Bible Study
Our weekly Bible Study class meets Thursday at Noon in the lounge. Below, you will find resources that relate to the books we are studying.
Exodus
Exodus: An Allegorical Portrait of the Human Mind in its Relationship to Godby Bob Rosenthal
July 25, 2012 The interpretation of the Bible and its stories is a time-honored tradition in Judaism, one that dates back over two millennia. Since the fall of the second temple in 70 C.E., such interpretation has gone by the name of midrash. However, midrash is not simply the act of clarifying difficult Biblical passages or wrestling with abstruse questions that most of us would find utterly irrelevant. (To debate the number of angels crowded atop the head of a pin is not midrash.) Midrash is not purely a scholarly endeavor, because its goal is not scholarship per se. Rather, midrashic interpretation reflects an ongoing attempt to unearth the hidden truth latent in scripture, to peel away the corrosive patina accumulated over many years of reading with eyes clouded by convention, and reveal the pure shining essence of divine wisdom. By applying different glosses, different lenses, to the old, time-worn Bible tales, we can find in them startling new layers of meaning—like placing a dull rock under a black light to reveal luminous veins of color otherwise hidden to the eye.
We are encouraged to abandon our ego (Pharaoh), and instead, open ourselves to Spirit (Moses). Here, Moses pleads with Israel to follow him. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
I would like to share a new and quite radical midrash regarding the story of Exodus, one that I have found extremely powerful. It broadens our understanding of Judaism by linking it with the mystical quest at the heart of all the worlds’ great religious traditions, both Eastern and Western. It simultaneously deepens our relationship to Judaism by making Exodus personally relevant. As the Passover Haggadah makes abundantly clear, the story of Moses and Pharaoh applies to all of us, now, in the present tense. We’re enjoined to celebrate as if God had led us personally from bondage in Egypt. This is not mere metaphor, nor is it hyperbole. Viewed through the lens of this incisive new midrash, Exodus leaps into blazing color as a model for the spiritual journey itself—a roadmap for our own passage out of bondage and into freedom.
From: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/exodus-an-allegorical-portrait-of-the-human-mind-in-its-relationship-to-god
July 25, 2012 The interpretation of the Bible and its stories is a time-honored tradition in Judaism, one that dates back over two millennia. Since the fall of the second temple in 70 C.E., such interpretation has gone by the name of midrash. However, midrash is not simply the act of clarifying difficult Biblical passages or wrestling with abstruse questions that most of us would find utterly irrelevant. (To debate the number of angels crowded atop the head of a pin is not midrash.) Midrash is not purely a scholarly endeavor, because its goal is not scholarship per se. Rather, midrashic interpretation reflects an ongoing attempt to unearth the hidden truth latent in scripture, to peel away the corrosive patina accumulated over many years of reading with eyes clouded by convention, and reveal the pure shining essence of divine wisdom. By applying different glosses, different lenses, to the old, time-worn Bible tales, we can find in them startling new layers of meaning—like placing a dull rock under a black light to reveal luminous veins of color otherwise hidden to the eye.
We are encouraged to abandon our ego (Pharaoh), and instead, open ourselves to Spirit (Moses). Here, Moses pleads with Israel to follow him. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
I would like to share a new and quite radical midrash regarding the story of Exodus, one that I have found extremely powerful. It broadens our understanding of Judaism by linking it with the mystical quest at the heart of all the worlds’ great religious traditions, both Eastern and Western. It simultaneously deepens our relationship to Judaism by making Exodus personally relevant. As the Passover Haggadah makes abundantly clear, the story of Moses and Pharaoh applies to all of us, now, in the present tense. We’re enjoined to celebrate as if God had led us personally from bondage in Egypt. This is not mere metaphor, nor is it hyperbole. Viewed through the lens of this incisive new midrash, Exodus leaps into blazing color as a model for the spiritual journey itself—a roadmap for our own passage out of bondage and into freedom.
From: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/exodus-an-allegorical-portrait-of-the-human-mind-in-its-relationship-to-god
