Bible by the Bay

Bible by the Bay brings the community together to discuss the Torah in ways that are relevant to life in the 21st century.

Sunday, May 2
12:30 – 5 pm
$15 pre-registration / $20 at the door

Click here to register.

Oshman Family JCC
3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

Keynote Speaker:
Professor James Kugel was born in New York. From 1982-2003 he was Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University. He retired from Harvard to become Director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University in Israel, where he also serves as chairman of the Department of Bible. A specialist in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Kugel is the author of some sixty research articles and eleven books, including The Idea of Biblical Poetry, In Potiphar’s House, On Being a Jew, and The Bible As It Was (this last the winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion in 2001). His latest books are The God of Old (Free Press, 2003), The Ladder of Jacob (Princeton, 2006), and How to Read the Bible (Free Press, 2007), awarded the National Jewish Book Award for the best book of 2007. He is a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Association for Jewish Studies, and Editor in chief of Jewish Studies: an Internet Journal.

Keynote address:
What has Biblical Scholarship done to my Holiday? A New Look at the Jewish Calendar
Some of the most familiar holidays in the Jewish calendar look very different in the light of biblical research. What is more, the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed that, alongside the “Jewish calendar” we use today, Jews in late biblical times used an entirely different calendar — one in which the holidays were never “late this year.” What are Jews today to make of these findings?

Workshops will include:
Finding Midrash in the Bible with Professor James Kugel, Ph.D., Bar Illan University, Israel, Bible Department
We will explore the earliest traces of midrash (ancient Jewish interpretations of the Bible) in the Dead Sea Scrolls and apocryphal works such as the long-lost Book of Jubilees. Many of these interpretations found their way into the Talmud and other rabbinic works, as well as in the well-known commentary of Rashi.

Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife: A Seduction Story in the Bible and the Qur’an with Professor Robert C. Gregg, Ph. D., Stanford University, Department of Religious Studies
What happened between the servant and his master’s wife, and what lessons can be drawn from their encounter? Early Jewish, Christian and Muslim treatments of this incident have significant parallels, but special interest lies in the distinctive meanings found in the story by the three religions’ exegetes and artists. The workshop will examine several texts and works of art, seeking to appreciate both the inevitability and the creativity of interpreters of the Bible and the Qur’an.

Jewish Women’s Bodies In the Bible and Beyond with Rabbi Melanie Aron Congregation Shir Hadash, Los Gatos
This workshop will provide an exploration of Jewish teachings concerning the body, with a special focus on how Jewish teachings have impacted Jewish women’s attitudes towards their own bodies. We will begin with the two stories of creation. In what way is Genesis 1 a rebuttal of Genesis 2-3’s attitudes towards our physicality? What are our Jewish obligations towards our bodies? Why have our relations with our bodies been so fraught from Biblical times and until today?

A Biblical History of the Senses with Professor Steven Weitzman, Ph.D., Stanford University, Department of Religious Studies
Scholars have recently realized that sensory experience–how we see, hear, taste, smell and feel–has a history, that the way we use and think about our senses changes from culture to culture, and has evolved over time. Even our assumption that we have five senses is not one that all cultures and periods share. How does the Hebrew Bible fit into this history of the senses?

This workshop will address this question by focusing on a Biblical text that is best known for its laws but is also a surprisingly sophisticated reflection on sensory experience: the Book of Deuteronomy. We will read its opening chapters closely to see what they have to say about sight, hearing and taste; why these senses pose a problem for Israel’s relationship with God, and how Deuteronomy proposes to solve this problem, learning something about this book in the process while also exploring the role of the senses in religious life.

From the Rivers of Babylon to the Shores of Tel Aviv: Psalm 137 in Hebrew Literature with Vered Shemtov, Ph.D., Co-Director, Stanford University, Taube Center for Jewish Studies
The question of poetry and diaspora can be traced back as far as Israel’s very first exile as a nation. The problem is stated most poignantly in Psalm 137 “By the rivers of Babylon,” which asks: “How shall we sing the song of the Lord in an alien land?” The question itself is written in the form of a poem, a psalm, and although it was composed in a foreign land, it came to be included in the core of the Hebrew poetry canon. Furthermore, the poet who refuses the request: “sing us one of the songs of Zion” uses complex stylistic tools to turn the poem into a horrifying curse, perhaps to regain, through it, a position of power. Psalm 137, then, describes the belief that there is a correlation between genuine national/religious poetry and the people’s presence in the homeland — while at the same time performing and embodying the opposite. The famous verses of this Psalm are echoed in many Hebrew poems and create varied dialogues and reflections on the ties between land and literature/creativity.

What Would Moses Drive? Biblical Teachings and Jewish Ethics on Global Warming with Adam Berman, founder of ADAMAH: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship
The Bible and global warming? Aren’t they three millennia apart and totally unrelated? Not so fast. The Bible, in its own way, includes lessons for treating a fragile environment in ways which have a lot of relevance today. How so? 2,500 of the world’s leading climate scientists now agree that without major action, our planet’s ability to support life will rapidly diminish in coming years. How soon? How bad? What can we do? The Bible already envisions a near demise of our earth in a flood. Perhaps there are some lessons there. We will explore both the latest scientific data AND recently discovered Biblical instructions on how to deal with climate change (No kidding!). We’ll also discuss how the Jewish community might play a role in addressing what is being called by many the greatest social and environmental challenge of the 21st century.

Who’s Laughing Now: The Evolving Role of the Matriarchs in Genesis with Sarah Shectman, Ph.D., Brandeis Bible Studies
Who really laughed first: Abraham or Sarah? Should Hagar be counted among the matriarchs? Whose idea was it to send Jacob to Laban’s household and why?
The matriarchal narratives, like the Torah as a whole, were composed from multiple literary sources that have been woven together to create the text as we now have it. This workshop will focus on the differences in the depiction of women in the Priestly (P) and non-Priestly (non-P, sometimes also called J and E) sources, with a focus on the figures of Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel. We will examine several Biblical passages, with both English and Hebrew texts available.

The Poetry of Biblical Law with Professor Deena Aranoff, Graduate Theological Union, Center for Jewish Studies
Biblical law is sometimes considered archaic or even at odds with the loftier aims of contemporary Judaism. Those who regard it as sacred often suggest that it requires a rabbinic gloss in order to apply to every-day life. Join us as we explore the underlying values and vision of Biblical law and its resonance as a free-standing contemporary religious text. In this workshop we will take a fresh look at the legal portions of the Bible and discover their ethical aims and poetic style.

Samson and Saul:  Tragic Heroes Confront Their Destinies with Nechama Tamler, Jewish Community Federation, Bureau of Jewish Education
In this workshop we will explore the larger-than-life figures of Samson, the strongman and last Judge of Israel, and Saul, the troubled first King of Israel. What were the tragic flaws in each of their personal narratives; how were their ultimate fates already determined at the very beginning of their stories? What do they have in common? How are they ruled by forces outside of themselves? Come help uncover how the underlying currents in these stories toss and turn these iconic heroes of Israel into tragic figures

From Moses to Freud: Ancient and Modern Interpretations of Biblical Sacrifices with Naomi Janowitz, UC Davis, Professor and Program Director, Religious Studies Department
This workshop will begin by examining Biblical sacrifice and in particular the famous scapegoat sacrifice of Leviticus 16. We will then turn to Freud’s ideas about sacrifice which he placed at the center of his analysis of culture, a controversial move which has had tremendous impact on modern thought. Debates about the meanings of ancient sacrifices continue to reverberate today and shape our ideas about everything from family to religion in ways we are not always aware.

Special Final Performance:
Psalms in a Box: An Interactive Exploration and Musical Performance with Doron Nesher and Ginny Morgan

In this final performance of our day of learning, we will explore selected Psalms together, with musical interludes. Assorted Psalms in English and Hebrew will be hidden in a box brought from Jerusalem. People from the audience pick one psalm and read it. Does it mean anything to them? Does it ring any bell or memory? With the help of other people in the audience they will try to solve the meaning of the Psalm and its relevancy to them. Doron Nesher, who composed music for the selected Psalms will lead the discussion, give his own personal interpretation of each psalm, and comment on how it inspired his music. Doron (guitar and vocals) and Ginny Morgan (vocals and viola) will intersperse musical performances of the psalms after each discussion.

Additional Biographies

Rabbi Melanie Aron has been serving Congregation Shir Hadash of Los Gatos since July 1990.  Ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1981, Rabbi Aron served congregations in Morristown, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York before coming to California. Rabbi Aron is a board member of The American Leadership Forum – Silicon Valley and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley, and serves on the Project Advisory Board of the Elder Abuse Initiative of Santa Clara County. She has served on the national board of the Union for Reform Judaism as the representative of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and as chair of the Committee on Adult Jewish Learning and as Chair of the Pacific Central West region of the World Union for Progressive Judaism / Association of Reform Zionists of America.

Professor Deena Aranoff is assistant professor of Medieval Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She teaches courses on Jewish society and culture in the medieval and early-modern periods. Her interests include rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Deena is also a community educator, teaching Bible, rabbinics and Jewish mysticism in a variety of adult education programs, most notably the Wexner Heritage Program, the Tauber Jewish Studies Program at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco and at the JCCSF.

Adam Berman recently completed his tenure as the Executive Director of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center (2002-2008), a spiritually vibrant, socially progressive, multigenerational retreat center and community in the Connecticut Berkshires. Adam was also the founding director of ADAMAH: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship, a three month leadership training program for Jewish young adults that integrates Jewish learning and living with sustainable agriculture, green living skills, teaching and contemplative spiritual practice. For three years (1996 – 1999), Adam served as the Director of the Teva Learning Center, the leading Jewish environmental education program in the United States. He holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A in Environmental Studies from Brown University. He currently lives in Berkeley.

Professor Robert Gregg is the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor in Religious Studies (emeritus) at Stanford University, and served until June 2009 as Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. After fifteen years as a faculty member at Duke University, Gregg joined Stanford’s departments of Religious Studies and Classics in 1987, serving also from1987-1999 as Dean for Religious Life at the university. His scholarship includes a book on philosophies concerning death and grieving in ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian communities; two volumes on struggles over orthodoxy and heresy in 4th century Christianity, a translation of Athanasius’ Greek “Life of Saint Antony”—the famous account of his activities as one of the first desert monks; and a study of 250 Greek, Hebrew/Aramaic, and Latin inscriptions from the Golan that allow glimpses of  interactions between Jews, “pagans,” and Christians in the Golan Heights and Syria, in the 1st-7th centuries CE. Professor Gregg’s current project treats several “sacred stories” which appear both in the Bible and in the Qur’an, examining their interpretations by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writers and graphic artists in each of the religions’ early centuries.

Professor Naomi Janowitz, Director of the Religious Studies Program at University of California-Davis, is the author of numerous articles on Judaism, Christianity and Graeco-Roman religions in late antiquity and three books The Poetics of Ascent: Rabbinic Theories of Language in a Late Antique Ascent Text (SUNY press), Magic in the Roman World: Pagans Jews and Christians (Routledge) and Icons of Power: Rituals Strategies in Late Antiquity (Penn State Press) which was chosen as a Choice Journal Outstanding Academic book for 2003. She is currently also an advanced candidate at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and has a private practice in Berkeley.

Dr. Sarah Shectman holds a Ph.D. in Bible and Ancient Near East from Brandeis University.  She has taught at Binghamton University, Gustavus Adolphus College, and has also been on the faculty of the Tauber Jewish Studies Program at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. Her recently published book, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Sheffield, 2009), is a study of the portrayal of women in the narrative sources of the first four books of the Hebrew Bible. Hailing originally from Southern California, Sarah lived on the East Coast for twelve years before moving to the Bay Area in 2004.

Professor Vered Shemtov is the Co-Director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the Eva Chernov Lokey Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Language and Literature at Stanford University. She completed a book on Prosody and Ideology in Hebrew Literature which will be published by Bar Ilan University and she is currently working on a book about Geographical and Literary Spaces in Contemporary Hebrew Literature. Her publications include articles on Jewish and Israeli perspectives of space in Yehuda Amichai’s poetry, discontinuous spaces in A. B Yehoshua’s work and the Bible in contemporary Israeli literature. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Nechama Tamler has taught Bible to adults in a variety of settings: in the Florence Melton Adult Mini School at the APJCC and the Oshman Family JCC to the Yesod program at Congregation Emanu El in San Francisco, and in private groups in the Peninsula, using literature and Biblical narratives inter-textually. She currently consults for the BJE’s NESS initiative and leads professional development sessions for teachers in five synagogue schools. Nechama worked at the Jewish Community Federation and the BJE for over 20 years before returning to her passion of teaching and learning in 2005. In 1992, she spent a year studying in Israel as Jerusalem Fellow in the Mandel Leadership Institute. She received her BA from UC Berkeley and her MA from the University of Santa Clara and is a perennial student with a well developed curiosity. Nechama lives in Palo Alto with her husband, Howard; they belong to Congregation Kol Emet, and are the parents of three adult children, two daughters-in-law and 2 grandchildren.

Professor Steven Weitzman recently joined the faculty of Stanford’s Religious Studies Department and Jewish Studies Program as the Daniel Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion. A scholar of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism, Weitzman’s publications include Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity (Harvard University Press, 2005); Religion and the Self in Antiquity (edited with David Brakke and Michael Satlow, Indiana University Press, 2005); and The Jews: a History (with John Efron, Matthias Lehmann and Joshua Holo, Prentice Hall, 2008). His current projects include a biography of King Solomon under contract with Yale University Press. Before coming to Stanford in 2009, Weitzman served as director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington.