The religious imagination in reading Torah?

Course Description

We will explore significant aspects of the Parsha through the prism of midrashic and hassidic teachings.

A large question about the religious imagination will accompany our study. It breaks down into two segments, one reflecting on the ways in which the texts convey the inner life of the characters; the other on our activity in reading these texts:

1. What is the role of the imagination in the inner life of the characters? What is the particular form of attention – of seeing – that they bring to bear on the world and on God? Does their language simply represent reality? Or does it in fact generate reality? What does it mean to have an inner life?

2. What is the role of the imagination in our reading of the Torah and the midrash? How do we bring meaning to the surface of the text?

These questions will inform our exploration, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. Mostly, we will be reading Torah together.

About the Educator Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

teaches Parshat HaShavua at Matan and other Jerusalem venues. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Cambridge University. She is an internationally sought after Bible teacher, and has published five well acclaimed books. She travels widely lecturing in Jewish, academic and psychoanalytic venues.