| Tanakh |
| A. |
HONORS TANAKH - CLARITY IN THE "MYST"
Why did God create the world? Why did He create mankind? Must I believe
that God created the universe in order to be a religious Jew? What was
the real sin in the Garden of Eden? These are just some of the difficult
questions we will try to answer in this college seminar format class.
The students, as well as the instructor, will teach and learn together.
Students will thereby be trained in the mastery of the Biblical text as
well as medieval and modern commentaries. It is for those who wish to
fathom the depths of the mysteries of Torah.
By
permission of the department |
| B. |
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Nechama Leibowitz once instructed her students to teach Sefer Bereshit
to twelfth graders because she felt it was important to return to the
stories one first learned in elementary school and learn them anew with
the sophistication of an adult. This course will follow that instruction.
It will include an overview of all of Sefer Bereshit that has both
a philosophical bent as well as a fascinating literary style of analysis
which most students have not been exposed to before. Both of these will
supplement and complement traditional mefarshim. Our focus will
be on the one or two main themes which are at the core of all of the stories.
(Yes, there are only one or two themes that tie all the stories together.)
At the same time, we will study the parts you may have missed in elementary
school or those parts you learned on an elementary level. (The forbidden
fruit was not an apple; the people of Babel probably knew they couldn't
reach the heavens with a tower; Potiphar's husband probably knew she was
lying.) The course will emphasize traditional and modern parshanut
as well as use a range of other sources, from PBS broadcasts to ancient
Babylonian myths. This is a class about troubled families, amazing heroes
and heroines and the ultimate meaning of life, all in four periods a week.
|
| C. |
PARASHAT HASHAVUA
The course will focus on themes in the weekly parashah. The topic
matter will vary from a given episode to a puzzling verse to the broader
layout of the parashah. We will also explore a variety of commentaries,
from early midrashim to contemporary interpretations. Students
will gain familiarity with the range of genres and personalities among
the commentaries. Students will aslo be expected to have familiarity with
the parashah and contribute on an ongoing basis to the class
discussion. The synthesis of everyone's comments will hopefully shed original
light on the parashah on a weekly basis. |
| D. |
FILLING IN THE GAPS
Ever have the feeling that there was something missing from your basic
Torah literacy? Ever wonder about all of those ideas and details you
have heard over time but aren't really familiar with in any meaningful
way? This class is designed to provide you with the oportunity to address
some of the gaps in your Torah knowledge.
Do you know what really happened at Sinai? Do you know the meaning
of revelation or the role of the Ten Commandments relative to the other
commandments? What do you really know about the Torah's attitude toward
issues of social justice? Can you enumerate and explain the commandments
that make the Torah's worldview so different? What is the Torah's position
on waging war and on terrorists? How does a person in twenty-first century
America explain the chukkim? What philosophy and law comprise
the total Jewish view of sexuality and relationships? Can you identify
the only woman mohelet or the rightous Gentiles of the Torah?
These are just some of the questions that the course will seek to explore
in order to help you begin to fill in the gaps before you leave Ramaz. |
| E. |
NEVI'IM RISHONIM
This course is your chance to learn about the heroes and heroines of Nevi'im
Rishonim. We will meet the earliest Zionists, the men and women
who first conquered and settled Eretz Canaan and helped pave the
way for our own connection to the Land. We will analyze the great military
conquests and the strategies of Yehoshua and the Shoftim as we
follow their paths along the map of Israel. Learn about the personal tragedies
and successes of our earliest leaders in ways you could never have appreciated
when you first learned these stories as a young child. Together, we will
explore the ways in which the basic patterns, struggles and joys of their
lives all find parallels in our own, parallels that will help explain
why these books have been indespensible to Jews for millennia. |
| F. |
IYYOV
The book of Iyyov deals at great length with certain major philosophical
issues that appear more briefly in other books of Tanakh (especially
Mishlei and Tehillim). The text is analyzed through a discussion
of the following major topics: man's suffering; "why bad things happen
to good people;" man's relationship to God; the problem of God putting
man on trial; the role of Satan.
|
| G. |
CONTROVERSIES AND DILEMMAS IN THE FIVE MEGILLOT
Everyone knows that each of the five Megillot has a place of its
own in the ritual calendar; each is associated with and read (rather quickly)
on its own holiday. Yet few people realize the academic and religious
challenges (and joys) that each of these books presents. Why, despite
various controversies, were these five Megillot included (canonized)
in Tanakh? The complex world of personal and political relationships
in Megillat Esther are seldom explored, let alone the theological
question of the silent role of God in history. The particular role and
significance of persecution and exile throughout Jewish history are explored
in the midrashim of Eikhah with profound meaning for those
living in a post-Holocaust age. What motivated Ruth's peculiar pursuit
of Boaz? And then there is the controversial allegory of Shlomo ha-Melekh's
youth as expressed in Shir ha-Shirim and the timeless riddle of
his old age found in Kohelet.
|
| H. |
"PIVOTAL OR PERIPHERAL?: THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN
TANAKH"
Often, women are viewed as being of secondary importance in Tanakh.
Often, they seem to be the passive wives or concubines of the men who
seem to be on center stage and, as a result, western readers tend to bring
a bias with them when reading the text. Yet the truth is that such a reading
is mistaken, for it fails to try to understand the text from within, to
understand the different ways in which the text, sometimes overtly, sometimes
subtly, describes a role that is not only proactive but is also pivotal.
This course will focus on a range of themes. Through the use of traditional
mefarshim, we will seek to explore the lives of these women, to
uncover patterns and to understand what made these women take on the roles
they did.
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