and women’s sections meant that even if one wanted to pray it was almost impossible to concentrate. I was reminded of this problem recently in the impressive Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Manhattan on a Friday night when I wanted to absorb the atmosphere and enjoy the liturgy. But two gentlemen sitting in the back row talked continuously and loudly right through what was a very short service that I just ended up feeling angry and frustrated. No one, it seemed, dared to approach them or try to shut them up.

Often big synagogues are packed on occasions such a bar mitzvah or Shabbat hattan, when the social side completely takes over. Many visitors have no idea what is going on or how to behave. The boredom is exaggerated by dragging out the honors and extending the service for hours. No wonder taking an unofficial break for a shot of whisky is the only way many people can get through it all. But even in a synagogue packed with apparently religious people, there is total disregard for the black-and-white laws of the Shulhan Arukh and its commentators on the need for silence, space, and consideration during prayer. No wonder it is so hard to encounter the Almighty in a synagogue. That is why the yeshiva world looks down with scorn on what it calls “ba’al haBayyit davening.”

An alternative and increasingly popular model that goes back to Eastern Europe is the shtiebel, literally “little room.” The first ones I encountered were off the marketplace in Mea Shearim. At almost every hour of the day or night, you could walk in to any one of a honeycomb of little rooms. As soon as there was a minyan, someone would start and you simply said everything that had to be said without ceremony, in a businesslike atmosphere. You would be in and out in a quarter of the time that you would in similar service in a big synagogue. I found it much more satisfying because it was informal. And if I wanted to meditate or have a chat with the Almighty, I made sure I found some private time and space during the course of the day. This model is essentially one of simply fulfilling an obligation. Of course, it an important aspect of halakhic behavior. But for more and more people, the routine performance is not enough. It meets one kind of need but not another more passionate kind of religious experience.

Then there is the educational challenge of prayer. When I was the Headmaster of a Jewish residential school for students mainly of non-Orthodox backgrounds, we used to have modified traditional services that cut out the “optional extras.” So a structure developed that was based on the essential elements of the biblical obligation to recite Kri’at Shema and its attendant blessings, the rabbinical prayer, the Amidah and Kri’at haTorah on Mondays Thursdays and festive days. It was short, conducted mainly by the pupils with familiar popular tunes and active participation. I cannot claim it won over many pupils. But I do know that most looked back with nostalgia at is beauty and simplicity when they left and encountered more conventional services.

I recall, again in my Headmaster days, being faced by the usual complaints that the obligatory morning services were boring. I urged pupils to be creative. I asked them come up with a different way of spending the first half hour of each day in some spiritual activity of a specifically Jewish character if they found the traditional services boring. But that took effort and hard work. Invariably they started enthusiastically, but soon gave up and asked to return to the old, well-established ways. Tradition has its uses but feeling comfortable with it requires serious effort, as indeed does mastering any different process or language.

Over the years I have gone through all sorts of different experiences. I have had my Shlomo Carlebach-Happy Clappy phase. But I grew out of it. I spent years praying in various Hassidic courts. Some prayed slow and some very fast so as, it was claimed, not lose concentration. I certainly never entered a large synagogue if I could possibly avoid it. I enjoy hazzanut, but not during prayer time and certainly not when it drags out the service. And most sermons bore me.

I currently pray mainly in a small Persian community. I am often asked how different it is. The variations in the text are minor. The main superstructure is the same and easily recognizable. The sounds are different but that is a matter of upbringing and cultural preference. The problems, however, are the same. Does one go to synagogue to pray and study or to chat? Do I as a rabbi have to spend my time like a Headmaster calling for order? Or do I have the right to switch off and pray regardless of what is going on around me?

Whatever my preferences, I have always encountered other Jews who disagreed with me. Some preferred the big performance, the big event, the sense of being together, to the modest utilitarian alternatives I tried to recommend. Yet it is right that it should be so. We are not all alike. We have different intellects and tastes and needs. There should be alternatives.

In my professional role I always recall the famous talmudic story of Rabbi Akivah. When he was conducting services he was the first to finish so as not to inconvenience the congregation. But when he prayed alone he was left long after everyone had departed still standing amongst the pillars of the hall in deep prayer (TB Berakhot 31a). At the same time I wonder why, if the weight of talmudic opinion was in favor of abbreviated prayers such as “Havinneynu” (TB Berakhot 29a), nowadays is it almost anathema? It seems we are too concerned with conformity and not enough with living a truly spiritual life.

For all my criticism I believe we are living in exciting times. More and more people are willing to experiment. Whereas once this inevitably meant casting off the requirements of tradition, now the trend is to find resolutions within tradition without throwing the baby out with bathwater. One of the joys of many Jewish communities where there is a critical mass is that one can on shul-crawl a Shabbat and experience a wide range of alternatives—and possibly find one that accords with one’s temperament and background. Of course this may lead to a kind of parasitism in which we neglect our obligations to support communal institutions. But if we discharge our obligations to community, there is no reason why we should not choose to pray where we feel comfortable.

I would argue that so long as the essential halakhic elements remain in place, it is an obligation to try to find new ways of making the service stimulating, inspiring, and attractive. I also believe that more energy should go into trying to find completely new styles of worship rather than tinker with existing ones. That would mean giving people more choices. I would suggest that there must be creative ways in which female spirituality could create totally new atmospheres and experiences without being constricted by established male modes and norms. Many big synagogues have already begun to act as holding companies offering different styles of services under one roof. 

            Regardless of the style of service, or the regularity of one’s attendance, one must, I believe, reestablish the practice of personal prayer outside of synagogual structures. Meditation and contemplation in a totally secular style, or one borrowed from another religion, have brought relief and inspiration to many in the West. But we, too, have our exercises and meditations. One need look no further than Avraham Abulafia to realize they have been part, albeit a neglected part, of our heritage for a thousand years. We must revive them.

Leo Baeckin a volume of essays entitled Judaism and Christianity, contrasts Christianity as a romantic religion with Judaism as a classical religion. The romantic relies on the experience, the stimulation of beautiful buildings, music, canonicals, and ceremonial to induce a sense of devotion, worship, and spirituality. The classicist works on himself to make it happen. Many of us have become too much influenced by an alien culture that we seek to emulate, one in which we expect to be stimulated religiously from outside of ourselves. In fact the Jewish way is to make things happen rather than expect others to do it for us. This applies regardless of where one goes to pray in public or alone. C.S. Lewis says in his Screwtape Letters that the quickest way to divert someone away from religious experience is to get then to focus on what is going on around them.

When Worlds Collide[1]: Why Observant Student Teachers Refuse to Teach in the Mamlachti Dati School System?

     During the past several years as an educator in the fields of Tanakh and Jewish studies, I have come across a prevalent and disturbing phenomenon: most of the religiously observant student teachers whom I have met  are not at all  interested in teaching in the mamlakhti-dati school system (the religious public school system in Israel). When the time comes for them to decide on a professional placement, they apply to secular schools, or to the new model of specialized dati-hiloni schools (religious/secular schools), or to pluralistic religious schools. Several years ago, as the head of the Tanakh department of such an experimental dati-hiloni high school, I found that more than half of the Jewish studies faculty was comprised of incredibly dedicated and talented religious young people. When I asked them to describe the thought process that brought them to an experimental framework, (in our case, a particularly demanding one), the majority of them admitted to never having even considered Mamad (religious public school system) as a professional option, for reasons that will be discussed in this paper. Some had tried to teach in the Mamad system and had given up.

     Why is this true?  Why are these bright, highly motivated, religiously observant young people, who are extremely knowledgeable in both Jewish and general studies, opting out of the mamlakhti-dati school system?  And if they are opting out, then who is teaching our children?

     In this article I would like to address these questions by relating several stories that reflect the changes that are taking place in the Mamad schools and in the teachers colleges. I want to examine how and why these changes, which are occurring in both the formal and informal frameworks of the Mamad, are alienating many young, committed and engaged religious student teachers out of its educational system. In addition, I would like to suggest conceptual and practical changes to improve an ever worsening situation.

Observations from the Field: Primary School

A Story about Matisse

     When our daughter was in fifth grade at the local Mamad (religious public school), she decided to do her personal project on Matisse. We went to do research at the Israel Museum art library and spent several hours reading his biography and examining books of Matisse’s paintings.  Some weeks later I bumped into the teacher in the school hall, and couldn’t resist asking her what she thought of my daughter’s project. Well, she said hesitating, it was a bit skimpy. Skimpy?!  I cried in disbelief. She’s in fifth grade. She could have chosen “Water” or “Color” or “Why is the Sky Blue?” Instead she picked a difficult topic and handed in work she did herself. What do you mean by skimpy? Well, she said quietly, the truth is… I have never heard of Matisse.

     After recovering from the sad implications of this story, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions: Why is a person with so little intellectual curiosity, or basic professional self-respect, hired to teach school children? Once hired, why are such teachers maintained?

     The status of teacher knowledge in the secular primary schools is, unfortunately, not much better than that of the teachers in the Mamad system. It is unlikely, however, for a teacher in a secular school never to have heard of Matisse, implausible that she would not refer to an encyclopedia while grading her student’s work, and inconceivable that she would look the student’s parent directly in the eye and say: “I have never heard of Matisse."

     Why are so many Mamad teachers like this, particularly--but not exclusively--in the younger grades?  And why does a teacher in the Mamad system feel safe in doing this?  The answers are not pleasant. One: Matisse was not Jewish.  [In the eyes of the narrowly Orthodox] non-Jews don’t count.  Two: Matisse was an artist. Art is irrelevant.  If the fifth grader’s paper had been a biography of a great rabbinic sage, the teacher would certainly have done her homework.  Three: Matisse painted nudes. Nudity is immodest and immodesty is the cardinal sin, greater than ignorance and intolerance (more on this later). In fact, the teacher had asked my daughter to remove one of Matisse’s abstract line drawings of a nude from the paper. The principal insisted that it stay in. Poor Matisse, he never had a chance.                                 

     So why is this person permitted to teach our children?

     The answer lies in the ever changing face of the Mamad teacher. Whereas once the Mamad teacher and principal were observant Jews who prided themselves on their abilty to combine love of Torah with love of all knowledge, today more and more Mamad teachers pride themselves on their insularity, and yes, their ignorance of all things not Jewish.

     I would like to underscore this point with 3 stories from my recent experience in Mamad teachers colleges.

Observations from the Field of Teacher Training

     Recently, I taught at a well-respected college for primary school educators, considered for years a pillar of dati leumi (religious Zionist) Judaism. For administrative reasons, the college hosts students from an influential hareidi –leumi midrasha (hareidi Zionist school) who pursue their B. ED at the college. They are excellent students, and their influence on the school is great—as are their demands.

Feminist Research

     Early on in the semester, in a course on pedagogy, I referred to a research study by feminist scholars on a gender related educational issue. After class, some of the students approached to further discuss my conclusions, but questioned my reference to feminist scholarship. 

     That night, I received a call from a faculty representative from the midrasha.  His official job was liaison between the midrasha and the seminar; his unofficial job was to be a watchdog for religiosity. He asked that I meet him the next day in his office allotted to him by the college.

      I was told the following: academic research is not important to us. Please avoid referring to it. Feminist research is anathema to us. If you happen to teach Tanakh, do not teach comparative parshanut a la Nechama Leibowitz. We don’t evaluate the great parshanim (classic rabbinic Bible commentators) - they are all equally great. We don’t compare and contrast. Who are we, after all?

A Trip to London

     Wanting to prevent further such confrontations, I avoided all areas of controversy--not my natural inclination. During a class exercise demonstrating varying approaches to planning, I asked my students to plan a trip to London. I noticed one pair sitting and not working. I approached to ask if they needed help. The following conversation ensued.

We have never been to London.

OK, I said, make believe.

We don’t want to go to London.

Ok. I said, (thinking perhaps that they were Anglophobic). How about Paris?

We don’t want to go to Paris either.

OK. Where do you want to go?

They thought for a moment and said, To the Golan.

Literary Analysis

     Soon after, I began teaching at another dati leumi College intended for junior high and high school educators, also a prominent institution in dati leumi education.  The school was eager to develop into an Israeli model of Yeshiva University, a degree granting religious university. In this vein, the school held a half day conference on the topic of literary approaches to teaching Tanakh. All the presenters were religiously observant. I delivered a paper on the topic of thematic reading. When I returned to class, I found my normally compliant students up in arms. How could I apply literary tools to the reading of Tanakh? Tanakh is a sacred book, not literature.  It is forbidden to apply literary text analysis to the Torah.

     This was compartmentalization at its best. Literary analysis, a gentler cousin of Biblical criticism, has a way of unnerving some religious people.  The students’ instincts were right; this material is sensitive and troubling. But what struck me most was the fear, a near panic, at what they had heard, and a refusal to have a discussion.  In a house of learning, the response to ideas that challenge our assumptions cannot be flight or fear. That is the hareidi way; it is not meant to be the approach of classical dati leumi education. In addition, these were students preparing for high school teaching. Certainly the day would come when one of their students would question them on this topic. What will their response be?  

     The colleges and students alluded to are not marginal or atypical. They serve as major feeders of teachers to the Mamad school system.  Those students are the teachers of our children today.  

     What the above stories have in common is that they all reflect the growing influence of the hareidi ideologies on Mamad education via hareidi-leumi teachers and attitudes: lack of curiosity bordering on disdain  for all things not Jewish; distrust of academia--even while earning an academic degree; distaste for feminism- even while benefiting from the contribution of feminist activism to the equality of women in the workplace; fear of critical thinking; refusal to recognize and grapple with issues of modernity and post-modernist humanist thought; extensive use of  the advances of modern research in areas of medicine and technology, along with an unwillingness to admit or to acknowledge the central role of the university in bringing about these advances.   

     The hareidi-leumi worldview, while clearly one I do not share, has the right to its input into the religious and political discourse of the State of Israel. But the legitimate place for the dissemination of its values is within its own schools and communities. The dati leumi school system, once the pride and joy of the dati leumi world, is emptying at a frightening rate, because the liberal dati leumi establishment refuses to acknowledge that, despite a shared commitment to the observance of (certain) mitzvoth and to the state of Israel, what divides us is greater than what unites us.

     On Sukkot 2005, Ne’emanei Torah V’Avodah hosted a joint conference with Edah,[2] an American organization associated with religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy.[3] In a keynote address, Rabbi Saul Berman delineated the major ideological issues on which the hareidi world and the modern Orthodox world differ: pluralism/tolerance, the religious meaning of Medinat Israel, Jew and Gentile, da’at Torah, Torah u’maddah, humrah, women in halakha, outreach, and activism. On the majority of the issues listed, the hareidi- leumi attitude is closer to the hareidi attitude than to the dati leumi attitude. [4] Aside from the approach towards the State, we differ on the central, most significant issues of modern Jewish life.

     These ideological differences weigh heavily upon the young students with whom I have contact. Humanistic in their orientation and pluralist in their outlook, they do not want to teach in the Mamad schools, because they do not want to instill values that are not theirs. They all (women and men) have academic degrees, some in Bible and in Talmud, as well as in literature, history, music, and art. They embrace the world because it is awesome, and they are curious. They cannot teach honestly without alluding to all that they know, nor do they want to.

     These dati students have been to China and India, some even to London! They believe Jews are special, but they don’t believe that everyone else is devoid of values. They go to concerts, they know who Matisse is, and they know a thing or two about wine. The men know how to cook… and most of the women wear slacks.

     They are rigorous in their thinking, but not rigid in their outlook. They struggle to find the interface--often through reexamination of religious sources--between the yeshiva/midrasha and the university, between Levinas and dati leumi, shiurim and shira, Carlbach and Kleinstein. Their challenge is to make these worlds overlap, not to compartmentalize them.

They represent the oft alluded line between dati and leumi, between modern and Orthodox. These are the students who should be teaching our children. Most of them will not.

The Dress Code

     A disturbing corollary of hareidi- leumi influence that threatens the caliber of teachers in the dati leumi schools system is the growing obsession with the dress code relating to women. Part of the reason why the teacher in the Matisse story continues to teach in our schools is because she looks the part.  She and hundreds like her are teaching in our schools, despite the fact that they may be inferior teachers, because her elbows are covered, her skirts are long, and in the case of married women, her head is covered.   

     Over the past 10-15 years, the dati-leumi establishment has become obsessed with the dress code of women. Prominent rabbis write outrageous articles measuring centimeters on the neck and on the arms. While the suitability of male teachers is measured in how much they know and the quality of their prayer, in the case of women, the skill of pious dressing can override the skills of good teaching.

     Modesty is a significant tenet of Jewish life, but we have begun to lose all sense of proportion. When appearance is secondary to talent in a school system, the big losers are the children. 

     A case in point: Several years ago a new Dati Leumi academic school opened in our neighborhood to address the needs of our predominantly liberal dati-leumi population. Most of the parents, working people, professionals and academics, were eager for a superior local school for their children that could compete with excellent schools outside the neighborhood. The girls’ school, however, was headed in a different direction. From its inception, it insisted that homeroom teachers wear head coverings at all times, that is, outside of school as well as in. All non- homeroom teachers, that is, art, history, math, were requested to wear a head covering in school,  even if they didn’t do so in their personal lives. Thus, with one swift religious stringency, the eagerly awaited alternative dati-leumi school committed to excellence, disqualified all outstanding religious teachers who didn’t "look the look.”[5]  While the boys' school, instituted at the same time, searched for the "best and the brightest," the girls’ school front line concern was attire.  Not only did the students have a dress code, so did the teachers.

     It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the halakhic ins and outs of these dress demands.  The point of emphasis here is that this stringent dress code does not reflect the norms or the values of the religiously observant parent body.  The vast majority of the mothers in this school do not cover their hair and many wear slacks. At the opening ceremony of the school the number of mothers counted with head coverings was 10 out of 150! Thus the unstated message conveyed to girls is that their mothers are not qualified to be their religious role models. [6] 

     The ever increasing insistence on a dress code for teachers is another reasons my religious students avoid teaching in the Mamad system. It is important to note that some of my married dati students do in fact wear head coverings, but some do not. Some wear head coverings and slacks and want to continue to do so, not because they are rebellious, but because slacks are comfortable and efficient. These young women are halakhically committed, and halakhically informed, many are well versed in Talmudic texts. They know that the ban on slacks is a sociological issue, not a halakhic one[7], and that head covering has become the sociological equivalent of a kippah only recently.  Graduates of midrashot and yeshivot, they spend countless hours examining the sources. Thoughtful and honest, they are looking for ways to be true to halakha and true to themselves.

     Thus these young dati-leumi teachers opt for schools that will let them wear what feels comfortable, while retaining their personal sense of modesty;  schools that will focus on their thinking abilities, their pedagogic skills,  and their ability to touch the hearts and minds of their students. They are not going to the Mamad system.

     Yet, aren’t these the very teachers we want teaching in our schools? 

Conclusion

     The Mamad school system has lost its sense of identity; it is no longer responsive to the needs of its community.  The vacuum created is being filled by ideologies that do not reflect the vision and the values of the majority of the pupils’ homes and communities. By allowing vast hareidi leumi influence on our schools, we abrogate our responsibility to our own community. Not only are young teachers leaving the system, so are the children. 

     Talented teachers with a more embracing attitude to the modern world as well as to its challenges will find work elsewhere, in the secular public school system and in other frameworks mentioned in the opening of this paper. But who will teach the thousands of children from liberal dati leumi homes? For now, the majority of dati leumi parents are not looking for alternative frameworks, although with each passing year, more and more are doing so. They are still eager for a neighborhood school that reflects their combined commitment to Torah and general wisdom, in the broadest sense of the word. 

     In the final analysis, it is the teachers who make a school. In order for children to return to the Mamad system, we need to make spiritual room for the many talented young religious teachers who are grappling with the same issues as the families,  teachers whose intricate approach to the world is similar to that of their students.

A Practical Suggestion for Change 

     The past few years has seen the development of several excellent academic programs throughout Israel which support promising young students financially in exchange for a commitment to teach Jewish studies in the religious public school system for a stipulated number of years.  I would like to see the creation of similar programs that would prepare bright and motivated religious university students for teaching in the Mamad system. In exchange for tuition and financial support, perhaps by the religious branch of the Ministry of Education, as well as private donors committed to liberal religious values, they would be asked to commit to several years of teaching in the Mamad.

      In addition to the regular courses in disciplinary knowledge and in pedagogy, there would be classes and workshops devoted to issues such as: the implications of the past 100 years’ of Biblical research; recent Talmud research; issues related to women; national service; conflicts arising between Synagogue and State; democracy and Judaism; attitude toward non-religious Jews, and so much more. As of now, most of these issues are discussed only in informal youth programs like Gesher. Their place is in the schools.

     In order to accomplish this, we need teachers who are not afraid.

     There are many options for such a program of study, worthy of a separate paper. But in order for such a program to be effective, there needs to be more than specialized education for students. Just as the general public school system is reevaluating its attitude toward Jewish studies and therefore training teachers to spearhead that movement, so does the dati leumi school system need to do some serious self- reflection. Only then will they be able to bring back young dati teachers who think out of the box, who are committed to halakha and to academic research, who are rethinking old approaches--not rejecting them--who love children, love knowledge, and embrace the world.  

Prayer is a very personal and individual activity; each person’s experience is unique. Nevertheless, prayer, especially synagogue prayer, is also a communal experience. It occurs in a group and includes prayers that can only be recited in a quorum (minyan). It is this communal aspect of prayer as it is performed in an Orthodox setting that I wish to address here.

Being cognizant of the problem of men attempting to channel women’s experience, I begin with an apology: This will be yet another example of a man writing an article about women’s place in the synagogue. I sincerely hope that with the many opportunities for advanced Torah study that have become available to women over the last decade or so, the conversations and debate surrounding women in the synagogue will soon be dominated by women’s voices. I will return to this point at the end of my piece.

            Although I have been familiar with the challenges women face in feeling part of the service in Orthodox synagogues for some time, over the past year the issue has intruded into my consciousness in such a way as to become an unavoidable part of my own prayer experience. Once the glaring nature of the problem moved from my subconscious awareness to my conscious mind, it entrenched itself there and shows no signs of fading. I can no longer help but notice that the Orthodox prayer service is strongly reminiscent of a men’s club, with some women watching or participating from the sidelines.

Never having been a woman, I cannot really identify with the experience of praying as a spectator’s sport, but this is the way the Orthodox prayer service is experienced by many women. Although there are women who do not seem troubled by the situation, believing that this arrangement is God’s will and meaningful in its own way, a growing number of women—and men—have begun to see the situation as intolerable. Why should modern-day women be first- class citizens everywhere but in their own synagogues?

In order to express some of these feelings and begin a public conversation, I wrote a post called Davening among the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, comparing the Orthodox shul experience to the lodge of this name in the Flintstones. Not surprisingly, my imagery in this piece—which was admittedly over the top—struck a chord for many readers, both positively and negatively. Some thought it was a “fantastic analogy,” while others felt I was caricaturing the synagogue. A few months later I followed up with a post called, Women’s Participation in Ritual: Time for a Paradigm Shift. In that post, I made the following argument:

To break out of this vicious cycle, we need to shift the paradigm 180 degrees. Instead of saying that since women have never historically participated in public ritual, so each shul and each rabbi will—upon request—think about creative ways to allow women to participate ritually in things that are permitted, we should be saying that all Jews, men and women, can do or participate in any meaningful ritual unless it is clear that halakha expressly forbids this.      

The post generated a lot of debate, and Rabbi Angel kindly suggested to me that this issue of Conversations would be an ideal venue to continue my discussion of the topic, focusing not on the theoretical paradigm shift but on practical suggestions for synagogues. I thank Rabbi Angel for this opportunity and will focus this article on practical suggestions.

For the record, I am not a pulpit rabbi myself, and not subject to the political pressures that come with that position. My colleagues who find themselves in positions of synagogue leadership will each have to determine what is feasible or desirable in their own communities. This article should be seen as a reimagining of the Orthodox synagogue experience and an attempt to begin a conversation. I will divide my suggestions into a number of categories where I see need for adjustment; I invite those of my colleagues who agree with me in principle to stretch, at least a little, in each category.

1. Space

Orthodox synagogues have separate seating for men and women divided by a meḥitza, a barrier. The purpose of the meḥitza has been debated. Some, R. Joseph Soloveitchik for instance, say that it functions to establish the borderline between men’s space and women’s space; others, like R. Moshe Feinstein, suggest that it is meant to make conversation or interaction between men and women difficult. In very right-wing communities, some have argued that it is to make the women invisible to the men. These positions come with practical implications. If the meḥitza is meant to delineate space, then all that is necessary according to halakha is the “minimal” halakhic wall, 10 ṭefaḥim (cubits). If the meḥitza is meant to discourage interaction, it should be as tall as the shoulder of the average man (this is what R. Feinstein argues). If women should be “invisible” to the men (the position adopted by Chabad) the meḥitza should be as high as possible.

            Putting aside the question of which position a given synagogue follows—and for what it’s worth I would urge Open Orthodox shuls not to follow the third position—the larger problem for women in Orthodox shuls is not the meḥitza or separate seating per se, but the conflation of the concept of “men’s space” with the concept of “prayer space” (maqom haTefillah). In some shuls the men’s section is larger than the women’s section. Other shuls keep books or siddurim in the women’s section, making it a place that can be entered by both genders. During weekday prayers in many shuls men spread themselves out into the women’s section and pray there, either making it uncomfortable for women to come to shul or forcing them to awkwardly take their place and wait for the men to leave. In either case, this behavior underlines the unstated claim that all prayer space is really men’s space, and women are graciously granted a tentative foothold.

            Perhaps the clearest evidence that the area of prayer equals men’s space is the placement of the bima and/or amud /teibah (podiums in the front and/or middle of the sanctuary.) In most Orthodox synagogues, these are in the men’s section. The message seems clear, the leader of the prayers is praying for/with the men and the speaker is speaking to the men.

If Orthodox synagogues wish their women to feel like they are part of the room and not just spectators, at the very least the meḥitza should be down the middle and should not obstruct their view of the reader’s desk. For Ashkenazic synagogues, it would be even better to have a bima facing both the men’s and women’s sections and an amud that would stand in the middle of the two sections. Since both the bima and the amud are considered separate areas, distinct from the other sections of the shul, there should be no problem having them centrally placed. Finally, I would suggest that there be stairs from the women’s side onto the bima and the amud. This is both for practical reasons, because I believe that women should have a role in leading at least some prayers, as well as for its symbolic importance, reminding the congregation that the leader of the prayers does this on behalf of all people in the room, not just the men.   

2. Voice

In much of the Orthodox world, there is an attempt to remove women’s voices (qol isha) from the realm of men. In the Talmud, qol isha has to do with women’s speaking voices (i.e., it was meant as an injunction to men not to interact socially with women, see b. Qiddushin 70a.) Nevertheless, the halakha has been understood or recast as having to do with women’s singing voices. My own view is that the rule of qol isha, as part of the laws of tseniut (modesty), only applies to matters that are irregular, and since women’s singing voices are a staple of modern society, the halakha does not apply nowadays. Nevertheless, even if one disagrees with my reading of this halakha, qol isha would not apply for the recitation of holy texts. The truth of this assertion is easily demonstrable by the fact that during the Talmud’s discussion of women reading Megillah and the Torah, there is no mention of qol isha.

            I bring up qol isha because women’s voices are conspicuously absent in the Orthodox prayer service. Part of this is absence is halakhic. According to the traditional—and dominant—view in halakha, only men are obligated in communal prayer and minyan; therefore, the parts of the service that require a quorum (devarim she-beQedusha) can only be led by a man. Nevertheless, part of this absence is purely sociological. Despite recent attempts to make an alternative argument, I believe it is self-evident that the reason women do not lead parts of the service that are not davar she-beQedusha is sociological in nature. (I outlined this in two blog posts on Morethodoxy, Partnership Minyanim: A Defense and Encomium and Partnership Minyanim: A Follow Up.)

            In order for the prayer service to feel like it is the product of both the men and the women, the voice of women needs to be heard during the service. Although it is sometimes possible to hear women singing along with the tunes or saying amen to the prayers, I am suggesting something more. I believe that Orthodox synagogues need to ensure that some part of the service—especially the Shabbat service, which is both central to the religious experience of most Orthodox Jews and relatively long and complex—is led by a woman.

For synagogues uncomfortable with any large steps in this direction, perhaps having women lead the mi-sheBeirakh prayers, the prayer for the State of Israel, or the prayer for the U.S. government, would be a start. For those looking for more, there is the possibility of women leading Pesuqei deZimra in the morning or Qabbalat Shabbat on Friday nights. In neither of these prayer services does the leader function in such a way as to fulfill an obligation of the congregant such that gender would matter.

Another possibility is women’s participation in the Torah reading. The Talmud states that women are an integral part of the Torah reading service, but they do not read for the public due to the honor of the congregation. The idea that it would be insulting to the congregation to have women leading is almost certainly a sociological claim, as has been argued by Mendel Shapiro and Daniel Sperber, among others, and no longer has relevance in the modern world. If men are not embarrassed to have female doctors, female lawyers, female professors, and even female political representatives, they can probably handle female Torah readers without too much embarrassment.

3. Honors

A related issue to the previous one is honors (kibbudim). The synagogue experience heaps honors onto its participants. Leading any part of the prayer service is an honor. Receiving an aliya to the Torah is an honor. Opening the ark, removing the Torah, lifting and tying the Torah, carrying the Torah—all of these are honors. Men who receive these honors get hearty handshakes from their fellows, and the blessing of yasharkoḥekha or hazak uVarukh. Women receive no honors during the prayer service, mostly because, as discussed in the previous section, they don’t do anything during the service. This must change.

            For those synagogues willing to consider some of the suggestions for women’s participation, these will also be opportunities for women to receive honors. For those which are not, I strongly suggest that some sort of parallel track of synagogue ritual behavior be designed. For example, the holiday with the most significant honors is Simḥat Torah. On this holiday, there are three special aliyot called Kol haNe’arim (the aliyah for the children), Ḥatan Torah (groom of the Torah), and Ḥatan Bereishit (groom of Genesis). In many synagogues, like my own, these aliyot come with a lot of fanfare. For those synagogues willing to allow women to read Torah this problem will solve itself. However, some synagogues have already designed creative solutions and created a parallel female track of Kallat haTorah (bride of the Torah). This is a good example of creative thinking within the confines of a strict traditionalism. Although some detractors have argued that “one should not judge spiritual practice by honors,” I can only reply by saying that this is a relatively easy position to take when one is of the group that receives the honors.

4. Torah

The Torah is the lifeblood of Judaism; it represents the very core of our religious identities. For this reason, emphasizing the relationship between the worshipers and the Torah is critical. Before reading the Torah, it is carried all around the synagogue for worshipers to look at, follow after, or kiss. In some synagogues, the rabbi follows behind the Torah and shakes everyone’s hand while various prayers from the Psalms are sung. Unfortunately, as pointed out in the section on space, “the synagogue” is usually defined as the men’s section. In most synagogues the Torah is not paraded through the women’s section, although in many it is carried alongside the meḥitza for the few women close enough (and tall enough) to put their hands over the barrier and touch the holy scroll. Most don’t even try.

            In my opinion, it is critical that the Torah be carried around the entire synagogue, including the women’s section. Whether this should be done by having the man carrying the Torah pass it to a woman, who would then carry it on her side, or whether the man should carry it through the women’s section (I prefer the former) should be decided in line with what is most comfortable to any given rabbi in any given synagogue, but it should (must?) be done.

If synagogue design follows my previous suggestion (I hope it will someday), with the reader’s desk and ark in the middle, and access on both sides, there could be an elegant solution to the carrying of the Torah problem. The opening of the ark (petiḥa) could be given to both a man and a woman. The woman would open the ark and carry the Torah across the women’s section and then pass it to the man to carry through the men’s section and then onto the reader’s desk. After the Torah reading, the woman could take the Torah, carry it through the women’s section and pass it to the man who would put it back into the ark. The order can be switched but the point is that this would demonstrate a real parity, with men and women sharing in the caretaking and respect of the holiest Jewish object.

In addition to carrying the Torah and removing it from and replacing it in the ark, the other major ritual (aside from the actual reading which was already discussed) surrounding the Torah is the dancing on Simḥat Torah. I believe it is essential for women to have Torah scrolls to dance with during the festivities. Many Orthodox shuls already do this, and I encourage all to do so. Physical access to the Torah is an electrifying experience and should not be withheld from anyone. 

5. Garb and Accoutrements

During weekday services, a man wears his ṭallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries); on Shabbat only the ṭallit. Many Orthodox men wear their kippot (yarmulkes/skullcaps) all the time, but if not, they certainly do during prayer. Women have no such garb that distinguishes their prayer attire from any other attire. Although some women cover their hair in synagogue even if they do not do so in other places, this has more to do with men and modesty than it does prayer and God.

            My own preference would be to see women beginning to wear ṭallitot and tefillin. The latter is a mitzvah of such centrality in rabbinic thought that many men (like me) take pride in having never missed a day. There is an insult in the Talmud about a boorish person being a qarqafta de-lo manaḥ tefillin (a skull that doesn’t have tefillin placed upon it). Many of my friends place smiling pictures of themselves and their sons on the day they (the sons) first put on tefillin. Our women and our daughters should be a part of this ritual. Although there is some debate about whether women “should” wear tefillin, the Talmud is explicit that doing so is permitted, and the reasoning Tosafot suggest for why other rabbinic sources are against is based on hygienic concerns no longer relevant. Insofar as concerns about a ṭallit being a “man’s garment,” this can easily be solved by having women’s style ṭallitot—the mitzvah is not the shawl but the tzitzith hanging from the shawl, after all.

            Finally, on the subject of accoutrements, it is also worth noting that on the holiday of Sukkot, there is the special mitzvah of shaking the lulav (palm frond) and etrog (citron) during the Hallel service. Additionally, the lulav and etrog play a part in the hoshaanot ritual, where the congregants walk in a circle around the Torah, held on the reader’s desk, reciting special lines. It is critical, I believe, for women to be a part of all of the lulav and etrog rituals, as much as the men. Nothing makes one feel more like an outsider than watching everyone with their lulav and etrog, but not having one or participating oneself. (Just think of how uncomfortable men who have forgotten theirs, or didn’t order a set, seem, and how accommodating others are to give them an opportunity to use theirs.) Whether this means that the women walk with the men for Hoshaanot or that they set up their own area for walking should be decided in accordance with the comfort level of the rabbi and synagogue.

6. Religious Leadership

One of the real “hot topics” in the current climate of Open Orthodoxy is the question of women’s ordination. (Disclosure: I am on the rabbinic advisory board of Yeshivat Maharat and am fully supportive of women’s ordination.) However, one falls out in the technical discussion of women’s ordination, I believe it is very important for women to hold positions of religious leadership in Orthodox synagogues. There are a handful (maybe less) of Orthodox synagogues that have hired a woman to be their “rabbi” or chief spiritual leader; KOE’s Dina Najman, for instance, goes by Rosh Kehilla (head of congregation). Many more have begun to hire women as assistant rabbis/rabbas, ritual directors, and so forth.

            If hiring a female spiritual leader to be part of the rabbinic team is not an option for a given congregation, whether because of politics or simply funding reality, I would urge that congregation to look for opportunities to have women as scholars-in-residence or guest lecturers. Additionally, the synagogue might want to think of being in touch with a yoetzet halakha (a woman trained in answering halakhic questions about family purity laws.) I believe it is vital for women (and men) to see women in positions of spiritual and religious leadership—I would venture to say that there is no greater way of internalizing one’s own potential for excelling in religious practice and/or scholarship than by seeing role-models who have done so. Men have plenty of these models; it is time for women to have some as well.

7. Women-Only Spaces

One important way women have counteracted the feeling that prayer services are all about men has been to create the women’s prayer group. There are many versions of this practice and it is widespread in the Modern Orthodox shuls across the United States and Israel. Although there are many debates regarding the details of how certain rituals should be performed in these prayer groups (which, technically speaking, do not have a minyan according to Orthodox standards), nevertheless, the basic practice of women’s prayer groups has inspired a generation of women. Many girls are bat-mizvahed in this venue and read from the Torah. Women’s Megillah readings and women’s Rosh Ḥodesh groups are particularly prominent.

            One problem with this venue is that it abandons the synagogue service to the men; this is why I do not see the women’s prayer group as a solution in itself. Nevertheless, I do believe that women’s prayer groups have an important role to play in the Jewish world for two reasons. First, it is a venue that many women find inspiring, and inspiration is certainly a significant factor in crafting a prayer experience. Second, it is more than likely that men have a need for man-centered experiences as well, at times. At this point, all prayer services in the Orthodox world (other than the women-only variety) are male centered, so there seems no need to address this. However, if women begin to take a more active role—and I hope that they do—this male space will begin to shrink. Looking at the realities of synagogue attendance in the Conservative movement, it seems that men begin to drop off in large numbers when male-centered rituals or spaces begin to disappear. For this reason I hope that as Orthodox prayer ritual evolves, women and men will figure out ways to craft meaningful experiences that are integrated as well as ones that are gender-specific.

Will It Be Enough?

Inevitably, after each of my posts about making the Orthodox prayer experience more inclusive, somebody asked me if I really believe what I offer will be enough. I have stuck with the traditional definition of minyan being made up of men and the long-established idea that even though women are obligated in prayer according to most, they are not obligated in communal prayer and, therefore, may not lead devarim she-beQedusha. Therefore, some argue, I am suggesting halfway measures that may be exciting for a while but will quickly highlight the reality that the core of the synagogue prayer experience, the minyan and its special prayers, is, in fact, a male-centered ritual. Will it be enough or am I just prolonging the inevitable frustration of women who want equal participation but cannot have it? Are the halfway measures I suggest doomed to fail?

            I admit I do not know the answer to that question, but I do have some initial reactions. First, the question has an uncanny ability to freeze women out of any participation by arguing that if we cannot give them everything, we should give them nothing. In my opinion, a service where women sit as equals, receive honors, participate publicly, and have a role in the leadership is entirely different than one where they sit on the sidelines and watch the men run the service. I worry that the question is a ruse to argue for maintaining the status quo by painting any change as futile.

Second, we really do not know where a stable solution would lie. Perhaps a division of labor between men and women would arise (women lead x, men lead y) that would be religiously meaningful. Perhaps the exact opposite would happen and leadership opportunities (when halakhically feasible) and kibbudim would jump from men to women and back again without regard to gender. At this point no one can say because women do not have these opportunities. The bottom line is that many women want to participate more fully in synagogue ritual and there is very little, if any, halakhic basis to stop them. I understand that this thinking requires a serious sociological shift, but it seems absurd to me that we should live in a world where men and women have equal opportunities, and the shul is the last bastion of women’s second-class citizenship.

Finally, some have asked the slippery slope question. If one were to turn the Orthodox shul into a partnership minyan, would that not place the shul on a short ride toward full egalitarianism? Instead of answering the question, let me first sharpen it. Rabbi Benzion Uziel (Mishpeṭei Uziel 3, milluim 2) believes that, according to Ramban, women can lead anything. His logic is simple: Since women are obligated in prayer they are automatically part of the communal prayer. Other Aḥaronim (not R. Uziel) extend this argument to apply to counting women in a minyan. In fact, R. Micha’el Rosenberg and R. Ethan Tucker have written a very long responsum titled Egalitarianism, Tefillah and Halakhah suggesting just this. Admittedly, I do not personally believe this to be the correct reading of the sources, but it is certainly a possible one. Is this where the partnership minyan is headed?

What about the meḥitza itself—could that be challenged too? Rabbi Dr. Alan Yuter pointed out years ago in his article, “Mehizah, Midrash and Modernity; a Study in Religious Rhetoric,” (Judaism 28.1 (1979): 147–159), how precariously balanced the argument for meḥitza—and even separate seating—as a halakhic requirement seems to be. Despite the weakness of the arguments for meḥitza and separate seating in the literature, I strongly believe that this set-up is one of the cornerstones of the Orthodox prayer experience and should be maintained. Nevertheless, I understand the fear that once we introduce radical change, with only plausible reading of halakhic sources as our guide, who knows where will end up?

A friend of mine—a rabbi of a large synagogue—responded to an early draft of this article with a question:

How should shuls with a strong open minded contingency push forward with some of these changes and still satisfy the needs of the more traditional elements within the shul? …Many people (including shul rabbis) will agree with your halakhic conclusions. However, they cannot be considered ‘practical suggestions’ until thought is put into how to implement them without alienating core committed members of our shuls.

I think this is an excellent point, and brings me back to my opening. Pulpit rabbis interested in this kind of change are in a complicated position. Change is never easy. My only suggestion is to try to start the conversation in the shul, educate laypeople about what is or is not halakhically possible, involve women in the conversation, and start slowly. Perhaps pick one change from each (or at least most) of the categories I isolated that would improve the experience of women in your shuls.

I would love to end this piece by showing where the red lines are, but every generation has its challenges, and every generation has its halakhic authorities, and it is impossible to predict where change will lead or where status quo will lead. Instead I will end with two thoughts. First, it is my personal belief that our tradition will survive whatever comes. Traditional Judaism has adjusted itself to challenges over millennia and has always come out the stronger for it. I believe that women’s integration into the prayer service and power structure will be another example of this, and will only serve to make Open Orthodoxy that much stronger. Second, I will return to my original apology and state that, as long as women are not part of the service and not part of the power structure, this remains a conversation between men about women. It would be more than a little patronizing for me—as a man—to dictate terms, as it were, as to where I will accept the possibility of change and where I will not, where I will “allow” women to participate and where I will not. Instead, what I say is this.

Since, at this point, men dominate the power structure and the prayer experience (and I am one of those men), I will make it my priority to bring women into the prayer experience and synagogue power structure to the extent that seems possible to me. Once men and women begin their partnership in crafting the synagogue experience, we can then have real conversations on the type of experience we wish to craft, the possible and probable meanings of our sources, and how we envision satisfying the needs of men and women to have group experiences and individual experiences, gender-specific experiences and gender-neutral experiences. The road is a long one. It may be bumpy and even frightening at times, but the goal of crafting a synagogue service that removes the sociological barriers to women’s participation while remaining true to halakha is a worthy one.

May God grant us the wisdom to navigate this tortuous path so that we can reimagine the Orthodox shul in a way that will allow us to feel pride in our synagogues and uplifted in our prayers.

The nature of a diasporic culture—such as the Jewish Italian one—should be understood as an ongoing process of merging and sharing various intellectual materials derived from both the Jewish and the non-Jewish past and present. Throughout the areas where they settled in the Italian peninsula, Jews have both elaborated their own traditional authorities and borrowed non-native elements from the surrounding cultures, influencing the latter in their turn.

In Italy, where Jews had established thriving communities since Roman times, the intellectual cooperation with the non-Jewish society was always especially strong throughout the centuries, in part due to the fact that the Jewish population never became numerically significant, therefore being largely exposed to the cultural influence of the majority.

The small Italian communities kept in constant contact with one another and with major centers of Jewish knowledge outside of Italy—especially when they had to solve juridical or religious questions, which often derived from the merging of non-indigenous Jewish groups into the local ones. Italian Jews moved around, for commercial and educational purposes: often in the double identity of traders and scholars, sometimes as talented physicians or renowned philosophers. By wandering about the whole peninsula—and sometimes reaching to farther destinations—they circulated the products of their variegated formation, becoming cultural mediators among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews. They could influence their interlocutors orally or address them with letters or treatises, written in Hebrew, Latin, or the local vernacular languages.

Such a circulation of knowledge was partly responsible for the intellectual cohesion of the Jewish population in the Italian Diaspora: By making themselves stronger, thanks to the cultures of others, they could awaken a deeper awareness of the risks caused by a too-close contact with the majority. However, being in a position of thoroughly understanding the major intellectual trends of the time, they could show their coreligionists how to adapt them to their canonized heritage without losing their religious identity. Although sometimes provoking disputes, the acceptance of cultural elements derived from “foreign” traditions never triggered in Italy the harsh polemics that characterized the intellectual life of Near-Eastern, Spanish, or German communities. In any case, Jewish scholars could ultimately demonstrate that what they were borrowing had originally been stolen from their own heritage.[1] Such an attempt to trace all traditions back to one cultural identity is very common among minorities. In the case of Jews, since everything could be referred to the Hebrew Scriptures, shared also by the Christians, their interpretation went beyond the communitarian borders and became appealing to their non-Jewish interlocutors. In such a framework, even pagan thought, reread according to the Medieval Islamic philosophers, could be referred to remote Jewish sources. As a matter of fact, what Muslim and Christian theologians had done in the previous centuries in order to allow contemporary scholars to merge religious authorities and rational thinkers into a theological system, had already been experienced by the Jewish scholars working in the Near East in the first centuries of the Common Era, as well as by the Church Fathers. Medieval Jewish mediators were following in the footsteps of their predecessors, who aimed to foster a common intellectual wisdom rooted in a uniquely inspired religious tradition.[2]

Thus, during the Middle Ages, Jewish communities in Italy, mostly in the South and in Rome, while continuing to view the Land of Israel and Babylon as the main spiritual centers of their religious tradition, developed their own rituals, their own distinctive culture, and their own academies, where they offered new interpretations of biblical and rabbinic literature—and also grounding them in non-Jewish speculation.[3] Although they followed trends that were common in the Jewish communities in the East and the Byzantine empire, at least from the ninth century, Jews in Apulia (at the heel of the Italian peninsula), commented upon the Scripture and the Talmud by making use of Hellenistic exegetical methods, which, although rooted in the rabbinic tradition, could leave room to allegorical interpretations based also on Islamic and Byzantine thought.[4]

The age of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194–1250), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, best known by the title of King of Sicily, should be viewed as the first period when closer intellectual contacts between Jews and Christians were made possible in Italy. This celebrated monarch, who was both admired for his political skill and feared by the Pope for suspicions of heresy, showed a sharp interest in science and philosophy and a multiform cultural curiosity (he could express himself in Latin, Greek, and Arabic, as well as in other vernacular languages spoken in his kingdom). He eagerly invited Jewish scholars to his court, some from distant regions, requesting their services in translating philosophical and scientific manuscripts from Arabic and Hebrew into the Romance languages. Jews were sought both for their competence in biblical interpretation, which obviously represented one of their most important skills, and for their ability to introduce Christians to the most recent achievements of Eastern thought and science, thanks to their knowledge of Arabic. Moreover, since Jews frequently practiced medicine, they were often hired to translate Arabic medical works unknown in Western Europe.

Under the protection of Frederick II Jewish scholars were entitled to share their knowledge with their non-Jewish colleagues.[5] The best-documented episode of such an intellectual exchange is represented by the encounter of the Provencal scholar Jacob Anatoli (first half of the thirteenth century) with the Christian philosopher Michael Scot (d. 1235).[6] Anatoli, who had been invited to Naples by the king, and at whose request translated several Averroistic works, related in his collection of sermons entitled Malmad haTalmidim (Goad to Scholars) that king Frederick possessed a thorough knowledge of Moreh Nevukhim (Guide of the Perplexed), the controversial masterwork of the Andalusian Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides (ca. 1138–1204),[7] whose work and thought were a common subject of debate among the scholars of the court only a few decades after the philosopher’s death. Moreover, Anatoli’s sermons inform us of the various subjects, ranging from the allegorical interpretation of the Bible to the discussion of complex philosophical issues, pertaining to deep theological problems, which were dealt with in meetings of philosophers of different faiths in Frederick’s court. It was not uncommon at that time for a Jewish scholar to support the philosophical interests of a clergyman who was deeply interested in the study of the Scripture—but the opposite case was also frequent. For instance, Moses ben Solomon of Salerno (d. 1279), who had studied in Rome, collaborated with the Dominican Apulian friar Niccolò of Giovinazzo. Moses wrote a commentary on the two first books of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, relying on both the Latin and the Hebrew translations of the text (originally composed in Arabic), and often compared Hebrew technical terms with their Latin equivalents. In his Hebrew-Latin philosophical lexicon, Moses resorted to Niccolò of Giovinazzo, and quoted the latter’s explanations on some chapters of the first book of the Guide in his own commentary.[8] The death of Frederick II (1250) and of his son Manfredi (1266), and the events which led Southern Italy to fall into the hands of the Angevins, were probably among the major factors that induced some Jews to leave the Kingdom of Naples, in search of better conditions in the communal freer cities in Northern and Central Italy. Still, the court of Robert of Anjou (d. 1343) in Naples continued to attract Jewish scholars during the first half of the fourteenth century.[9] Among the most outstanding intellectuals of the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, was Judah ben Moses Romano, a former disciple of Zerahyah Hen from Barcelona. Judah spent many years in Rome, his birthplace, and translated several Hebrew works from Hebrew into Latin for the King of Naples, such as the Liber de Causis (Book on Causes), which had been attributed to Aristotle, but was effectively a Neoplatonic[10] text, as well as Averroes’s De Substantia Orbis (On World’s Substance). At the same time Judah translated into Hebrew Latin works composed by Aegidius Romanus, Albertus Magnus and Alexander of Hales, in addition to writings by Thomas Aquinas. In so doing, Judah was following the tradition of Jewish scholars of previous generations, such as Hillel ben Shmuel of Verona (ca. 1220–1295), who, beside translating Thomas Aquinas’s De Unitate Intellectus (On the Unity of the Intellect), had propagated Maimonidean and Scholastic teachings both in Hebrew and in Latin all around Italy, especially in a school he founded in Capua (near Naples), which was attended, among others, by the famous Spanish kabbalist Avraham ben Shmuel Abulafia (1240–ca. 1291). Even in his biblical interpretation, Judah Romano, like his predecessor Hillel, never hesitated to resort to rationalistic thought. Judah, as well as his cousin Immanuel ben Solomon Romano (ca. 1261–ca. 1328), exerted a substantial influence on Italian Jewish philosophers of later centuries.[11]

Jewish scholars who flourished in late-thirteenth and early-fourteenth-century Rome and Southern Italy took an active part in the contemporary literary trends that were discussed among Italian non-Jewish literati. If Plato and Aristotle, the highest intellectual authorities of the past, denounced the use of poetry as a vehicle for conveying untruthful information to a naïve audience, how could Jewish scholars explain the use of poetry in the Bible, a corpus of writings that had been revealed by God? By founding themselves on the Hebrew Scripture, they could demonstrate that there were different kinds of poetic discourse and that the biblical one was the highest and the truest of all. Following in the steps of the Aristotelian logical tradition, they maintained that, like any other poetic genre, biblical poetry contained metaphors, although these conceived hidden mysteries, whose perfect knowledge would allow scholars to understand the secrets of the Godhead. After all, the ancient prophets were nothing but poets, who had received by God the gift to foresee the events and to express the future in poetic terms.[12] The revival of poetry as prophecy was very significant in the Middle Ages. The later rediscovery, through Byzantium, of ancient Greek prophetic texts, thought to be more ancient than what they really were, made Western scholars more eager to hold discussions with Jews about biblical poetry and prophecy. Therefore, throughout the Middle Ages, the poetic interpretation of the Bible became common and Jews helped their Christian colleagues to reveal the mysteries of the Jewish interpretation of biblical poetry in order to better understand its profound meanings. What Christians did not know (nor possibly Jews) was that the poetic texts by which Jews meant to reveal religious mysteries were not very old but were the result of late-antique pagan speculative sources, which sounded familiar to non-Jewish intellectuals. By holding that the Hebrew texts were more ancient than their Greek sources, both Jews and Christians could prove that pagan authors had been influenced by Jewish traditions in the antiquity. Moreover, the Platonic attack against mythology as related to poetry could be explained against the background of the allegorical reading of biblical poetry. In the case of a prophetic poetry, myth was no longer a danger. That is why Byzantine Christian authors on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean and Spanish Jewish kabbalists on its Western side reintroduced a poetic discourse in their religious traditions that could take myth into account.

It was not by mere chance that in the same generation of Dante Alighieri, the author of the prophetic poem known by later generations as The Divine Comedy, Jewish Italian scholars turned biblical poetry into a prophetic discourse which reread Jewish themes in a philosophic and sometimes mythical perspective. The first known Jewish poet to be involved in this project was Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, whom some scholars believe to have been on friendly terms with Dante. Immanuel may be seen as the best representative of late Medieval Jewish Italian culture. Born in Rome in the same generation that witnessed the contemporary presence in the city of Jewish scholars coming from the most important centers of the Diaspora, he belonged to a wealthy family of traders and, being a banker himself, wandered around several cities for his commercial activities. At the same time he was a very skilled philosopher, well versed in the Scholastic interpretation of the Scripture, especially knowledgeable in the Maimonidean tradition. Among his exegetic works, his Commentary on the Song of Songs is of special renown. In it he draws upon the homonymous work by the Provencal author Moses ibn Tibbon (flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century), in order to demonstrate the higher status of biblical poetry. His poems, written in elegant Tuscan Italian or biblical Hebrew, followed both the contemporary Italian and Spanish traditions. It is assumed that it was in Immanuel’s generation, and especially in the Roman intellectual environment, that the newly produced or reorganized kabbalistic material was brought from Spain to Italy. Although it is very hard to demonstrate that Dante’s Comedy was influenced by Kabbala, it is likely that this author might have come across some Hebrew mystical interpretations that widely circulated around Italy in the early decades of the fourteenth century. For instance, the role of the Shekhinah, the female aspect of God, who could be identified with the Shulamite of the Song of Songs according to Jewish Medieval interpreters, corresponds to the angelic lady on which the poetry of Dante and his Tuscan contemporaries mainly focused.[13] Like the latter, Immanuel praises women as manifestations of the higher divine world.

Let us examine, for instance, Immanuel’s sixteenth Mahberet (Composition), a chapter from his major literary work entitled Mahbarot (Compositions), which focuses on the nature of the angel-like woman. When Immanuel and his fictitious friend, the “Prince,” meet her first, the mysterious lady looks so beautiful that “everyone who sees her, praises her for her beauty, wisdom and skills”; “her eyes throw arrows that are dipped in the blood of those who passionately long for her” and she is “perfectly aware that by her light she rules over any other light.” She is very modest, though, because she knows fairly well that “were she prouder, when walking in the city streets the angels would not dare meet her….”[14]

All these features attributed by Immanuel to his “Madonna” are clearly reminiscent of the virtues attributed to Beatrix by Dante. [15] Moreover, Immanuel’s Mahbarot, which stylistically originate from the Arabic maqama genre in its mixture of poetry and prose, look similar to Dante’s Vita nova, a prosimetrum, which is a literary work made up of both verse and prose, dealing with the beatific influence of Beatrix’s love.

If the topic of Platonic love known in a Islamicate Aristotelian garb was influential in late-thirteenth and fourteenth-century Italy, it became one of the major issues that were discussed between the first half of the fifteenth century and mid-sixteenth century, when Italian intellectual circles were heavily influenced by Byzantine Neoplatonic theologies introduced into the peninsula—especially during and after the 1439 Council of Florence. This was a political and religious endeavor, aiming to reunite the Western and the Eastern Churches, and was made possible due to the diplomatic and financial activities of the powerful Medici family. The trend to read Christianity in the light of pagan myth thanks to the rediscovery of Greek texts brought to Italy by the Byzantines opened the path to a thorough search of all the mysteries conceived in different religious thoughts. Among those mysteries, hidden in sacred poetry, Jewish Kabbala could become a major tool for a reappraisal of ancient prophetic sources.

Beside Judah and Immanuel Romano, who also made use of kabbalistic motifs associated with Neoplatonic and Aristotelian concepts, the Roman scholar Menahem ben Benjamin of Recanati (active in the first half of the fourteenth century) was among the most important and influential Italian Rabbis of his time, whose work became the most commonly studied among the Italian-Jewish students of the esoteric tradition. In his Commentary on the Pentateuch, composed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Menahem selected and quoted passages from the most outstanding authorities of Medieval Spanish and Provencal Kabbala, mainly from Sefer haZohar (Book of Splendor)[16] and Sefer haBahir (Bright Book), while concomitantly relying on Maimonides’ rationalistic thought, which—as stated—was widely known and appreciated by both Christian and Jewish scholars in Italy. Menahem was but the first of a long tradition of Italian scholars who demonstrated the possible connections of Jewish Aristotelian thought with the kabbalistic tradition.[17] Another outstanding kabbalistic figure was Abraham Abulafia (1240– ca. 1291), who, though born in Spain, spent a long time in Rome and Southern Italy, where he decided to merge the most deeply mystical traditions of Judaism with Maimonidean thought, thus creating a trend of Kabbala, which has been called ecstatic or prophetic, that was to develop in Sicily, where Abulafia founded a school in the final years of his life.[18]

Unlike philosophical texts, Jewish kabbalistic works were known only within the Jewish communities until the fifteenth century, when this esoteric doctrine became an important object of interest for Christian secular humanists, as well as for Christian clergymen, in the context of the reappraisal of ancient sources coming from the East and allegedly related to prophetic revelations from High.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) was a Christian scholar who spent the last years of his brief life in Florence. Inspired by the Greek revival that had taken place in the environment of the Medici family, he studied Platonic and Neoplatonic sources and elaborated on the ancient view according to which an allegorical reading of pagan myths could explain the most hidden mysteries of Christian theology. However, besides merging Plato, Pythagoras, Hermes Trismegistus, and Orpheus according to the Florentine tradition (which had been fostered by the Latin translations of the Greek texts reintroduced in Italy by the Byzantines), Pico decided to include kabbalistic texts in his all-comprehensive analysis of pagan myth. By the end of 1486 he wrote his Latin oration De hominis dignitate (On Man’s Dignity), in which he affirmed that, in order to ascend to God, man needs a medium, which Pico identified as a cherub: his assumption was based on a kabbalistic rereading of Pseudo-Dyonisian angelology.[19] One of Pico’s Jewish assistants, Yohanan ben Yizhaq Alemanno (ca. 1435–ca. 1506), affirmed in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, dedicated to Pico, that angels are the only medium that allow man’s soul to ascend to God.[20] As a matter of fact, a few years before composing his oration, Pico, who was deeply fascinated with Tuscan poetry of the previous centuries, wrote a commentary on one of his friend Girolamo Benivieni’s love poems.[21] The latter had been composed in the Tuscan thirteenth/fourteenth-century style, though they more clearly expressed Platonic and Neoplatonic themes cherished by the scholars of the humanist Florentine environment. Let us take the following of Benivieni’s verses into account:[22]

From supernal love derives

the fire by whose virtue

all living creatures exist.

When such fire burns in ourselves,

our heart grows, while dying.

Pico wrote that in these words “astonishing and secret mysteries of love”[23] are concealed. The profound sense of Benivieni’s verses ought to be sought in the ability of man’s soul to turn totally to the object of her desire and die by virtue of such passionate love. Those who completely annihilate themselves into intellectual contemplation at exactly the same time when they miss their rational activities, lose their rationality, by acquiring the intellectual level of angels, and, he continues,

[the mystic] dies in the world of the senses, being restored to a better life in the world of the intelligibles [...] this is what the wise kabbalists affirm, when they say that Enoch or Metatron, the angel of the Godhead, or any other man can be turned into angels. [24]

In the system of thought elaborated by the princeps concordiae, that is, the “prince of the agreement” between the various religious and philosophic doctrines, as Pico della Mirandola was named by his contemporaneous, we can clearly observe his resorting to the most common motifs of Jewish “rational mysticism”: the man who wishes to attain the union with the Active Intellect will encounter the man Enoch, who was turned into the angel Metatron; he will then annihilate his soul in God, by purifying her through the consuming fire of divine love, as affirmed by Benivieni by the words “When such fire burns in ourselves, our heart grows, while dying.” Pico commented on the latter words:

That is why, if we assume, following the author’s [Benivieni] words, that divine heavenly love is an intellectual desire [...] which cannot be attained by man before the corporeal part of his soul has not been removed, the poet is totally right when he argues that while the human heart, that is man’s soul who dwells in man’s heart, burns in the fire of love, dies by that fire, and its death is not a diminution, but a growth, since when the soul has been completely burnt off by that flaming ardour, as if offered in the holiest holocaust, as if offered in sacrifice to the first Father, the source of all beauty, she is led, by ineffable [divine] grace to the Temple of Solomon, which is adorned with all spiritual good, the true dwelling of God. This priceless gift of love which makes men equal to angels, is an admirable virtue which gives us life, by bringing us to death.[25]

Pico’s conception of divine love considered as an intellectual love, which can be attained solely by freeing one’s soul from corporeal ties and by leading her through the fire of a consuming sacrifice to the Temple of Solomon, “the true dwelling of God,” is strongly reminiscent of analogous views explained, on biblical and kabbalistic bases, in the already mentioned Alemanno’s Commentary on Solomon’s Song of Songs.[26]

This Platonic-mythical-poetic reading of Kabbala, shared by both Jews and Christians, aroused problems in the small Jewish Italian communities. Judah Messer Leon, a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi scholar well versed in Aristotelian philosophy, sent a letter to the members of the Florentine community in which he warned them against any use of Kabbala according to Platonic speculation. He probably feared the possible misunderstandings of Jewish dogmas, when read according to a mythical interpretation. Among Italian Jewish intellectuals, the dogmatic reading of Judaism suggested by Spanish authorities such as Maimonides or the early fifteenth-century Joseph Albo was held in high esteem. This approach to faith allowed Italian Jews to read their faith in parallel terms as Christianity, as a religious system based on dogmas which could be interpreted rationally.

A trace of the polemics against the Florentine community aroused by Messer Leon can be seen in Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano’s treatise Iggeret hamudot (Epistle of Delight), a work on philosophy and Kabbala written in the last decade of the fifteenth century in the form of both a letter and a formal speculative treatise.

Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano (1440 ca.–1510 ca.) was a member of the Jewish banking elite that from the end of the fourteenth century had been allowed to settle in Tuscan cities. Like the other Jewish banking families, the Genazzanos had originally come from Rome and they boasted to descend from the priestly families, which had been deported by Titus to Italy after the destruction of the Second Temple. Roman Jews stressed their distinctive character that made them unique in the Diaspora, thus highlighting the differences from Ashkenazi or Sephardic communities.

Elijah Hayyim wrote his Iggeret hamudot exactly in the period when refugees from the Iberian peninsula were arriving in large numbers to Italy. For many Italian (i.e. Roman) Jews, the presence of the Sephardim was a threat to the good but instable social conditions they had managed to create in the two previous centuries. This is the reason why in his Epistle Genazzano attacks contemporary Sephardic intellectuals, accusing them for their radical ideas whose only aim, according to him, was that of destroying the true Jewish tradition. With this goal in mind, Genazzano responded some intellectual questions addressed to him by his former yeshiva-fellow David, the son of Benjamin ben Joav of Montalcino. Benjamin of Montalcino, the head of a renowned Tuscan yeshiva, had been the target of Judah Messer Leon’s criticisms some forty years earlier.[27]

Genazzano is also known for a poetic debate on woman’s nature, composed in Dante’s and Immanuel’s garb.[28] He was very sensitive to the Neoplatonic atmosphere of Florence and in several passages of his treatise he reveals a thorough knowledge of some of the major trends of the Platonic interpretations of Kabbala, which were common among his Jewish contemporaries and which had been borrowed by Pico della Mirandola.

When dealing with a passage from the Sefer haIqqarim (The Book of Principles), a philosophical and apologetic treatise written by the Spanish Joseph Albo, a work that—as previously stated—had become very influential on fifteenth-century Italian Jewish speculation, Genazzano refutes the dogmatic interpretation of the Jewish faith presented by Albo.

Genazzano objects to the rational dogmatic understanding of Judaism, stressing that such a presentation of his faith has nothing to do with the traditional rabbinic and kabbalistic tradition, the only true tradition that allows Jews to deeply understand Judaism. In other words, Genazzano holds that the traditional kabbalistic reading of rabbinic and liturgical aspects of Judaism is the only way to adhere to the values of his faith, rooted in the Scripture and not in its rational interpretation. What is significant for our analysis is the relief the author gives to contemporary non-Jewish trends of thought in order to support his views rooted in Jewish tradition.

For instance, Genazzano follows the traditional kabbalistic interpretation of the levirate rules which could be read in the Book of the Zohar or in Recanati’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, which was much more popular than the Zohar in fifteenth-century Italy. Genazzano praises the rabbinical-kabbalistic tradition for being of higher value than the rational understanding of Judaism, fostered by Maimonides, Albo and other Spanish authors. He then continues:

As a matter of fact, behold, I have found the following statement in an ancient book attributed to a wise man called Zoroaster: “The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul was received by the Indians from the Persians, and by the Persians from the Egyptians; by the Egyptians from the Chaldeans, and by the Chaldeans from Abraham. The Chaldeans expelled him from their land, since they hated him because he held that the soul is the source of movement and that she is the cause of the change in matter and that there are many souls and so on.” [29]

In order to support rabbinic authority, Genazzano quotes the Persian Zoroaster, a major authority for the Florentine humanists who read Latin translations of the Greek treatises attributed to this semi-mythical ancient sage in order to find evidence for Christian traditions. The conception of the transmission of divine knowledge through a chain of initiates that had been common among late antique Neoplatonists and had been revived in the fifteenth century by Florentine intellectuals was influential on a Jewish Florentine scholar.[30] Now, in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Platonic Conclusions according to the Arab Adelandus, written a few years before Genazzano’s text, we read that: “All the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Chaldean sages believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of the souls”:[31] Pico’s words parallel exactly Genazzano’s statement, though the reference to Abraham should be sought in the views of the Byzantine scholar Georgios Gemistus Pletho, a philosopher who had taken part in the 1439 Council of Florence. In his Treatise on the laws Gemistus Pletho maintained in fact that Abraham believed in metempsychosis and attributed this view to Indians, Persians and Egyptians.[32]

Genazzano, who thus demonstrates that he is fully aware of contemporary non-Jewish speculation, resorts to the achievements of Florentine humanists both to demonstrate the higher antiquity of Jewish revelation and to argue against rational dogmatic views held by his coreligionists.

The impact of the local cultures, as well as the changes in the process of transmission of different materials within Jewish Italian communities, shaped the nature of the reception and of the subsequent interpretations of traditional lore, at least until the very end of the fifteenth century. As the revolutionary trends in Renaissance science and thought started to keep separated faith from reason, the modes of intellectual relations between Jews and non-Jews changed accordingly, as well as the official acknowledgement of the role of the Jews in Christian societies.[33]

In 1914 Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who would later become the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, visited the National Gallery in London. His aesthetic sensibilities were aroused by the artistic grandeur he encountered. He was particularly transfixed by Rembrandt's paintings:

When I lived in London I used to visit the National Gallery and my favorite pictures were those of Rembrandt. I really think that Rembrandt was a Tzadik (a righteous person) Do you know that when I first saw Rembrandt's works, they reminded me of the legend about the creation of light? We are told that when God created light it was so strong and pellucid, that one could see from one end of the world to the other, but God was afraid that the wicked might abuse it. What did He do? He reserved that light for the righteous when the Messiah should come. But now and then there are great men who are blessed and privileged to see it. I think that Rembrandt was one of them, and the light in his pictures is the very light that was originally created by God Almighty. (Jewish Chronicle of London, September 13, 1935)

Rembrandt van Rijn, a master of chiaroscuro (light and shadow), infused his portraits with a transcendental vitality. While this is true of all of his portraits it is certainly the case with his paintings of biblical scenes. Rembrandt's penchant for the Bible is reflected in the number of biblical portraits, etchings, and drawings he created.  In the field of portraiture in general Rembrandt left 400 paintings, 75 etchings, and only a few drawings. This may be contrasted with the 160 paintings, 80 etchings, and more than 600 drawings of biblical subjects that have come down to us.

            Rembrandt's prodigious activity in this field reflects his love of and intimate knowledge of the Bible. Rembrandt's biblical scenes are not merely an exercise in historical painting; they contain his own passion and intensity as well as a remarkable degree of his innovative biblical interpretation.

            A picture is worth a thousand words. And in the case of Rembrandt this adage can be multiplied exponentially. I would like to survey two of Rembrandt's biblical paintings in order to gain insight into the biblical text through his artistic and interpretative grandeur. It is often the case that something in his painting will stir our souls to consider aspects of the story we hadn’t considered before. Other times we will note something glaringly absent from the canvas, which focuses our attention on a dimension of the biblical narrative that is of great importance. In either case these pictures serve as a catalyst for profound analysis and speculation on the Book of Books—the Bible.  

“Scripture Envisioned: The Bible Through the Eyes of Rembrandt” (http://www.judaicaru.org/rembrandt_eng/) is a website that contains an impressive exhibit of Rembrandt’s etchings and portraits of biblical stories. It also contains classical rabbinic, medieval, and modern exegesis, which complement, supplement, and enhance the illustrations on view.

Allow me to share with you the etiology of the site, which began with a class about the prophet Jeremiah, which I taught in the Kehilath Jeshurun Synagogue in Manhattan. In the audience sat George S. Blumenthal, the founder of COJS: The Center for On-Line Jewish Studies. At the end of the class he approached me and said, “Bryna, you brought the Bible to life. I want you to do that through Rembrandt’s pictures of biblical scenes.”  Given that my first love is Bible, and that Rembrandt is my favorite artist, I was delighted.  George procured permission from museums throughout the world to use the pictures and commissioned Ardon Bar Hama to digitize and design the website. He had the vision and magnanimity to have the site translated into Hebrew (http://www.judaicaru.org/rembrandt_heb/)  translated by Sara Fuchs, and designed by Natan Bar; and into Russian (http://www.judaicaru.org/rembrandt_rus/) translated by Dr. Yona Shnaider, designed by Natan Bar.

            All of this was done over ten years ago. George Blumenthal was the trailblazer, digitizing this site, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Aleppo Codex, and other great treasures as a gift to the world (www.cojs.org).

            Let us begin with the painting in the London National Gallery, Belshazzar’s Feast, which may have inspired Rabbi Kook to make his grandiloquent statement about the numinous light of creation that Rembrandt brought into the world.

[INSERT IMAGE OF THIS PAINTING HERE—David, is there a particular format I should use to save images (to be printing in b/w)]

Belshazzar’s Feast and the Writing on the Wall

Chapter five of the Book of Daniel describes the royal banquet of King Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian emperor who had conquered Jerusalem, exiled its people, destroyed the Temple, and carried off its sacred vessels in triumph. Interestingly, the Bible portrays him as eventually acknowledging his hubris and humbling himself, as he says, before the “Ever-Living One, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion and whose kingdom endures throughout the generations. All the inhabitants of the earth are of no account…” (Daniel 4:31–32).

Belshazzar, his son, was nowhere near as humble. In the midst of a gala banquet he ordered the sacred vessels to be brought to his palace. In addition to profaning them by using them as common drinking cups, he added sacrilege by toasting and praising his pagan gods. As punishment for glorifying lifeless gods, the live hand of God writes a cryptic message on the palace wall:

But you Belshazzar his son, did not humble yourself although you knew all this. You exalted yourself against the Lord of Heaven and had the vessels of His temple brought to you. You and your nobles, your consorts and your concubines drank wine from them and praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear, or understand; but the God who controls your life breath and every move you make—Him you did not glorify! He therefore made the hand appear and caused the writing that is inscribed: Mene Mene Tekel U-pharsin… (Daniel 5:22–25).

Mene Mene Tekel U-pharsin

Overcome by terror, Belshazzar called for his soothsayers. No one could interpret the inscription. The Queen suggested that they check with Daniel, one of the exiles from Jerusalem, who was summoned to solve the riddle. Daniel asserts that whereas his father Nebuchadnezzar humbled himself before the Lord, Belshazzar’s impious desecration of the sacred vessels had called forth immediate punishment. The cryptograms, reduced to three, are to be deciphered as follows:

• Mene—numbered; God numbered your reign and ended it.
• Tekel—weighed; you have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting.
• Pharsin—divided; your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

The story ends with Daniel being given the insignia of nobility and Belshazzar being killed that very night.

Rembrandt has captured the startled expression of the king and his guests. The artist has remained true to the biblical text insofar as only the king beholds the inscription, while the others drop their vessels and gaze at the king. It is noteworthy that he has painted the words of the cryptic message in Hebrew letters, but has written them up and down rather than from right to left, offering an inventive explanation for why they could not be deciphered. This explanation is found in the Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 22a in the name of R. Samuel, and was probably known to Rembrandt by way of his Jewish friend R. Menashe b. Israel (see explanation of David Defeats Goliath on the website cited above). 

Holy Vessels

          The story itself and Rembrandt’s dramatic depiction raise and highlight the basic question, what is the purpose of kelei kodesh, the holy vessels?

The notion of royal vessels belonging to the King of Kings seems somewhat primitive and anthropomorphic. Does the Master of the Universe need a set of tableware? The Rabbis grappled with this question:

What was the purpose of...all of the holy vessels? The Jewish people said to the Holy One Blessed Be He: Master of the Universe, the kings of the nations have a palace, a table, a candelabrum, incense burners...these are appurtenances of kingship. Every king needs them, and You are our king, our savior, our redeemer; shouldn't You have these royal paraphernalia so that the entire world will know that You are king? He said to them, My sons, you are flesh and blood, and so you have need of all this, but I have not need since I do not eat or drink, I need no light as my servants attest, since the sun and the moon illuminate the world and I shine my light upon them. I shall watch over you well in the merit of your fathers. (Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 27, Buber ed.)

The conclusion is clear: the vessels serve human needs, not divine ones. But precisely because humans depend on material forms as symbols, their misuse of such symbols—as in the case of Belshazzar—brings on catastrophe.

Man’s Creative Offerings

We still are left to ponder why in the context of the biblical story of Belshazzar’s feast we find such a stern and inexorable condemnation? What was it about the use of the holy vessels that signaled the fall of the curtain on the Babylonian empire?

            In the description of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem, the Bible makes mention of the following bit of information:

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against him [Jehoiachin]; he bound him in fetters to convey him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also brought some vessels of the House of the Lord to Babylon, and set them in his palace. (2 Chronicles 36:7)

In reaction to this, Hananiah son of Azzur, a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, proclaims:

Thus said the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel: I hereby break the yoke of the king of Babylon. In two years I will restore to this place all the vessels of the House of the Lord which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from this place and brought to Babylon. And I will bring back to this place King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and all the Judean exiles who went to Babylon—declares the Lord. Yes, I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. (Jeremiah 28:1–4)

The order in his description is telling; first vessels, then the king, then the people. The captured vessels signify a perceived defeat of the God of Judah. The symbolic value of these vessels was immense. That would explain why Belshazzar’s misuse of them was so provocative, and induced the wrath of God.

Biblical exegesis adds an additional observation about sacred vessels to explain why they played such a critical role in the story of Belshazzar. The Bible tells us that humans were created in the image of God. God’s role as a creator is reflected in the creativity of humanity. In Genesis, six days of creation were followed by the creation of the day of rest, the Sabbath. In the Book of Exodus we learn of six other days that were followed by a special seventh day:

The Presence of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai, and the cloud hid it for six days. On the seventh day, He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud… “Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him. And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple…And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 24:15–16, 25:1–9)

On the seventh day, Moses was instructed regarding the construction of the Sanctuary and its vessels. The parallel is so striking that the Rabbis determined that the kinds of labor prohibited on the Sabbath were all those acts necessary for the construction and furnishing of the Sanctuary in the desert. The royal privilege to create, to pursue aesthetic perfection and technical virtuosity, found expression in the crafting of the sacred vessels for use in God’s sanctuaries. The vessels themselves were a form of offering. They were not merely receptacles for libations and sacrificial offering; they were inherently holy, having been consecrated to God by humans, as an expression of their divine spark—their tzelem Elokim—and as a form of thanksgiving.

Therefore, when Belshazzar defiled the sacred temple vessels through pagan use, he violated the relationship of the people of Israel with their ancestral God. It was this act that signaled an important turning point in Jewish history. When Belshazzar dislodged the spirit from the vessels where it was hiding, it openly revealed itself on the whitewashed wall from where it could never be erased, portending the end of the Babylonian Empire and the return of the vessels and the people to where they belonged.

Using Rembrandt’s portrait as springboard for teaching the story serves as a keli, an educational tool, for learning about kelim. The power of the visual and this interpretative approach move us from the Book of Daniel to the Books of Chronicles and Jeremiah and provide the teacher the opportunity to introduce and integrate rabbinic exegesis.

[INSERT IMAGE OF THIS PAINTING HERE—Again, what format should I use to submit image?

]

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

Let’s now take a look at Rembrandt’s magnificent biblical portrait, Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem, which inspired the birth of the website.

As noted above, in the year 586 b.c.e., the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar conquered the city of Jerusalem, destroyed its Temple, and carried off its people into exile. Among the handful of those who remained was the prophet Jeremiah of Anatoth. In this portrait, Jeremiah is mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, alone with a few remaining holy vessels from the Temple, as the people of the city have been taken into exile by their Babylonian conquerors. Behind him, the ruined Temple smolders. The prophet sits desolate and lost in thought, leaving the viewer wondering what he is contemplating.

Is he focused upon the catastrophe of a people bereft of their sacred Temple and banished from their land? Or is he crushed not by the effect of the destruction but rather by its cause—the fatal breach of trust and loyalty toward the Lord God of Israel? Jeremiah’s sadness might be a result of the fact that as a prophet, he strove with all his might to prevent that breach—and tragically failed in his attempt.

Rembrandt depicts Jeremiah leaning on the Bible, on his immortal words of prophecy. Does this symbolize the obsolescence of his words, which have fallen on deaf ears? Does it perhaps suggest that the book is closed to others, and now serves to support the prophet alone? Note that the prophet is leaning on his left hand. His right hand is not visible, reminiscent of the biblical verse:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour. (Psalms 137:5–6)

Lingering Agony

It is difficult to conceive of any situation more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which preceded its dissolution and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness and corruption. (Critical and Historical Essays: The Complete Writings of Lord Macaulay: “Machiavelli” (1827), pp. 117–118)

These words of Lord Macaulay could be used aptly to sum up the life of the prophet Jeremiah. For 40 years the prophet Jeremiah labored long and hard to prevent the destruction of Jerusalem and the holy Temple. He railed incessantly against the evil deeds of the people of Judah. What was it about their conduct that warranted such a terrible fate?

Crime and Punishment

Jeremiah, the prophet of the destruction of the first Temple, preached against the sins of idolatry, sexual misconduct, and bloodshed, but in his reproach he went beyond mere diatribes. He exposed the essence of these sins, exhibiting his keen grasp of the psychological motivation behind them. One classic example of Jeremiah’s searing insight into the psyche of the sinner is his famous Temple Sermon:

Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place. Don't put your trust in illusions and say, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these buildings.” No! If you really mend your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another; if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place; if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt then only will I let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for all time. See, you are relying on illusions that are of no avail. Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal, and follow other gods whom you have not experienced, and then come and stand before Me in this House which bears My name and say, “We are safe?” to do all these abhorrent things! Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves? (Jeremiah 7:1–15)

The Temple Fallacy

It was not unusual for a biblical prophet to preach against sins of inhumanity toward strangers, orphans, and widows; idolatry; theft; adultery; and murder. What is special about Jeremiah is his deep understanding of the psychology of sin, and how he exposed the fallacy into which the people had fallen. They had deluded themselves into thinking that perfunctory rituals would atone for their sins. They assured themselves that the Temple of the Lord would provide them with asylum and expiation. It is from this malady that they suffer. Professor Nehama Leibowitz explains:

What is the psychological incentive for idol worship? What causes people in all periods of history to place their trust in something external which is not contingent upon their actions but is confined to a particular space or time rather than to depend upon the moral imperative which is required of them?...In every generation people ignore God's will and His everyday requirements, preferring to seek a cheap form of atonement which lies outside of their quotidian lives. This atonement absolves them of performing radical changes in their life style.

Jeremiah accuses his constituency of abusing the Temple and relying upon its cultic efficacy rather than their own religious rehabilitation. Holiness, he insists, is not even in the holiest of buildings; it too shall be razed. Divine presence will only dwell in the midst of the people if they are able to find the spark of the holiness within themselves, and use it to ignite warmth and concern for others.

These paintings, two shining examples of the hidden light in Rembrandt's inspired work, provide a glimpse of the site, “Scripture Envisioned: The Bible through the Eyes of Rembrandt.” Rembrandt's masterpieces help unravel the mysteries of the Bible and the Bible, in turn, illuminates his magnificent art, the one in soul-stirring conversation (sihat nefesh) with the other.

Let us conclude with an intriguing insight of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, regarding the designer of the vessels of the Mishkan, Bezalel (literally, be’zal –El—"in the shadow of God”), which sheds new light on Rembrandt's technique of chiaroscuro.

. . . The light of God, The Omnipresent, Blessed be He, is heavenly wisdom and absolute justice. However, the aesthetic sensibility of the pure soul [that is] blessed with divine knowledge, creativity, skill and design, (Exodus 35:32–35) is in effect what shadow is to light, when they are together, they complete vision and the perception of reality in its entirety.

(En Ayah on Berakhot 55a, my translation)

I

The aim of Jewish Tanakh study is to encounter the word of God. There are, of course, other motives for studying Tanakh: It provides information about ancient Hebrew and Aramaic of use to linguists, and information about ancient history for specialists in that field; familiarity with the Bible is essential background for the study of Western culture and modern Hebrew literature and thus pertinent to a good liberal arts education; it serves those secularists who are curious about religious belief; not least, the Bible provides a subject of conversation and an opportunity to display one’s cleverness. From a religious perspective, however, such motives are ancillary, helping one to get at the meaning, or trivial distractions from the meaning. If you received a passionate message and contented yourself with analyzing the style, commenting on the grammar and typography and social mores, while keeping your distance from the person addressing you, you would be mocking the author. To do the same in the study of Torah is a mockery of religious commitment.

“The days of our lives are seventy years and with strength eighty years,” says the Psalmist. Our current life expectancy, though finite, is a bit longer than the biblical life span, yet our days are still frightfully brief and fugitive. How we allocate the few hours we devote to Torah, which includes Talmud, halakhah, Jewish thought inter alia, and within that harsh budget, what to do with the portion for Tanakh, must be governed by our goal in that study. One consideration is how best to pursue the primary goal of encountering God. A secondary question is how to benefit from the ancillary disciplines such as Semitics, archaeology, and the like when our time and attention are so severely limited.

Unfortunately, what is viable for the full-time talmid hakham (Torah scholar), in this regard, is not what is good for the layperson. Those of us who can devote the bulk of our time to Torah study have an advantage. Not only do we know more, we are also preoccupied with Torah, day and night, to a degree that others have difficulty achieving. At home with a significant range of text, context, and tradition, much of which is kept constantly in use, we can aspire to carry our learning lightly, and thus we may hope, with relative ease, to integrate different kinds of knowledge, traditional and secular, and to harness different kinds of insight from within Torah and from our life experience. There are days when the sun stands still, and despite everything, we seem to have time for everything.

Naturally I am speaking now for the scholar who holds paramount the religious dimension of Torah study. In an age of specialization and secularization, academics engaged in Jewish studies, even those who are nominally practicing Jews, are liable to misplace their sense of priority. Sometimes the result is heresy or indifference to normative belief, and/or a flippant, even cynical attitude toward religious conviction and religious reverence. Otherwise the compartmentalization of religion and scholarship declares itself in a bizarre alienation between one’s professed religious orientation and one’s actual full-time intellectual life. This troubling phenomenon of disconnect between the human being who aspires to edify himself or herself through the study of Torah in the service of God and the bleached soul of the neutral or cynical practitioner of academic studies, is a warning to us all not to take for granted the proper integration of intellectual activity and life.

The layperson, however sincere, generally cannot acquire the mastery required to control substantial areas of learning and to keep them in permanent repair.  (I am not even mentioning the many intelligent men and women whose language skills are deficient.) There are exceptions, non-professionals who are able, through commitment of will and nurturing circumstance, to “hold in” learning, as they say in the yeshivot. It is a sign of vigor in our community, when such an individual makes a contribution to the community, even to the point of producing material worthy of publication. It is an even more wonderful mark of wholesomeness when such productivity grows out of yirat Shamayim, the genuine fear of Heaven, and not merely as a highly skilled avocation. Our concern here is with those who are not so proficient or fortunate, at least not yet.

Should the Torah education of the layperson, be it via lecture or solitary reading, stress accumulating information, or should it prize creative engagement? Information is necessary for knowledge, but if the goal is religious reading, surely active study is far superior to passive reception. The problem is how to respond actively without sufficient knowledge and, even more important, without the continuous preoccupation that brings with it the ability to distinguish important questions from trivial ones, the ready command that makes it possible to apply what one knows to the question at hand and to avoid being overwhelmed by unfamiliar data.

If our goal as educators is to encourage active, thoughtful religious reading, our teaching must exemplify active, thoughtful religious reading. The primary orientation of our teaching should not be conveying information alone, nor should it be reporting our original contributions, however important. We are not fulfilling our main task unless we communicate information and ideas and modes of reasoning in a manner that enables our audience to think along with us.  If we succeed in doing so, our listeners are likely to engage in religious reading with us, and they are likely to develop the habits of thought and feeling, the analytic aptitude and the sensitive reverence that will enable them to encounter the text on their own, if they have the minimal literacy.

What is involved in communicating our engagement in religious reading? As we are preoccupied with the disciplined study of Tanakh in the light of traditional Jewish approaches, from Hazal down to the present, so must the non-professional student. That is one facet of our task. As we utilize information, insight, and sometimes theoretical constructions from other sources, we should make available the same for the non-professional as well. That is another facet of our task. Regarding the former, the major gap to overcome is one of knowledge and training within the traditional literature of Torah. Regarding the latter, there is another difficulty: Given the pressure of time, how does one make room for such sources without undermining the balance between ancillary informational instruments and the encounter with God to which they are subservient?

II

The primary texts of Jewish Bible study are available in almost every synagogue and school; many are found in the average home: the standard rabbinic sources; the commentators in the various Mikra’ot Gedolot editions; the major figures of modern times. In her volumes of studies on the Torah (and even more so in her Gilyonot) the twentieth century’s master teacher, Professor Nehama Leibowitz (who preferred to be known simply as Nehama), showed how these texts can be deployed educationally: what it means to read a commentator carefully, to notice what motivates his remarks, how and why he differs from other commentators, and so forth. If you are searching on your own for a viable derekh ha-limmud, a way to study Tanakh, one that will link you to the chain of Jewish understanding, then prolonged exposure to her work remains the royal road to religious reading.  Assuming the validity of her position, let me append some pedagogical notes, and address one question of intellectual substance.

The approach I advocate here, one that Nehama illustrates, privileges analysis over interpretation or thesis-mongering. By that I mean that the goal of teaching is not to communicate conclusions alone, but to make transparent the way conclusions are reached. This can be justified on academic grounds: What is more honest than making one’s considerations transparent, showing the alternatives not chosen, and enabling the listener to assess your choice? Here I am making the educational point. If you want your audience to be engaged in your study and to encourage them to do likewise, the only way to do it is to convene the commentators you have studied and allow your students to participate in your dialogue with them.

This sounds obvious to me. There is, however, a tendency among some teachers to present interpretations in which the give and take with the traditional literature is either absent or very well concealed. Often practitioners of this approach have done their homework but are wary of inflicting it on their audience; they fear that burdening their listeners with a blow-by-blow account of their transactions with their predecessors, trailing clouds of footnotes, is liable to prove a distraction rather than a boon. Sometimes they are so taken by the freshness and the compelling power of their insight that they can do without such dialogue.  Long experience makes me sympathetic to the concern about over-documentation and the “weariness of making citations without end”; writers and lecturers should take the trouble to be selective. Long experience also tells me that enthusiastically pushed interpretations produced in a vacuum are usually not as brilliant or as plausible or even as original as their champions presume. However that may be, the danger I perceive on the educational front is that those who hear these interpretations are liable to go and do likewise, with predictably arbitrary or whimsical results that do not honor the best among those who inspire them.

The corpus of Jewish biblical exegesis includes many topics and arguments that do not promise moral-religious edification: for example, lengthy discussions of grammar and vocabulary, geography, as the exegetes grasped it, even some of the sections dealing with halakhah. If the goal of Tanakh study is to bring us into closer relationship with God, such matters would seem to be of less relevance to the non-specialist student. Indeed, it is evident that Nehama chose her topics and her selections from the commentators with an eye to moral and religious edification. On one occasion, when a young teacher told her she had been assigned the opening chapters of Leviticus, dealing with the order of the sacrifices, Nehama expressed strong disagreement. In her opinion, the portion of Kedoshim (chapters 19–20) should be highlighted in Leviticus, not the details of the sacrifices, because the former has greater moral value. Of course, Torah is Torah; moreover, in the right context, the passages describing the manner in which God enables human beings to come close to Him through the various offerings is surely not religiously indifferent.  Nonetheless, it seems odd and unbalanced to struggle with esoteric halakhic subjects, to discuss, for example, the subtle interaction between peshat and derash (the “plain” meaning of a verse and the interpretation handed down or elaborated through the oral tradition) when students do not yet control sufficient information to appreciate the debate, or to invest disproportionate time in clearing philological underbrush at the expense of more directly relevant religious factors.

III

The major criticism of Nehama’s program is that it substitutes the study of the commentators for the study of Tanakh. Her method achieves insight into Rashi or Ramban’s understanding of the biblical text but does not ask what the biblical text means on its own. This criticism has two aspects: one is that an approach devoted entirely to classical Jewish works, from Hazal through the medieval literature through the parshanut (interpretation) of the last 200 years omits consideration of new discoveries, be they linguistic or archaeological; the other is that her approach ignores questions that may be important for us today but are not addressed systematically by the classical mefarshim (commentators).

            Nehama vigorously opposed R. Yoel Bin-Nun’s attempt to revise the Bible curriculum in Israeli high schools to make room for non-exegetical data such as geography.  On grounds of intellectual integrity he was surely right. Ramban rejoiced when he reached the land of Israel, where he gained a better grasp of her geography and saw with his own eyes the Paleo-Hebrew script he had only read about. If we are indeed Ramban’s disciples, it ill behooves us to ignore such realia as become available to us. As we have seen, the educational question is not so clear. How much time, and how much emphasis, should such information merit?

To keep our discussion simple, let’s limit ourselves to cases where the pertinence of the new information is undeniable:

1. I Samuel 13:21 mentions ha-petzirah pim. Traditional commentators say this refers to an implement with two edges (pim as plural of peh=mouth).  We now know that pim is the name of an ancient unit of weight. The verse is saying that the Israelites were charged a pim to fix their petzirah (sharpening). The new explanation is uncontroversial. Assuming that communicating it does not take an inordinate amount of attention away from religiously significant matters, there is no reason not to adopt it.
2. Ezekiel 14 refers to three righteous men—“Noah, Danel, and Job.”  Traditional commentators had no choice but to identify Danel with the biblical Daniel, despite the slight difference in spelling. We now believe that Danel, king of Keret, who is known from Ugaritic literature, fits the context better. If this view is accepted none of the three righteous men are Jewish. This affects the theological message of the chapter, which deals with righteous individuals in a corrupt society. While the traditional identification is still of value for our study of the history of exegesis, there is no reason not to adopt the new one, and adjust our reading of the prophecy accordingly.
3. II Kings 18:13–16 reports a confrontation between Hezekiah and Sennacherib that ends with Hezekiah’s submission. This is followed by further demands by the Assyrian king’s representative culminating in the almost capture of Jerusalem that is aborted by a plague among the Assyrians. Ralbag (on Kings) held that the text records two separate episodes: the second confrontation occurred when Hezekiah rebelled years later. Abarbanel believed there was only one confrontation: Hezekiah’s capitulation was deemed insufficient. Which view we adopt affects our assessment of Hezekiah’s strategy, his courage and his trust in God. Sennacherib’s Annals have been recovered: scholars have debated the One Campaign vs. Two Campaign theories based on these records which depict the king’s successes but carefully avoid ascribing victory to him in the siege of Jerusalem. Here the Annals can make a real difference in determining which medieval parshan came closer to the historical truth. Again the only question is how much attention and emphasis this discussion deserves given the limits on time and the primacy of the religious motive for study.
4. Rambam (Guide III:48) proposed that the prohibition of “cooking the kid in its mother’s milk” is to be understood against the background of idolatrous practices of the time. When the Ugaritic archives were unearthed early in the past century, a line of poetry was deciphered to imply that cooking meat and dairy together was indeed part of Northwest Semitic rite, thus confirming Maimonides. For the past four decades this reading has been dismissed, so we are back where we started, though the word has not yet reached some popular Orthodox and non-Orthodox authors and lecturers, who continue to parade this example.

These examples demonstrate the potential relevance of “outside” information; the last demonstrates what happens when pathways once welcomed become dead ends. How are laypeople (or scholars who are not always up to the minute on every question) to keep abreast of these developments? How many journals can even scholars plow through?  For some purposes the twentieth-century Da’at Mikra commentary on Tanakh (Mossad HaRav Kook) is a reliable source of information. But these works are not infallible and they age. I have no solution to this problem, which has its parallel in all other liberal arts. The point is that contending with it cannot take priority over our fundamental commitment to religious reading. If we take Ramban’s multifarious interests as a model, we must be sure to look to his sense of religious priorities as well.

IV

The second criticism of the exegesis-centered approach was made by R. Mordekhai Breuer. Take the Documentary Hypothesis, which maintains, among other things, that apparent redundancy in the Torah is evidence of multiple authors.  Thus the creation story of Genesis 1, in which God is called Elokim, was written by a different author than the creation story of Genesis 2, where He is called by the Tetragrammaton. In Lonely Man of Faith R. Joseph Soloveitchik listed many thematic differences between the two chapters, regarding humanity’s place in nature, the relations between the sexes, and God’s mission for humanity. R. Soloveitchik concluded that the juxtaposition of the two stories does not reflect multiple authors, but rather a complex view of the human condition. On his own, R. Breuer had arrived at a similar methodology—that God speaks in multiple voices, so that grasping the Torah’s message requires us to examine each section alone, but also in the context of other sections. Along these lines he studied the Torah systematically against the backdrop of one version of the Documentary Hypothesis. He believed that the questions raised by the critics helped to incubate his awareness of this complexity in the Torah’s narrative and legal portions. Thus thinking about these questions is valuable for Orthodox Bible study in our time.

According to Breuer, Nehama rejected his program.  When R. Soloveitchik did it, it was legitimate in her eyes. But the Rav’s rabbinic license did not extend to others. Again, from a purely intellectual perspective R. Breuer is right. If some of the questions raised by the critics are valid, and if, as I hold, R. Breuer’s approach is on the right track (regardless of criticisms I have made elsewhere), then we understand Tanakh better by considering them; Breuer would also insist that by doing so we gain much for our analysis of the classical commentators and again I agree with him.

By the same token: If Rambam was right in thinking that knowledge of the cultural background of Tanakh could add something of worth, then, in principle, we are justified in examining that cultural background in whatever depth and breadth we are capable of. At the same time, the explosion of knowledge in the field of ancient history makes it impossible for all but the few to engage it actively. It is one thing, for example, to read Sennacherib’s Annals in translation; it is a another to consider whether there was something distinctive about the cult of Assur that affected the confrontation between Assyrian religion and Israelite faith in God. It is one thing to contrast Hammurabi’s Code with Mishpatim, as was commonly done a hundred years ago during the “Bible-Babel” affair. It is another to weigh several Near Eastern law codes and to consider which is more pertinent to the background of biblical law and why.

Once again: if our goal in studying Tanakh is to encounter the word of God, then it is not only what  we learn that is important but how. R. Breuer carries on his massive project of appropriating what he finds valuable in the questions of the Bible critics. It is instructive that he does so while hardly ever mentioning their solutions. The questions are important; debating against heretical positions is a distraction from that task. It profits us less than nothing if we gain a whole world of scholarly tools and lose our souls.  This is true of the scholar of whom the Mishnah states that “he whose knowledge precedes his fear of Heaven, his knowledge is not sustained.” Even more is it true of the person whose time is husbanded and who must therefore be more anxious to employ it in a balanced and well-integrated way. We who teach must both communicate the truth and exemplify it.

V

What kind of background information is to be presupposed in our study of Tanakh is not set in stone. Nehama herself did not shy away from calling upon European literature or literary criticism to further her analysis, occasionally she used non-Jewish or non-traditional Bible translations to illustrate various options, and she took from Martin Buber or Benno Jacob what she needed and could not learn elsewhere. The goal of her study, however, could not be mistaken, and neither can ours. I have already warned of the danger posed by the putatively sophisticated disconnection between academic activity and the encompassing intellectual-religious response demanded by Judaism. This is due not only to increased flirtation with orthopraxy, in the narrow sense of the word, with its rejection of normative belief and indifference to the cognitive dimension in the Jew’s personal relationship with God, but also, perhaps even more so, it is associated with a studied irreverence toward God and Torah that borders, if it does not pass over into vulgarization, and undermines that personal relationship. It is also the error of those within Orthodoxy who define intellectual deviance only in terms of propositional heresy, regarding Torah mi-Sinai or the integrity of Torah she-be’al Peh, without taking into account debunking attitudes that stop short of propositional heresy.

Many are lured by these siren songs, not only through the desire to assimilate the  indifference and mild contempt for the intellectual content of religious belief that is prevalent in influential circles and is attached to the prestige enjoyed in some circles by academics, but also due to the absence of a visible alternative. We have outlined a derekh ha-limmud along the lines practiced by Nehama, supplemented perhaps by talmidei hakhamim such as R. Mordekhai Breuer or R. Yoel Bin-Nun, who bring the tradition into interaction with new questions, or guided by masters such as R. Joseph Soloveitchik, who took what he wanted from modern scholarship only to concentrate relentlessly on the human condition, as Judaism illuminates it, and the personal experience of God and Torah. All too often, these models are ignored by rabbis and teachers.

One factor is no doubt the fact that many of our communal functionaries have not been exposed to serious study of Jewish exegesis at all, or sufficiently to internalize a genuine derekh ha-limmud. Perhaps for that reason, they may deem their own homiletic concoctions and sermonic strains, where the text of Tanakh and the work of the classical commentators serve as pretext without context, more worthy of the ear of their classes and congregations than a careful, patient and submissive thinking along with Ramban or Netziv. Perhaps they regard studying the classical texts less important than whatever “message” or exhortation they wish to communicate to their attentive flock.

Much can be attributed to the moist gabbiness and intellectual shallowness characteristic of the talking professions. Once rabbis and teachers were expected to teach; now they are called upon to preach. As Ann Douglas has shown, Christian preaching in the United States once had hard intellectual content, and only in the nineteenth century did the Protestant sermon lose its cognitive substance. Perhaps this is another aspect of liberal American culture that has infiltrated our Jewish life. Or perhaps we have been brought to believe that only Talmud is intellectually for real, while the study of Tanakh is a game of tennis without a net, and the main goal is to have a good time.

Perhaps what I perceive as intellectual indolence and self-indulgence on the part of our professionals is no more than their adapting to what the congregations and the parents prefer. As someone told me after I delivered an earlier version of this talk at several Orthodox synagogues: Orthodox audiences enjoy hearing about the Holocaust, about acrimonious incidents in Jewish history, or about controversial halakhic rulings; they are not interested in talking about God and their relationship to Him. Yet amid the silence and conviviality, there are listeners who learn that the discussion of Tanakh in our community is an occasion for whimsy or an excuse for political or communal exhortation, and that if one is to study Tanakh seriously, the outlook of academic sterility is the only game in town.

Whether the approach adumbrated here is likely to prove popular should be a matter of indifference.  If, as I hope, there is an appreciative audience for an approach to Tanakh that is intellectually serious and fosters active engagement in the encounter with God and with His revelation, then it is a privilege to minister to that thirst. If, as we are sometimes assured, it is an uphill battle, then it is an even more urgent obligation to subvert that indifference and convert it to connection.

Further Reading:

S. Carmy, “To Get the Better of Words: An Apology for Yir’at Shamayim in Academic Jewish Studies,” Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990), pp. 7–24.

S. Carmy, “A Room with a View, But a Room of Our Own,” Tradition 28:3 (1994), pp. 39–69. Also in Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations, ed. Shalom Carmy (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996), pp. 1–38.

S. Carmy, “Homer and the Bible,” Tradition 41:4 (2008), pp. 1–7.

S. Carmy, “A Peshat in the Dark: Reflections on the Age of Cary Grant,” Tradition 43:1 (2010), pp. 1–6.

S. Carmy “Cold Fury, Hidden Face, the Jealousy of Israel: Two Kinds of Religious Estrangement in the Torah,” Tradition 43:4 (2010), pp. 21–36.

S. Carmy, “Concepts of Scripture in Mordechai Breuer,” in Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. Benjamin D. Sommer (New York and London: New York University Press, 2012), pp. 267–279.

Introduction

            The commentary of Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (Ramban), a foremost thirteenth-century Spanish exegete, is a rich, incisive medieval resource for the study of the stories of the Torah. The student of Ramban’s interpretation is drawn into the world of these stories—their plots, characters, themes, and didactic messages. How does Ramban succeed in vivifying the narratives and their personae, engrossing his readers and motivating them to want to study more about the biblical stories and their meanings? What is the unique appeal of Ramban’s commentary, such that nowadays his analyses are increasingly studied? I believe that one of the answers lies in discerning his distinctive mode of reading biblical narrative.

            A hallmark feature of Ramban’s exegetical method is his integrative approach to the study of the biblical text and context. Ramban reads globally, associating the different components of a biblical story into a holistic narrative. Building on his predecessors’ insightful analyses, Ramban develops a more extensive interpretative program that reveals the cohesiveness of biblical narrative, which provides the reader with a comprehensive, broad view of the stories. When Ramban reads a biblical story, he reads progressively, but also with an eye to linking what came before with what comes after. Through this amalgamated manner of reading, Ramban delineates the linear sequence of the story line. To facilitate his analysis, Ramban searches for linguistic clues such as key words that are pivotal for interpreting the narrative’s dynamic or repeated words that summon the reader to follow their path in order to decode the wider sense of the narrative. Ramban takes note of changes in time and place as the story unfolds, markers that signal transformations in character experiences. Through his expansive reading, Ramban reconstructs broad portraitures of the biblical personalities by scrutinizing how the narrative describes their thoughts, emotions, speeches, and actions. Extending his integrative approach, Ramban interrelates diverse stories, within the same biblical book or between different biblical books, seeking the linking threads between them that elicit the catalyst for ensuing events, create related character portraitures, and establish the thematic continuum imparted by these narratives.

            The ensuing discussion will illustrate selectively Ramban’s analytical method, which will hopefully  inspire further study of his engaging biblical commentary.

Plot Sequence and Timing

            The following examples will demonstrate how Ramban’s integrative approach discerns the sequence, structure, and progression of plot events in biblical narrative.

            In his analysis of Exodus 2:10–25, Ramban applies this method of reading in order to clarify the plot sequence from a transitional situation to a complicating event to the final situation that prevails at the conclusion of the narrative. Ramban observes that this text marks a new situation when it references the event of Moshe, the youth, “growing up” in verse 10 (va-yigdal ha-yeled). Ramban interprets this to refer to Moshe’s physical maturation, prompting his mother to bring him to the palace to be raised by Pharaoh’s daughter as a son “who would stand before kings.” This reading intimates how Moshe’s early experiences prepare him for his role as redeemer who will plead Israel’s case before Pharaoh. The second reference to Moshe “growing up” (2:11) specifies the instigating event that initiates the narrative’s turning point. Labeling Moshe as “a man of understanding (ish daՙat),” Ramban (on 2:11, 23) clarifies that Moshe reaches intellectual maturation, and he now becomes aware of his Hebrew origins, causing him to seek out his brethren and assess their oppressive condition. These observations impel him to act immediately and kill the Egyptian taskmaster (2:12), a transformative act that marks the climax of the narrative, as is evident from his confrontation with two wrestling Hebrews on the second day (2:13–14). As Ramban (on 2:14, 23) paraphrases the Hebrew’s retort to Moshe, “Who appointed you as an officer and judge over us? Is it because you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian that you are chastising me?”

            Their slander forces Moshe to escape to exile, settling in Midian (2:15), which precipitates God’s charge that he return to Egypt to redeem his people (Exodus 3–4). Noting, however, the significance of the temporal marker in verse 23, “It happened during those many days (va-yehi ba-yamim ha-rabbim ha-hem) that the king of Egypt died and Israel groaned from the work and cried out and their cries went up to God . . .,” Ramban (on 2:23) observes how the narrative provides the reader with a sense of the passage of time between these main action sequences. Assuming that the marked time frame refers to the length of Moshe’s exile,[1] Ramban proposes that Moshe escapes from Egypt when he is less than twenty years old,[2] and, as noted in Exodus 7:7, Moshe appears before Pharaoh at the age of 80. Since he receives the communication from God with only his eldest son, Gershom, having been born, Ramban posits that Moshe wanders for many years, settling in Midian and marrying Tzipporah toward the end of his years in exile (7:21–22).[3] Nevertheless, the narrative condenses its discussion of the wandering sequence as it is a transitional experience. At the end of this time period, while Moshe is in Midian, the Egyptian king dies, prompting God to charge him with his mission.

            Ramban’s linear insight into the narrative’s progression enables the reader to discern a clear sequence and structure that leads to a better understanding of the story’s underlying themes: exile, survival, and salvation.          

            Ramban (on Exod. 4:19–23) also outlines plot progression by tracing the paths of recurrent words within a narrative scene. Through this integrative mode of reading, Ramban makes sense of the episode in Exodus 4:18–21, which is marked by the repeated words, “go (lekh)” and “return (shuv),” that follow the biblical figures’ movements. After Moshe’s experience at the burning bush, the text relates,

18. Moshe went and returned to Jether his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me go now and I will return to my brethren who are in Egypt so that I may see if they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moshe, “Go in peace.” 19. God said to Moshe in Midian, “Go, return to Egypt for all the men who were seeking your life have died.” 20. Moshe took his wife and his sons and mounted them on the donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt, and Moshe took God’s staff in his hand. 21. God said to Moshe, “When you go to return to Egypt, see all the wonders I have put into your hand and perform them before Pharaoh. But I will harden his heart and he will not release the people. . . ”.

            Ramban maintains that the primary focus of this scene involves the transformation of the family relationship, which is precipitated by Moshe’s mission as Israel’s savior. Moshe returns from Mt. Horeb to ask permission from his father-in-law to return to Egypt. The focus on Moshe’s movements, however, intimates that he planned to return “alone, in stealth,” intending only to remain in Egypt temporarily. Apparently, Moshe still feared for his life, seeing a need to conceal his identity. God therefore reassures him, commanding Moshe, according to Ramban’s reading, to return to Egypt and reside there until he liberates his brethren. Accordingly, Moshe takes his family and sets out to return to Egypt. God subsequently reiterates to Moshe that he must diligently perform the wonders with which he has been charged, even though Pharaoh will not listen.[4]

            However, since the text anomalously records that only “he returned” to Egypt (4:20), Ramban integrates the later scene in which Zipporah circumcises her son (4:24­–26) in order to resolve the question of Moshe’s family’s whereabouts while he confronts Pharaoh in Egypt. Presuming that only Gershom, the firstborn, is alive at the time (despite the plural, “sons,” in verse 20, which is attributed to the norm of scriptural style), Ramban suggests that Moshe returns to Egypt with his family, “for this was a sensible idea,” as it would prove “that his heart was firm, trusting” that redemption was imminent. Therefore, Ramban surmises that the second son, Eliezer, was conceived on the way to Egypt or in Egypt, and Gershom is circumcised by Zipporah. Although only Moshe’s return is specified, Ramban assumes that his family accompanies him.

            Alternatively, Ramban examines the family movements from a different perspective. In this reading, Zipporah had already been pregnant with her second child before Moshe receives the divine revelation at Mt. Horeb. When he returns to seek Jethro’s permission to go to Egypt, she gives birth. In his alacrity to fulfill God’s will, Moshe does not circumcise him; when Moshe is confronted by the angel, the newborn is circumcised by Zipporah on the way to Egypt. As Exodus 18:2 suggests that Zipporah was sent away (ahar shiluheha), Ramban speculates that Zipporah and her children turn back to Midian at Moshe’s insistence; not wanting to delay his mission, Moshe leaves his family at the inn where they had stopped (4:24), instructing them to return to Jethro’s home when the newly circumcised child is sufficiently strong.[5] Ramban also suggests that perhaps they all went to Egypt, but, longing for her father, Zipporah is sent home with her children.

            Sensitive to the gaps and ambiguities in this narrative, Ramban integrates its different facets by focusing on the repeated, guiding words that punctuate its context. His interpretations motivate the reader to ponder the relationship between husband and wife and parents and children in association with the broader frame of this narrative, the divine mission to redeem Israel from Egypt.

            Ramban is adept at integrating related narratives within a biblical book, divulging how one pivotal incident serves as the catalyst for subsequent events, influencing their outcome. An illustrative example is how Ramban centralizes Joseph’s dreams (Gen. 37:5–11) as the crux of later episodes in Genesis. From Ramban’s perspective, Joseph does not view his dreams as youthful imaginings, but he sees in them divinely providential import and feels it is his obligation to ensure that they are brought to fruition. Relating Joseph’s reaction to his brothers’ arrival in Egypt to trade for food, Scripture reports, “Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him, and Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, ‘You are spies. To see the nakedness of the land you have come’” (Gen. 42:8–9). According to Ramban (on Gen. 42:9), when Joseph sees his brothers, he realizes the time has arrived to implement his dreams, and he orchestrates subsequent events to ensure their fulfillment in the order he had dreamed them. “He carried out everything well at its appropriate time in order to realize the dreams, for he knew that they would certainly be realized.”

            In his first dream, Joseph had envisioned eleven sheaves bowing down to his sheaf, signifying his brothers’ obeisance to his sovereignty (Ramban on Gen. 37:7). Since only 10 brothers first arrive in Egypt, Joseph conceals his identity and devises a scenario that will compel the brothers to bring Benjamin down to Egypt so that the first dream will be fulfilled in its entirety and proper sequence (Ramban on Gen. 42:9).

            Ramban (on Gen. 37:10) uniquely interprets that Joseph decodes the symbolic meaning of the second dream (Gen. 37:9) as an indication that Jacob (represented by the sun), Jacob’s entire lineage who were born to his four wives (signified by the moon), including the eleven brothers (that is, the stars), would bow down to Joseph. In order to fulfill this dream, therefore, Joseph must ensure that his entire family is uprooted to Egypt, where they will bow down to him when they “see his great success there.”[6]

            Ramban’s focus on the dreams also explains why Joseph never communicates with his father while in Egypt, even though Egypt is close to Canaan. Joseph deliberately keeps his father ignorant of his whereabouts because revealing himself would jeopardize the realization of his dreams in succession (Ramban on Gen. 42:9). For Ramban, Joseph’s dreams are the proverbial glue that binds the narrative scenes involving Joseph and his family.

Characterization

            Ramban’s clear sense of the overall portraiture of the biblical figures emerges from his integrative reading of the narratives in which they appear. This analytical method may be illustrated through his polar characterizations of Noah and Lot. Based on his holistic analysis of the Flood story (Gen. 6–8), Ramban develops a one-sided portrait of Noah, but his global analysis of the episodes in which Lot plays a role leads him to reconstruct a complex portrait of his persona.

            Ramban frames his perception of Noah around a key biblical phrase that, in his view, defines this biblical figure’s character. Genesis 6:9 relates, “Noah ish tzaddik tamim hayah be-dorotav.” According to Ramban, the moral epithet, ish tzaddik, specifies Noah’s righteousness in the particular sense of having been judged innocent of any wrongdoing. Whereas the people of Noah’s time are convicted of a host of crimes, which warrant their destruction, God deems Noah to be completely guiltless. Noah therefore merits, without reservation, to be saved from the Flood catastrophe. The adjective, tamim (complete), accentuates his absolute vindication in judgment. The time frame, “in his generations (be-dorotav),” specifies that although Noah lived a long life, spanning multiple generations, he was never corrupted by his contemporaries’ wicked ways, and, exceptionally, only he was worthy of being saved from the Flood. A midrashic view infers that this temporal qualifier delimits Noah’s sterling character as being only relative to the wicked men of his generations and certainly not measuring up to extraordinarily righteous individuals like the patriarch Abraham. However, Ramban presumes that this proviso aggrandizes Noah’s meritoriousness. As Ramban emphasizes further, only Noah “walked with God” (6:9), exhibiting a spiritual closeness to God that was sorely lacking among his contemporaries.[7]

            Ramban supports his monolithic characterization of Noah by analyzing additional textual indicators. Prior to revealing Noah’s defining quality, Scripture asserts how God is “saddened” that He must eradicate the very humans He created because of their evil ways (6:5–7). However, the text contrastingly observes, “But Noah found favor (matza hen) in God’s eyes” (6:8). While noted predecessors maintain that Noah’s “favorable” effect on God was an activation of His mercy, implying that Noah did not fully merit salvation,[8] Ramban (on Gen. 6:8) claims that this divine “favor” was bestowed upon Noah because “all of his deeds were befitting and pleasing before God.”

            Additionally, Ramban observes that Noah’s praiseworthy character is endorsed by God Himself. In 7:1, God asserts, “Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone (otekha) have I seen to be innocent (tzaddik) before Me in this generation.” While this confirmation raises the question why Noah’s family was saved, Ramban concludes that Noah’s merit was sufficient to rescue his household as well. This is why his children are mentioned in conjunction with Scripture’s assertion of Noah’s defining feature as a “tzaddik.” Genesis 6:9–10 relates, “This is Noah’s lineage (toledot Noah)—Noah was a completely innocent man in his generations; Noah walked with God—Noah begat three sons . . .”. In Ramban’s view, these opening statements direct the reader to focus on the pivotal figure of Noah, whose merit saves his three sons from whom the world will be rebuilt (9:18–19).[9]

            Ramban’s consistent evaluation of Noah’s persona is highlighted by his striking perspective on the inebriation scene in Genesis 9. While one might think this scene is cause for re-assessing Noah’s positive characterization, Ramban (on Gen. 9:26) asserts that this episode is a commentary on the potency of wine and its ability to fell even the greatest of men; it does not detract from his worthiness to be saved from the Flood. “For the wholly innocent individual (tzaddik tamim), whose merit saved the entire world, even he was brought to sin by wine.”

            One might posit that Ramban’s integrated study of the Flood story leads him to derive a constant portrait of Noah because this characterization answers a central question of this story: Why did Noah merit to be, in essence, the “Second Adam,” whose lineage would be the ancestors of future humanity? By eliciting the narrative’s clear conception of Noah’s portraiture, Ramban leaves no doubt about this figure’s role in the renewal of the world.

            Conversely, Ramban (on Gen. 19:8) perceives that the Torah presents Lot as a multidimensional personality. Considering Lot’s despicable offer of his two daughters to the vicious Sodomites (Gen. 19:7–8), an act that Ramban surmises could only arise from “a wicked heart,” one might question how he deduces that Lot is a complex character. However, Ramban unearths subtle clues that direct him to contemplate Lot’s persona more broadly. Ramban (on Gen. 19:3) credits Lot with a display of good will in his desire to host the (angelic) guests (Gen. 19:1–3). The angels cultivate this merit, which plays a part in helping to save him from destruction, by initially refusing to accept his invitation, which prompts Lot to beseech the angels further. Furthermore, Ramban (on Gen. 18:26) maintains that when Abraham begs God to save the cities of the plain for the sake of the righteous, innocent men who dwelled in them (tzaddikim be-tokh ha-‘ir) (18:24, 26), he effectively seeks salvation for Lot, whom he deems to be sufficiently innocent of the Sodomites’ crimes. Ramban (on Gen. 19:12) observes that Lot’s merit suffices to save his family, and his request averts destruction of the nearby city, Zoar, where he will find refuge (19:18–22).

            At the same time, Ramban (on Gen. 13:13) finds other textual indications that cast a shadow on Lot’s persona. Scripture follows its description of Lot’s choice to live in Sodom with an evaluation of its inhabitants as being exceedingly wicked men (13:12–13) in order to castigate Lot’s new residence. Ramban (on Gen. 19:16) also suggests that the text implies Lot was ultimately saved out of mercy, not merit; as Genesis 19:16 indicates, Lot was hastened out of Sodom by the angels, “while God’s mercy was upon him.”

            Nevertheless, Ramban reveals Lot’s positive qualities in his analysis of Genesis 19:29: “When God demolished the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham and He sent Lot out from the upheaval . . . ”. In Ramban’s view, this text underscores Lot’s loyalty to Abraham, which earns him the merit to be rescued:

. . . Lot had displayed kindness toward the righteous one [Abraham] by going with him, wandering throughout the land wherever he went . . . And therefore he had the merit to save him because of Abraham’s merit. For it was because of him [Abraham] that he [Lot] resided in Sodom. Were it not for Abraham, he would have still been in Haran with his family. And it is implausible that harm should occur to him [Lot] because of Abraham, who had departed by the command of His Creator.

By integrating the various narrative scenes in which Lot appears, Ramban directs the reader to appreciate how close reading can reveal the many sides of a biblical personality.

      Furthermore, Ramban’s integrative method develops comparative portraits between related biblical figures who have active roles in different biblical books.

            Representative of this approach is Ramban’s perception of the parallel experiences between Joshua and Moshe, revealing continuity between teacher and student in their leadership roles. Explaining what laws were established after the incident at Marah, where the bitter waters were sweetened (sham sam lo hok u-mishpat, Exod. 15:25), Ramban posits that Moshe institutes daily guidelines for Israel’s interpersonal relationships and between humans and God to ensure stability within the community during their sojourn in the wilderness. Comparatively, Ramban (on Exod. 15:25) observes that the verse in Joshua 24:25, va-yasem lo hok u-mishpat bi-Shekhem, indicates through the same language how Moshe’s successor establishes similar societal standards and practices before his death, after much of the conquest has been accomplished, in order to guarantee success for the newly settled Israelites.

Correlating these biblical figures’ actions, Ramban applies the later episode of the capture of Ai (Josh. 7–8) in order to explain Moshe’s conduct in the war against the Amalekites (Exod. 17). Although Moshe indicates that he will stand on top of the hill with his staff in his hand during the battle (17:9), the ensuing narrative relates only that Moshe raises his hands to ensure the Israelites’ victory (17:11–12). To clarify the staff’s function, Ramban observes that prior to the assault of Ai, God commands Joshua to perform a symbolic gesture signifying the enemy’s defeat: “Stretch out the javelin in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand” (Josh. 8:18). With his hand and spear outstretched, the ambush rushes out, captures the city, and sets it on fire (8:19, 26). Correspondingly, Ramban (on Exod. 17:9) suggests that when Moshe reaches the top of the hill, he first extends his staff over the Amalekites below to preordain their defeat. However, to reinforce this signification, he prays to God with raised hands, having put the staff away beforehand.

            In an analogous example, Ramban associates the two leaders’ spy expeditions. Noting the disparate accounts in Numbers 13 and Deuteronomy 1 concerning who initiated the spy venture, Ramban posits, in one approach, that although the people introduce the idea of sending spies (Deut. 1:22), Moshe approves their initiative (Deut. 1:23), and God grants His permission (Num. 13:1–2), since the mission’s intent is to plan a military strategy to invade Canaan. To bolster his reading, Ramban notes similar reconnaissance missions, expedited by Moshe (prior to attacking the Amorite lands; Num. 21:32), and by Joshua before attacking Jericho (Josh. 2:1). Referencing the attack on Ai (Josh. 8), Ramban reiterates that it was customary to arm the attackers with knowledge of their enemy to assure victory against them. Ramban (on Num. 13:2) observes further that while the Israelites intended to send only two spies, as was the case before the battle of Jericho, God commands that each tribe send its chieftain as spies to maximize the chances of success.

Thematic and Didactic Features

            Ramban’s integrative approach divulges the interrelated subjects of the biblical books, illustrating their progressive thematic relationship. A notable example is his introduction to the Book of Exodus, in which he encapsulates the contents of the first two books of the Torah, disclosing their thematic continuum. According to Ramban, in the Book of Genesis, the creation of the world and its creatures narrows to focus on the creation of Israel through “the experiences of the patriarchs, which are a type of creation for their descendants,” as their biographies symbolically preordain Israel’s historical destiny. Ramban’s associative reading suggests how the world cannot exist without a divinely chosen nation that fulfills the purpose for which the world was created. Furthermore, Ramban notes that the promises and decrees foretold in the Book of Genesis come to fruition in the Book of Exodus. The Covenant between the Pieces in Genesis 15 preordains the exile in Egypt and Israel’s redemption, the main events of the Book of Exodus.[10]

            Noting, however, that the Book of Exodus concludes with Tabernacle’s construction, Ramban also applies an integrative reading that circles back to the beginning in order to connect the narratives of both biblical books.

For the exile did not end until the day that [Israel] returned to their place, and returned to the high stature of their Patriarchs . . . When they came to Mt. Sinai and built the Mishkan, and God returned and rested His presence among them, then they returned to the heights of their Patriarchs, where the counsel of God dwelled on their tents. . . Then they were considered redeemed.[11]

 For Ramban, the crowning distinction of the creation of Israel is its return to the elevated spirituality of its patriarchal ancestors, who felt God’s open presence among them continually. Through the medium of the Tabernacle, Israel will realize the purpose for which God created the world and selected the patriarchs to establish the foundation of the nation of Israel.

            Ramban also elicits the integral didactic features present within a particular narrative. In his introduction to the Jacob-Esau confrontation (Genesis 32–33), Ramban underscores its three primary messages: 1) “God saved His servant and redeemed him from the hand of one more powerful than he. He sent an angel and saved him”; 2) “Jacob did not rely on his righteousness, but he exerted all of his effort for his salvation”; and 3) “All that transpired between our patriarch [Jacob] with his brother Esau will continually happen to us with Esau’s descendants.”

            Ramban (on Gen. 32:22, 23, 25) delineates how each of these edifying elements is present in the scene of Jacob’s struggle with the angel. Illustrating the second message, Ramban observes that Jacob acts as “a man of war,” sleeping outside “in the camp” (32:22), among his servants and shepherds, to guard against his brother’s possible attack. During the night, he checks the water level, transfers his wife and children, and the possessions by means of servants, ultimately being left behind on the wrong side of the river, where the struggle occurs (32:25–26).

            Ramban (on Gen. 18:1; 35:10) analyzes this struggle in the broader context of the confrontation between Jacob and Esau, identifying the “man” as the angelic “prince of Esau.” Accordingly, he intimates that the first didactic feature is expressed in this very event of the struggle, for salvation by an angel does not appear elsewhere in this biblical story. Ramban (on Gen. 32:26) presumes that Jacob needs to endure a struggle with the angel of Esau in order to attain a victory by divine mediation that prevents the angel from mortally harming him, so that Jacob’s triumph over his enemy will be assured.[12]

            Applying midrashic analysis, Ramban exposes the narrative’s third instructive component, its futuristic implications. Jacob’s victory over the angel signifies that while his righteous descendants will suffer an injurious blow at the hands of the Romans—Esau’s descendants, Israel will ultimately prevail. In conjunction with this thematic underpinning, Ramban presumes that this narrative concludes with Jacob’s return to the place of Shalem (33:18), alluding to his arrival whole and unscathed.[13]

             Additionally, Ramban elicits this didactic perspective in his interpolation of the angel’s reaction to Jacob’s demand to know his name (32:30). “Why do you ask for my name: There is no benefit for you to know my name, for the power and capability belongs to God alone. If you call me, I will not answer you; and I will not be able to redeem you from your travails.” Ramban (on Gen. 32:30) suggests that the angel teaches Jacob a lesson for generations: Israel needs to face its enemy by prayer that is directed to God Himself.

Conclusion

            Ramban’s biblical commentary provides an important interpretative method for the serious study of the stories of the Torah. His integrative approach discerns interlocking connections between the scenes of a biblical narrative or between different narratives, expanding the reader’s scope of analysis. By assimilating the components of biblical narrative into a cohesive whole, Ramban delineates plot sequence and structure, primary themes and messages, and a broad perception of the biblical personalities. Ramban’s interpretations reveal the essence of the biblical stories, which are the backbone of our national history.

For Further Study

Ben-Meir, Ruth, “Le-Darkhei Parshanuto shel Ramban.” In: Pirkei Nehama: Sefer Zikaron le-Nehama Leibowitz, ed. M. Ahrend, R. Ben-Meir, G. H. Cohen (Jerusalem: Israel Jewish Agency, 2001), pp. 125–141.

Elman, Yaakov, “‘It Is No Empty Thing’: Nahmanides and the Search for Omnisignificance,” The Torah U-Madda Journal 4 (1993): 1–83.

Gottlieb, Yitzhak, Yesh Seder la-Mikra: Hazal u-Farshanei Yemei ha-Benayyim al Mukdam u-Me’uhar ba-Torah (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University; Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2009).

Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “On The Assessment of R. Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides) and His Literary Oeuvre,” Jewish Book Annual 51 (1993): 158–172.

Levine, Michelle J., Nahmanides on Genesis: The Art of Biblical Portraiture (Providence: Brown University Press, 2009).

Levine, Michelle J., “Character, Characterization, and Intertextuality in Nahmanides’s Commentary on Biblical Narrative,” Hebrew Studies 53 (2012): 161–182.

Melammed, Ezra Zion, Mefarshei ha-Mikra: Darkhehem ve-Shitotehem (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1975), 2:937–1021.

Notes

The Educational Challenge in Torah Study[1]

The progress of my Torah study can be summed up as follows: From no-brain to left-brain to whole-brain.[2]

I learned a lot of useful information in my ultra-Orthodox high school, and my mind did develop there to some extent. However, when it came to Torah learning I was short-changed. We studied Torah with bits of Rashi and Ramban, accompanied by unsophisticated explanations that changed little from when I entered at age 12 to when I exited at age 18. Hence I feel somewhat justified in terming it, for my purposes, “no-brain.”

The next stage of my religious education, my post-high-school Torah study, brought a marked improvement. I was finally able to have the satisfying left-brain experience that my 18-year-old self craved. In my intellectually oriented women’s yeshiva, we studied Talmud and Rambam, commentary and philosophy; we absorbed information, grasped concepts, compared perspectives, and analyzed texts. Nonetheless, I always sensed that something was missing—but I could not quite put my finger on what. It is difficult to pinpoint the absence of something when you have never experienced it or even seen anything remotely like it. One event from that period stands out—the occasion when Ilan Nov, a resident of Bat Ayin, visited our yeshiva and read to us a section from a book he was writing.[3] Although I could not fully grasp his meaning, I was intrigued and delighted: how refreshing to meet someone creating art from within his personal Jewish experience.

Moving on to undertake advanced Jewish studies at university and other institutions, I found myself increasingly dehydrating in various classes, many of them frontal lectures. Even those that involved discussion and debate did not satisfy me. I yearned inchoately for something different, but I still knew not what. In 1999, I abandoned a high-level Jewish studies program for women halfway through the year, having comprehended that high-level Talmud learning in the yeshiva/academic style was not what I needed for my growth. The wish for something else had grown urgent by now, but I still did not have a precise notion of what that should be. I had noticed a tremendous level of excitement and yearning arising within me after I stumbled across an article concerning a fringe Jewish spirituality movement, but was not ready to relocate to the desert and live in a yeshiva-ashram with people lacking all normative boundaries.[4] I began to despair of lectures and shiurim, none of which were engaging me with the Torah to the level I desired: that is to say, fully and passionately, as a whole person. Entering a crisis of Torah, I found even my own teaching lackluster; and even the study of Hasidut and Kabbalah, which I love, did not suffice to fill the vacuum.

 With hindsight, I now understand that for all those years, an entire hemisphere of my brain was being overlooked. I now know that for me, creativity and emotional awareness line up firmly alongside my intellectual and analytical modes as the channels for my experience of the world. Small wonder my Torah learning felt half-baked. Although I was blessed to study with many brilliant teachers in Israel who introduced intellectual creativity, emotional insight, and depth to the study of Jewish sources, this still ultimately represented a concession to right-brain energy within left-brain territory. Moreover it always took place within the strongly left-brain format of lectures (and, on a good day, discussion). Creativity remained in the realm of the teacher, with very little on the part of the student. When the student did offer some creative idea, in the best case scenario this would be briefly acknowledged with a word of praise; at worst, it would be misunderstood or squashed.[5]

Bibliodrama: An Introduction

I was fortunate enough to have my prayers answered. In the early 2000s, I encountered the technique of Bibliodrama, and was finally able to integrate all that pent-up right-brain energy into my Torah study and teaching. Over a decade has passed and I have never looked back. I enjoy Bibliodrama tremendously and have, to date, run over 170 workshops on many different stories. Indeed, today I sometimes find it hard to sit through a regular Torah lesson, so powerfully do I feel the vitality and immediacy of the Bibliodramatic mode bubbling up in me.

The following is my own understanding of the method’s potential, based on extensive experience with it. It is something I believe extremely important to share. All of us possess right-brains. True, not all of us feel an existential need to use them; some people are happy with purely intellectual stimulation. But to force that preference wholesale onto the people whose spirituality and education are in our charge; to deny the use of one hemisphere to an entire class of students, at least some of whom would thrive with their imaginations set free, is simply wrong.

Bibliodrama was invented by Dr Peter Pitzele of the United States. Pitzele, a Jewish intellectual who has taught English literature at Harvard, is clinically trained in psychodrama, a type of group therapy utilizing dramatic tools for healing. Invited in 1984 to teach a class at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he decided to draw on his psychodramatic training by asking the students to take the part of Moses, answering his questions as if they were in Moses’ shoes. Thus the technique of Bibliodrama was born. It continued with a success that astonished Pitzele.  He has since run Bibliodrama sessions all over the world, trained others in the art of Bibliodrama, and written a book instructing toward its practice, Scripture Windows.

So what exactly is it? First let me explain what it is not. Despite its name, it is not theater. The group spends most of the time seated. There is no audience—the group serves as an audience for itself. The “script” is created spontaneously on an ongoing basis throughout the session and is not preserved for posterity. Another difference is that in theater, each part is played by one actor only, while in Bibliodrama, any given part is often played by the entire group, making for a much richer experience. Thus, Bibliodrama might best be described as a form of psychodynamic group role-play. It has been called by some “contemporary Midrash” or “spontaneous Midrash.” While Midrash is more complex and far-ranging, to anyone experiencing the technique the comparison becomes quite obvious. Pitzele was not intentionally aiming at the midrashic form, but he explains that through his work he discovered

…an immensely long tradition of commentary, storytelling, and imaginative interpretation of the Bible…that sought to fill in the gaps in the narrative… Without knowing it I had stumbled into a conversation with the Bible that had been going on for thousands of years….^[6]

The texts are most often stories from Tanakh, but the technique is applicable to any story, and also to historical events and even non-narratives (I once did a Bibliodrama on the Hanukkah candles with adults).

The Practice of Bibliodrama

What occurs in practice? A series of questions are put to the participants as characters in the biblical story, questions that often lack any obvious or unequivocal answer and that arise from gaps in the text. For example, “Eve, why did you immediately give the fruit to Adam?” or “Adam, we understand that Eve was enticed by the serpent—but what brought you to eat from the forbidden fruit?”

Participants must respond in first-person language, speaking as major characters, minor characters (named, implied or invisible), or even as objects (for example, the Tree of Knowledge). The simple transition from third- to first-person language makes all the difference; it removes the distance we naturally place between ourselves and a story that is not about us, and compels us to get straight into the heart of the story. In the absence of clear answers, the students must draw upon their emotions, experiences and textual intuitions, often astonishing themselves with the powerful insights arising from their reading of the narrative. Indeed, I have frequently presented Bibliodrama as the encounter, unique to this very moment, between the divine in the text and the divine in ourselves. As the Hasidic rebbe Menachem Nachum Twerski of Chernobyl writes in his book Me’or Enayim (weekly portion of Vayeshev):

It is known that the Torah is eternal and preceded time, but has been encased (lit: clothed itself) in time-bound narratives… the Torah must be (relevant) for every person and at every time.

By opening up the text to a myriad possible directions, Bibliodrama achieves the goal of propelling us beyond the obscure “clothing”/barrier of ancient language and context directly into the profound core of the story’s mystery.

Even those with very weak backgrounds in Tanakh are found to contribute many excellent ideas, for all that is necessary is a basic understanding of the text and a heart and mind willing to lend themselves to a new context and new thoughts. In fact, the people least skilled at Bibliodrama, aside from those with an academic personality, are those who arrive already full to the brim with commentaries and the “correct” way to read the Tanakh, and without the flexibility to put that aside in order to read the text with a fresh pair of eyes. Clinging to what is already known obstructs the possibility of the Bibliodramatic flow, which is what makes the experience truly enjoyable—the sudden insight, the startling hiddush, the ability to listen to the others in the room and build from what they say. I emphasize that it is not the prior education that is the obstruction so much as the inflexibility. I have run Bibliodramas with Jewish educators extremely familiar with the story under the lens, having taught it numerous times themselves. This population nonetheless, through approaching the text playfully and with curiosity while bringing their personal and emotional lives to the text, have managed to arrive at tremendous new insights for themselves and others.

Per the Chernobler rebbe’s call for the Torah to be relevant not only for every person but also at every time, no two Bibliodramas are the same, for no two groups are the same. A participant repeating a Bibliodrama will inevitably play it slightly differently, for people do not stand still and new thoughts arise. This ever-changing nature of Bibliodrama also makes it highly enjoyable for the facilitator, who will hear new interpretations each time and learn from them.The group experience is also vital to the Bibliodramatic process and to its dynamic character. It is the group that reflects upon and plays the story as a collective, and it is very susceptible to patterns that emerge. One individual comment (for example, Esther noting that she is an adopted child and never knew her parents) can cause the group to strongly move in a particular direction for the rest of the session. Bibliodrama could be done, theoretically, with just one or two people; but it is marvellous to hear the variety of responses to one question. A group Bibliodrama is truly an experience of shivim panim, the 70 facets of the Torah. It can also serve to make a group more cohesive, especially when done over time.[7]

I have seen Bibliodrama transform ignorant students into sensitive Bible commentators, assiduously searching the text for clues to solve puzzles and difficulties, after their curiosity has been aroused by questions such as “Joseph, why do you insist on telling your dreams even after you see that it enrages your brothers?” or “Esther, what was it like growing up in Mordecai’s house?” As the participants get comfortable with the technique and each other, they speak out powerful emotions that bring the text vividly to life and fill in the gaps. For many the previously impenetrable text becomes something to identify with: truly a tree of life. The experience changes the participants’ relationship to the text. One 18 year old, a product of the religious Jewish education system, announced, “Before today I never thought of Abraham as someone I could actually identify with!” Another told me: “When we started, I could not even remember what was in chapter 1 of Ruth, even though I studied it just last week. Now there is no chance I would forget.”

Students who do not shine in the regular left-brain classroom atmosphere, deprived of the opportunity to display their creative imaginations, suddenly come into their own in Bibliodrama. Teachers witnessing a classroom Bibliodrama have been astonished by the sudden vocal participation of a pupil who ordinarily remains silent. The method works well with both children and adults, both populations bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the technique. While teenagers sometimes do not connect as well, due to their increased self-consciousness, most children and adults enjoy the group experience of building up the inner life of a story. They relish the opportunity to be playful and also to express deep personal feelings through the safe mask of the biblical characters. Bibliodrama verges on the therapeutic, and participants may be encouraged to share any personal revelations, depending on how comfortable the facilitator is with such activity. Pitzele, a trained psychotherapist, is competent to take the session in very personal directions, whereas I feel less comfortable doing so—though I do place a high value on the sharing at the end and the personal take-away.

Lying between improvisational theater, psychodrama, and text-study, Bibliodrama may perhaps most accurately be entitled an improvisational performance of a studied text. It is highly flexible and quite unique. It is a “performance” that is never repeated, that requires no rehearsals, is based upon text study, and can take place anywhere a circle of people may sit—from synagogue to salon to classroom. It does not conform to our usual picture of “religious activity,” and yet participants often emerge profoundly moved and uplifted. It is unusual in that it deals with sacred text, yet contains playful elements not usually associated with the sacred. As a form of “serious play,” it bears all the characteristics and paradoxes of play, whereby on one level what occurs feels very real, on another it is clear that we are all conspiring to pretend. Indeed, some adults take a short while to get into the method for fear of sounding ridiculous, but luckily there are generally a few brave souls willing to take the leap and create the suspension of disbelief necessary to start; after which the others follow. Even people who do not speak throughout the entire workshop have reported having a meaningful experience. They are grateful for the permission I give at the start that “if you are feeling shy, you do not need to speak at all.” Most intriguing though is the common phenomenon of individuals who enter the room convinced they are not going to say a word, and then find themselves talking non-stop. This, if nothing else, is a great testimony to the power of Bibliodrama.

Example

The following is an example of a Bibliodramatic “thread” (question by facilitator followed by various answers.)

The facilitator asks the group: So Cain, why did you decide to bring an offering to God? As far as we know neither your mother nor your father ever brought offerings. Where did this idea come from?

After a moment of thought, one participant answers: I had heard my parents talking about God. I wanted to speak to God too. This was my way of communicating.

Another participant says: I wanted to give a gift to someone to say thank you for all the abundance I’ve received.

A third person suggests: I want to see if I can get us back into the Garden of Eden—it sounds like it was such an amazing place and I am really sad that I missed being there. Maybe I can change God’s mind with a bribe.

A fourth adds: My parents wrongfully took fruit, so I am repenting by giving back the fruit!         

Pitzele suggests that the facilitator echo (or “double”) what participants say, repeating it in other words—thus both validating and also amplifying its content. He also recommends echoing in first person language. Thus, for example, after the second participant’s comment, the facilitator might echo: “In my work as a farmer, I’ve received so much good, and the need to give thanks arises from deep within me. Who can I thank if not this God that my parents have spoken about, who seems to run the world?” The facilitator glances at the participant to make sure that this was what was meant. On rare occasions, the participant will reply: “No, what I mean is…”

            The facilitator can also encourage deepening of ideas; for example, after a remark such as that by the fourth participant above there is room to prompt:

“And in doing so I feel…”

 “I see—do you think it’s going to be accepted?”

“Very interesting—so you’ve not only invented the notion of offerings but also of repentance! You’re very creative, Cain.”

The key in Bibliodrama is the questions—asking questions that stem from a curiosity about the text, and that will lead participants quickly to the most compelling textual puzzles and emotional textures.

            It is also important to choose a story containing some interesting tension, conflict, dilemma and personal growth. Fortunately the Tanakh is full of these. Do not begin the Bibliodrama at the height of the drama (for example, the murder of Abel); it is crucial to build up to the climactic moment so that the characters and their motivations are sufficiently fleshed out beforehand.

Embodied Knowledge

In Bibliodrama, a transition is effected from studying the texts from the outside (analytical/academic activity) to studying them from the inside and getting under their skin (creative/imaginative activity). The expression of emotions in character affects one’s actual emotional state; that is to say, they reach beyond a purely intellectual knowledge into the realm of the viscera. Participants bring to bear, for dramatic support to their words, inflections and volume of voice, the use of hands when speaking, and emphatic movements of the entire body which are not just “acting” but real manifestations of emotion. These physical motions in turn further deepen and embody their experience.

Other activities borrowing from forms of family therapy inspired by the plastic arts can be used at times, to “sculpt” the biblical scene. Here, the facilitator transforms into a director, and participants are asked to pose in ways that indicate the dynamics between the characters in the story—who stands next to whom? How do their bodies indicate their relationships? Pitzele notes:

Once group members are on their feet, as opposed to voicing their roles from their seats, your task as director begins in earnest, for when people stand and move they begin to create a space for play, and you have in effect a stage… The whole body becomes an expressive element; any movement may take on meaning… All such sculptings are interpretative because in fact every arrangement of bodies in space… becomes a way of seeing the story.”^[8]

In the Classroom and Alongside Commentaries

Two more points are pertinent to educators. Firstly, Bibliodrama may be conveniently and easily integrated into a regular class. Although a full Bibliodrama is ideally carried out in a circle, and can last for an hour or even two, a teacher may also, in the course of a class, suddenly switch into Bibliodrama mode for a brief moment, casually saying, “Now, everyone, I want to imagine that you are Moses standing in front of the burning bush. What are you thinking?” Five or 15 or 50 minutes later, after gathering first person reflections, the teacher returns to usual classroom mode, the story having been enriched and enlivened by having the students import it into their own experience.

The challenge for classroom educators—and to an extent for all who wish to run a Bibliodrama—is that as a technique it opens up boundaries in a manner that might feel threatening or frightening compared with regular teaching. The invitation to answer freely might lead to irreverence or subversive interpretations. This will be particularly challenging to Orthodox educators, though not solely to them.

My answer to this issue is that firstly, it is an issue, and each teacher will have to decide where he or she is comfortable setting the boundaries.[9] In my introduction to Bibliodrama I ask the participants to stay with the peshat, with what is written in the text itself, and not to offer interpretations that overturn the text’s meaning. I invite them to avoid answering flippantly and randomly but rather to answer intuitively and with respect, in a manner aligned with the text and aimed at “what might have been going on.”

If an interpretation is nonetheless offered that contradicts the text or wider context, I would simply point that out to the group. For example, when a participant speaks as Abel, defending his profession as a shepherd with the words “We need the sheep for their meat,” I note that humans were not yet eating meat at that point. Then there are the answers which are needlessly irreverent or silly. While occasional jokes are great for making Bibliodrama fun, in such a case I would apply Pavlovian conditioning, paying less attention to this answer while continuing to maintain my serious tone in asking questions and giving attention to the answers that are more interesting and profound. I do not like to “squash” answers or make a face. I believe—I hope, not naively—that children and adult participants alike value the permission to speak freely and even push boundaries without the facilitator becoming unduly upset; it gives them space to truly explore and own the text. If the main thrust of the group activity is a serious and respectful unpacking of the multiple layers of the text, maverick participants will often step into line, or at least not serve to ruin the experience for others while playing the text in their own unique way. For this to work, it is important for the teacher-facilitator to feel confident, open and relaxed; in short, to trust the process.

The second point pertinent to educators refers to one of the great benefits of Bibliodrama for Tanakh teachers, namely that after playing out textual and narrative difficulties Bibliodramatically, students possess far greater clarity regarding the matters with which the commentators deal. Thus for example, a Bibliodrama on Genesis chapter 4 involves the difficult question of why God rejects Cain’s sacrifice and prefers Abel’s. The question is posed to God, as a “character” in the story, which provides a platform also for students to air their theology and thoughts as to how God works within the world, itself a potentially significant discussion. After struggling with this question and hearing several answers, the student understands better why the Midrash decides to read “from the fruit of the ground” as referring to the inferior fruit, while other commentators do not choose to read it this way. In fact, God’s “motivation” is unclear from the peshat. True, this point might emerge from an ordinary reading of the story, but might well remain in the realm of a theoretical theological-moral discussion. But when students are forced to answer as God, or experience how Cain feels after the rejection, it becomes existential and immediate, plugging them into their own questions regarding theodicy, and so forth.

A famous textual difficulty that arises from the same chapter lies in verse 8, where Cain speaks to his brother in the field, but what he actually said is missing. A gap like this one is a classic for Bibliodrama, as the question can be easily posed to Cain: “What did you say to Abel?” and to Abel “How did you feel when Cain said that?” Or, in another example from the same story, Rashi’s comment on Genesis 4:1 suggesting Cain had already been born back in the Garden of Eden, and not, as the simple sequence of the text seems to imply, after the exile from there, will take on extra significance after playing out the story. Participants will be asked “How does this change the story, compared to how we played it?”  For example, the third participant quoted above might respond: “Well now I really want to get back—this was my birthplace and it’s my birthright to be there!”

In brief, any study of commentaries after a Bibliodrama will certainly be more easily grasped than before it. As all teachers of commentary know, sometimes it is not at all clear where the commentator is coming from or what is troubling him. Indeed, teachers skilled in understanding commentators and the textual difficulties to which they are responding can in fact build their Bibliodramas from the outset based on the commentators.

Thus for example, in Genesis 24, where Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son, verse 2 says: And Abraham said to the oldest servant of his household, who ruled over all that he had. On the words the oldest servant of his household, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (HaAmek Davar) writes: “This is a sign of wisdom,” and on the words “who ruled over all that he had” adds “He oversaw everything that Abraham owned, and was given a free hand to command… He controlled his evil inclination…” Another commentator, Hezekiah ben Manoah (Hizkuni), writes “Abraham would not have cause to suspect him of sexual impropriety.”

When training teachers, I challenge them to locate the difficulty, and the consequent Bibliodramatic question, nestling in these commentators’ remarks. I am searching for a Bibliodramatic question addressed to a specific character. The teachers do not always guess immediately, sometimes suggesting that the question should be posed to the servant, but eventually someone realizes that the most obvious question is to Abraham: “Abraham—you need someone to go on a long arduous trip across the desert. Why then do you send your oldest servant, who will probably die on the way of a heart attack, rather than some robust young man?”

Asked such a question, any group speaking as Abraham will in all likelihood come up with responses relating to issues of wisdom and trust, and perhaps also of decreased libido. The attentive teacher studying the commentators before building the Bibliodrama will notice this point, introduce it in the course of the session as a question, and then at the end cite HaAmek Davar and Hizkuni. The students will see that they thought of the same answers, and will feel close to the HaAmek Davar and Hizkuni, as if they too were sitting in the room during the Bibliodrama.[10]  

In introducing analysis, debate and study of secondary sources following a Bibliodrama, we are re-introducing left-brain activity, thus achieving the “whole-brain” experience to which I referred in my opening line. Other right-brain techniques can also be appended to Bibliodrama, for example putting on a play from within what was said during the session, or doing creative writing, art, or dance following the Bibliodrama.

Conclusion

I would love for Bibliodrama to become part of Jewish school curricula, both in Israel and in the Diaspora, alongside regular types of learning. It could do much to increase students’ love for Tanakh. Teachers in several continents have responded enthusiastically to being trained in Bibliodrama, and have sometimes gone on to implement it immediately. I am aware that this method is unusual and might take many of us out of our comfort zone at first; but I believe that it meets some important needs of the twenty-first-century student. Hence I have no doubt that progress will be made, slowly but surely, like drops of water eroding a rock.

NOTES