Last class this week: Biblical Literature and Poetry

Modern and contemporary poets often use Biblical images and narratives in ways that are highly personal and at times also sensual. Yehudah Amichai, one of the central poets we will study, is one of the best examples of this practice, breathing new life, so to speak into old wine skins. In this course entitled Internalizing the Word; Biblical Literature and Poetry will explore how poetry helps us read Biblical literature anew. We will analyze the artistry with which poets shifts, often radically, the traditional sense of the text, placing it in the context of personal and sometimes intimate settings and/or in the settings concerning history and the life of a society. We will also consider how biblical images and narratives might be reconfigured in light of our own lives and settings.

Led by the SAJ Scholar-in-Residence, Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses. Rabbi Cohler-Esses was ordained at Jewish Theological Seminary in 1995 is the first woman from the Syrian Jewish community to become a rabbi.She has taught in many pluralistic settings (including CLAL, Skirball, HUC Kollel and The Curriculum Initiative) and published several anthologies and scholarly journals.

The class takes place Thursdays, February 18, 25, March 4, 11, 18 from 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM.