Limmud Bay Area 2016

DOUBLE SESSION (This session meets, with a break, until 5:40pm.) The books of the Tanakh are often subtly interconnected.  Narratives, particular words or phrases, the names of places and general themes echo across passages in ways that were probably quite clear to those hearing the stories in earlier times but have become obscure to later readers.  Indeed, without the opportunity to place some of these texts side by side and explore them, we easily miss much of their meaning.

We will explore one illustrative set of fruitful connections.  We will study three quite disparate Biblical texts in separate study groups and then “jigsaw” into newly integrated groups of “experts” who have read those separate texts but now need to create an interpretation that depends on finding the connections, contradictions and echoes that the texts have with one another. In this session, based on an essay by Ken Cohen, a frequent teacher at Lehrhaus Judaica, we will read texts from Genesis, Judges, and Samuel 1, and then form new study groups whose members draw on their newly developed expertise to address a broader question.  We will put together the pieces.