Ruach HaYam teaching presented by Penina Weinberg
June 18, 2020
At 6:45pm meeting will be open for logging in and schmoozing.
Study begins at 7:15.
[Image is Spies of Canaan by Diego Franceso Carlone at St. Martin’s Abbey in Weingarten, Germany. (Photo: Andreas Praefcke/Wikimedia Commons)]
Our study session is in the week of Parashat Sh’lach (Numbers 13:1 – 15.41), which tells a story of fear and courage at the border between wilderness and homeland (the story of the spies!), spells out a set of sacred norms about sacrificial offerings, relates the tale of a man who is stoned for gathering sticks on Shabbat, and commands the wearing of the tzitzit. Some of you may remember discussing Sh’lach two years ago. Which is great! We’ll build on that.
This time, we are mindful of a country deeply disrupted by systemic racism, blood in the streets, and a pandemic. Earlier this month, I had the good fortune to learn with Julia Watts Belser, who dedicated her text study to “teaching as an act of solidarity with thousands who are protesting, grieving, and risking so much to bring down white supremacy and build a world where Black Lives Matter. ” So this time, in our study of Caleb and the spies, we will try to have a deeper understanding of what leadership might look like, and how change is stymied by so-called “sacred norms.”
Joy Ladin puts it this way, referring to the Jewish world, and really universal in perspective:
“Wherever we travel in the Jewish world, we can see the positive effects of efforts to bring human laws, lives, and communities into line with divine standards of justice and loving-kindness. But those who don’t fit communal norms know the downside of this ideal: its tendency to cast an aura of sanctity over flawed and even oppressive social structures and to frame efforts to make communal norms more inclusive as threats to the essence and existence of the community……The emphasis on sacred normativity in Judaism and the Jewish community harms those, like LTBTQ Jews, who don’t fit established norms. It also harms the Torah by obscuring the queerness on which its moral and spiritual vitality depend.”
Ladin, Joy. “Both Wilderness and Promised Land: How Torah Grows When Read Through LTBTQ Eyes.” Tikkun 29, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 17–20.
Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.
*** Ruach HaYam https://www.facebook.com/groups/Ruach.HaYam/ study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, and are welcoming to LGBTQ+ and allies, to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners***