Avivah Zornberg’s Interpretive Gift
Herb Levine
Can we learn to dive with Contemporary Biblical commentator Avivah Zornberg into the “murmuring deep” of the rabbis, into what she calls “the rabbinic unconscious”? This class will examine her methods, both contemporary/psychoanalytic and traditional/midrashic, focusing on one extended essay and an introduction on method. This course will be offered in “extended format” (see note below), allowing us to delve beyond her written text into a Zornberg “archive,” a collection of more extensive passages from the works she cites. By week’s end, students will have gained an appreciation for her essential interpretive gift: exposing one’s life to Torah and Torah to one’s inner life. This course will be offered in “extended format” (see note below).
Herb Levine has taught seven previous courses at the Havurah Institute and is active in Minyan Masorti at the Germantown Jewish Centre in Philadelphia. He is the author of Sing Unto God A New Song: A Contemporary Reading of the Psalms. He works as Executive Director of the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness in Lawrenceville, NJ.
Categories
- Contemporary Issues
- Intermediate Text
- Spiritual and Religious Life
- Extended Format
- Afternoon Course
