Most of my rabbinical activity is dedicated to teaching people who did not grow up with a clearly defined Jewish identity or who are converting to the Jewish people from without.  In this capacity,  I had always found it very challenging to teach Tanach to this crowd.  It was easy to teach them Jewish Law and customs, since here you have very practical concrete elements.  “This is how you do Jewish, go and do it.”  However, whenever I started to teach parashah, especially when assisted by the traditional commentaries and midrashim on the text, the same problems surfaced again and again. “But rabbi, how can  Rashi and Ramban interpret this verse so differently?  Which one of them is right?”  “But rabbi, isn´t what you´re saying contradicting the midrash?  How can you contradict the midrash?”  Over and over my attempts to teach the richness of the Jewish Biblical exegetical tradition came to loggerheads with the idea, brought from people’s previous belief systems, that the Bible has to have one interpretation which is not only factually and historically true but also self-evident. My frustration grew so much that for many years I refused to teach the weekly portion to my students.

It turns out that it was all my fault.  Pedagogically, I should have persevered in affirming more explicitly and more forcefully the multi-faceted nature of the Jewish view of Torah, which instead of focusing on claims of objectivity, authority and exclusivity, fosters individuality, subjectivity and creativity.  I have since returned to teaching the weekly parasha to people who have been living Jewish lives for some time and who have embodied the practices and traditions of Judaism into their own routine. And, to my great surprise, I have discovered that this multi-teared approach to text has been one of the greatest boons that Judaism has bequeathed my students.  One of my students, a father of a ten year old who studies the parashah with his son every week, has told me that since studying Torah in a Jewish way he feels that he is able to look at a problem from many perspectives.  His son has also benefited academically from the constant exercise of holding and measuring often contradictory positions in his argument. When I began working with some of these communities, the model of leadership was vertical and rigid: people waiting passively from the “authorized” views and opinions from the rabbi or the teacher.  After patient years of studying Torah as Jews, all of these communities have shown a greater tolerance for different opinions, thus fostering more democratic and discursive communities.  This dialectical heritage of the multi-faceted Torah of the Jews where many sources and many authorities can convive together without one of them having the last word, has been one of the most transformative forces in the lives of these communities: truly separating them from the authoritarian and rigid societies that surround them in Latin America.

The word “heresy” comes from the Greek term “hairesis”, which means “choice”.  In the rich tapestry of Judaism, especially in the realm of midrash and Biblical exegesis, we always have a catalogue of choices and opinions to pick from or to pick a fight with.  This gymnastic of the mind and of the will account, in my opinion, for the great skeptical powers of the Jewish people which in turn have established us as a dynamic force of culture throughout our history.  May we continue to be blessed with the heretical boons of this culture of multiplicity and disagreement.

I do Jewish social justice for a living—deep, complicated campaigns that require a grasp of political and legal issues beyond the headlines and shouting points. Since my ordination as a rabbi four years ago, my work at Rabbis for Human Rights-North America has enabled me to delve into philosophic books about torture, questions of constitutional rights, and the intricacies of how Florida tomato workers are paid. I often joke, before expounding at length on some issue, “Yet another thing I did not learn in rabbinical school.”

For me to feel secure speaking about these issues, I need to be an expert—or at least more of an expert than you might expect a rabbi to be. I know the rabbis I organize can explain why this or that cause has roots in Jewish tradition, but they need me to distill down for them why their congregants should be up in arms about the prolonged use of solitary confinement in American prisons. Whenever we consider taking on a new campaign, I have an internal moment of both fear and excitement. It’s “Oh no, I’m going to have to become an expert in something new” competing with “Wonderful! I get to become an expert in something new.”

I’ve learned a lot in four years.

For all of my ongoing learning, I still struggle to define Torah as something other than the thick books in Hebrew or Aramaic on my shelf, and with a particular mode of learning. Usually, if I am feeling expansive, I’ll include the other Jewish books and recent works of scholarship. But when I wrestle through a book on mass incarceration and racial justice, I don’t think of what I am reading as Torah. I feel guilty about my lack of learning. I say to myself, “I really need to get back to more regular Torah study—it isn’t just Torah because I’m a rabbi reading an interesting book.”

I know I am being hard on myself. It’s just a hard framework to shake, even as it is a framework I know is flawed. Limiting what is “Torah” leaves out many voices and many kinds of text. Is Jewish women’s poetry Torah? Is Maus Torah? Can music be Torah? Torah is a single, sacred text, a network of texts (some of which are sacred), and a way of looking at learning

The Hebrew and Aramaic books on the shelf are staring at me.

Yet, I am also aware that if I teach all of my newfound learning, sometimes weaving together sacred text with information and sometimes imparting “just the facts,” it is perceived to be Torah by my audience. The nexus of a rabbi teaching, Jews learning together, and the situation where Jews have come to be inspired about an issue because they are Jews creates Torah (I also believe  suggest that the first part of this nexus is optional). It is about the interaction as much as the text.

We ask questions—actually, we raise Jewish questions, rooted in what we know (or remember, from way back) about Judaism, what we think “Judaism” has to say about something, or what the Jewish part of our gut tells us. Doesn’t Judaism say that anything can be done in order to save a life? Why should it matter to me as a Jew how the worker who picked my tomato was treated, as long as it is kosher? Should we be concerned about Jews before others? What about “love your neighbor as yourself?” Torah as a transaction is more democratic than Torah as the books on my shelf. The books are the base—but we have to do something with it. In the moments of action, my new areas of expertise become Torah.

Torah does not change, but we do.

Torah does not change, but the times and the languages do.

Torah does not change, but the way we read it has.

Torah does not change, but the meaning is unknown.

In the thousands of years that Jews have carried the books given to them, to guard as a covenant between them and their creator, we have practiced, we have studied, we have kvetched and bantered, celebrated and mourned; we have interpreted and told stories (maybe our greatest skill), we have built great halls and given our lives to fine causes… all built on the teachings handed down from times past.

And in all of this, one, clear meaning has not arisen.  One notion of truth and interpretation has not been found.  Many groups and denominations within the Jewish faith have tried, have offered their best shot, some more open mindedly than others… yet with no conclusions.

I still, every year, argue with my own mother about the particular rules of Chametz that we shall follow on Pesach.  She answers to a tradition that will not eat rice or beans, but fluffy egg based matzo meal rolls are on the menu.  Me, I will enjoy my brown rice, quite so, but the fluffy egg rolls are a no, no.  It’s just not in the spirit of the time!

Well, that’s what I say.  And, the Torah seems to have little to tell us otherwise.  There are passages that talk about the Exodus.  There are the stories and the traditions.  This is what we are made of…

But Torah?  The, pardon the metaphor, Holy Grail, of Jewish thought and existence, did not come embedded with footnotes and references.  It would be nice to have an index that we could use to look up the meanings and real intentions of the poetry behind these great words. But we don’t.  For all of Rashi’s greatness, wisdom that has given us some of the finest commentary on the Talmud, he was still a man, flawed. His words are at best a highly skillful interpretation of the possibilities of the Source.

Yet, maybe this is the point.  Maybe this is the gift we have been given, not a solid set of mandates, but within this “written in stone” document, there could be the flexibility to be read by any time and age to suit the needs of the time.

To me that’s rather profound.  Assume for a moment the divine hand in the offering the Torah to the Jewish people.  Well, then, giving this lack of direct interpretation, would that not constitute a great faith? A great trust?  Not for humans in our creator, but by our creator in us!

The words of the Torah can be read as a seed.  Sown into our hearts and minds to blend with the Creation, to be woven into what our hearts guide us to, towards what is necessary here, and now.

So what to do then?  What about the ritual sacrifices and the clear passages about the wrongfulness of male homosexuality?  The monetary value of men versus women? The jubilee of ownership and debt?

This is where the trust comes in: the heart, the breath of creation given to humans to walk in the image of the creator. Seeking the connection lost in Eden. Seeking the light behind the shadows.  This is why we pray.  To reconnect to our true beings and be honest to ourselves in answering the questions: How can I serve? Have I been a good person? Can I forgive more easily and smile more often?  Can I seek peace when others seek war?  Can I stand with honor, knowing my peers may not?  Can I be a little bit better today than I was yesterday?  Can I love more and how?  And my favorite: Can I have the courage to know what is right when I see it and do my best to act on it?

A changing notion of Torah vital for this globalized crescendo in human history, is the recognition that the notion of Torah has always been change and that Torah is a tool, a gift.  We are the lights, and we can open the books and find in them what we wish to see: war or peace, equality or divide, trust or fear.  The future, if we let it, will be bright.

I have never studied Torah. For all my years of Jewish education, this essential element of Judaism has somehow eluded me. Perhaps my gaping hole of knowledge comes from personal choices- opting out of text based electives during Hebrew school, for example. Perhaps the void stems from systematic choices, wherein my day school teachers veered toward the sexier, more enticing, themes. Sure, I know my Bible stories, especially the more narrative tales from Genesis. But test me on any rules from Leviticus and I will draw a blank; ask me to recite any psalms and you won’t get farther than a NFTY inspired off-tune rendition of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.”

Finally, during my last semester of college, I attempted to re-lay the foundation of Jewish studies underneath layers of my already erected knowledge. I enrolled in “Hebrew Bible,” a class mostly for freshman and potential Jewish Studies majors. I was uncomfortable not only because of my off-fitting status; the class challenged me to balance a confidence in Jewish identity with an ignorance of my own religious texts. I felt all at once the proudest student and the meekest.

The syllabus for “Hebrew Bible” was divided into different methodological categories. We learned how to read the Tanach through various perspectives: historical, religious, literary, political, feminist, queer. Each story, when analyzed through the various interpretative lenses of academia, took on a new meaning. Joshua revealed the building of Jewish nationalism, while Proverbs exposed a complicated past of gender norms in Hebrew culture.  The stories I vaguely recognized before, now disclosed layers of meaning I never imagined.

With this surplus of new information, I learned that the Torah is an ever evolving document. While I expected to find a clue to my Jewish heritage, I instead found the key to a transformative discourse that continues to shape Jewish thought today. Most poignantly, I understood that the Torah’s relevancy is not merely assigned to those of faith; instead, myriad academic traditions turn to the Jewish religious texts in order to understand the construction of our Western societies in general. Even without believing in religious tradition, the Torah provides an anchor for understanding ourselves as religious Jews, cultural Jews, artistic Jews, political Jews, queer Jews, thinking Jews. And as the categories of analysis expand, so does the Torah’s potential to remain the foundational text for us.

“Is that story true?” That is what my students always wanted to know. Did the sea really part? Did God really speak to Abraham? Did Adam and Eve really eat fruit and end up banished from the Garden?

And never was my class of six year olds more incredulous than after hearing the midrash that all Jews were present when the Torah was given at Sinai. “I was there,” they wondered, “But that can’t be true, I don’t remember!” Why did this, more than any other text or tale bother them? Was it because it presumed to place them as active players within the story? It is one thing to hear a fantastic adventure that happened to our ancestors many thousands of years ago. It is quite another to see ourselves as having been freed from Egypt, having been present at Sinai having received the gift of Torah personally.

In this month’s NiShma, the text expounded upon is from Deuteronomy: “For the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it (Deut 30:14).” This verse is, I think, meant to be empowering (and to remove any possible excuses for straying from the Torah’s word): you don’t have to go on an epic journey or seek out a great sage. You already know what to do (You’ve always had the power to go home)!  And yet, as Glinda teaches Dorothy, one must often go on a journey in order to understand what was in us all along. How do we find the strength to go looking for something within ourselves when we might not confident it is even there to be found?

I was young when I first heard the story: before a Jewish baby enters the world, their soul is up in heaven, learning Torah with God and the angels. When the time comes for the baby to be born, an angel escorts the soul down to earth and into its mother’s womb. In the instant before the child enters the world, the angel gently presses a finger to the baby’s lip, causing it to forget the knowledge it gained before entering the world. This, they say, is why we have a small indentation above our lip – an artifact of the angel’s gentle touch. And why a baby cries upon entering the world – they are bereft over the loss of their Torah learning.

I recalled this story many times early on in my pregnancy, and as I grow more and more attached to this future person who is just beginning to let me know of their presence, I wonder: are you there? Are you growing in awareness within me? Should I be playing you classical music and reading aloud Shakespeare while my husband introduces you to math (a baby book we read actually suggested this – the father should say loudly, “one” and then poke the mother’s growing belly once. “Two” and poke it twice)? Or are you busy learning in the greatest Beit Midrash ever while we are stuck handling the exciting, weird, and stressful changes that my pregnancy has brought into our lives?

When the time comes, God willing, that you enter the world with a loud bellow, will we recognize you for who you are: a unique soul whom we have been blessed with the privilege and responsibility to care for? Will you know what you have lost, and will you crave getting it back? Will you trust yourself enough to know that the deepest truths our Torah teaches never left you at all, but just have to be unearthed from the recesses of your beautiful soul?

Revelation is often considered the most intimate moment between God and the Jewish people. It is compared to a wedding, the culmination of a love affair, albeit a complicated one.

But what if revelation were not a model for exclusive attachment but a narrative of universal relevance? How might that change our understanding of the critical moment of law-giving on Mount Sinai?

Two midrashim go down this road, each from its own angle. The first midrash (Pesikta DeRav Kahana BaHodesh 12:24; Pesikta Rabbati 21) addresses the question: What is the language of revelation? The answer is somewhat surprising: R. Nehemia, playing on the interpretation of the word “anok” (“I,” in Egyptian), claims that God revealed the Torah to the Jewish people in Egyptian (beginning with the word “anokhi”). R. Nehemia compares this to a story about a king whose son was taken captive by foreigners. Before the king came to rescue his son, he learned the language of his captors. In order to communicate with his son, the king spoke in that language. So, too, when the Israelites came to Sinai, God realized they didn’t understand any language but Egyptian. So God revealed the Torah in Egyptian.

The midrash doesn’t explain this choice of language as an act of convenience or expediency. Rather, it suggests that this choice of language reflected an act of love (leshon ahava, leshon hibah). God loved the people so much that God chose to speak in their language.

Torah is meant for a people who speak a foreign language. It is designed for a population deeply enmeshed in the larger culture. It is not limited to the refined elite who speak the holy tongue. Torah is, fundamentally, meant to be understood. God will take any step necessary, even speaking in the language of the captors, to get the message to the people.

The second midrash reframes the entire narrative of the giving of the Torah. The narrative most of us know refers to an intimacy at the moment of revelation: The people of Israel are the only nation to merit Torah, because, unlike other nations who were offered the law, they accepted the words unconditionally. But one midrashic reversal of this view is preserved in Midrash Tehillim (68:6)

“When God spoke the word [on Sinai], God’s voice split into seven voices. Those seven voices split into the 70 languages of the world, so that everyone could understand.”

According to this midrash, the audience at Mount Sinai is the entire known universe of people. There is, shockingly, nothing particular about the content of a revelatory moment that mentions the seemingly exclusive relationship between God and the Jewish people, as expressed through the Exodus. Revelation is a timeless moment when we receive divine law; it is meant to be comprehended by everyone. This is perhaps the best expression for the expansive view of the application of Torah to real life. Torah is relevant not just for every Jew but for every person on earth.

What if we acted in accordance with the suggestion of these two midrashim? What if we believed that the words of revelation are so critical that we would don any cultural cloak in order to deliver the message? How would our houses of study and our houses of worship be different if we were to speak Torah “in the language of the captors”?

And what if we took to heart the possibility that the Torah is saying something of universal relevance? Would we stop being embarrassed by the demands of revelation? Would we feel confident that living a life in accordance with God’s will expressed at Sinai has enduring value for all people?

At the very least, these midrashim challenge us to stop imagining Torah as only for the clergy and the elite. Outside of Orthodoxy, American Jews have largely ceded the content of Torah to the people who learn and teach professionally. The rationale often runs: “My Judaism is expressed through acts of justice, and I don’t have the time or expertise to learn Torah.” We have to stop telling ourselves: “I do social justice; other people do Torah.” We would never limit the quest for the pursuit of social justice, or charity, or service, to a few elite. Why do that with Torah? We suffer and Torah suffers when we sell its relevance short.

We often have trouble articulating why Judaism matters. We cast about for the “next big idea.” Torah always has been the big idea. Let’s bring it back to its place of glory.

In October of 2011, in occupied Zuccotti Park, I noticed two seemingly unrelated occurrences. The first was a young Haredi man living with the anarchists; the second was a group of Modern Orthodox graduate students setting up an Occupy Sukkot space in the park. These sightings raised an important set of questions for me: Is there a role for the Torah, as Judaism’s founding text, in contributing to the literature that shapes left-wing ideologies? Does my own Jewish day school education inform my progressive political convictions?

While many important liberal values can be found in Jewish teachings, progressivism — the belief that ongoing sociopolitical reform improves our society — requires a certain degree of flexibility in order to continually adapt to changing socioeconomic conditions. The Torah would have to be treated as a living text. Otherwise, it risks becoming irrelevant to contemporary progressive Jews. I apply the same progressive reasoning to my understanding of the U.S. Constitution. Progressivism seems to require that our societies be based on documents that can adapt, and while the meanings of edicts and passages are still debated, the Torah as a text has been arguably fixed for thousands of years.

While Judaism is an important part of my personal identity, progressive politics defines my daily life. I understand the Torah as critical to the Jewish ethnohistorical identity, but it doesn’t retain, for me, its sacrosanct status. To treat the Torah as one political document among many is to deny its very essence — namely, that it is the will of God and thus a unique text. Once devoid of that holiness, the Torah becomes a cultural symbol, perhaps critical to our self-perception, but unreliable for answers to the critical economic and political questions of our time.

Like other contemporary Jews, the Haredi man in Zuccotti Park seems to have found ways to reconcile his interpretation of Judaism with his apparent political ideology. Ultimately, we all participate in our respective national projects by appealing to well-known contemporary texts. My father jokes that my Orthodox education successfully instilled in me the belief that the word of God, the Torah, is the supreme text. Thus, with my rejection of Torah’s divinity, I ask (as I was taught) how it can play a secondary or tertiary role in our thinking and still be viewed as divine in some other way. When passages must be reinterpreted to reflect evolving views, is that proof of the Torah’s timelessness or of its inescapable limitation?

I look forward to this exchange with you, Chisda

•••

Dear Chisda,

Thank you for your letter and for stating your thoughts so directly. Your note reminded me of the conversation recorded in the Talmud between Rabbi Akiva and Pappus ben Judah (Berachot 61b). During those volatile years after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Roman government had forbidden the study of Torah on pain of death. In protest, the great Rabbi Akiva convened a pubic gathering, perhaps in a park, and taught the law. At that time, Pappas asked him: “Akiva, are you not afraid of the power of the state?” The rabbi responded with a parable:

A fox was walking along a river and observed a fish moving around and clearly anxious.

The fox: “Who are you fleeing?”

The fish: “The nets of the humans.”

The fox: “In that case, you should leave the water and live on dry land.”

The meaning of the parable is simple: Without the Torah/water, there is no life for the Jewish people. But what does this really mean? Why, without the Torah, will the Jewish people cease to exist as Jews? Or, to put the question in the language you expressed so eloquently in your letter: Why is the Torah necessary for progressive Jews? What about the Torah is unique? For me, the answer is simple: The Torah’s holiness adds a dimension to being above and beyond the limitations of progressive ideology. Let me explain.

What unites the intellectual underpinnings of the ideology of the left — from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch, through Martin Heidegger’s fixation on dasein (being), to Alain Badiou’s notion of the “event” and Slovaj Žižek’s recent affirmation of violence — is the emancipation of the self from traditional society and the primacy of authenticity regardless of the cost. Against the inherently violent and totalizing tendencies of progressive thought (and action!), the teachings expressed throughout the Torah open the dimension of transcendence and height. My understanding of the divinity of the Torah, its very holiness, is expressed in this idea: The self is obligated to more than itself; there is a “beyond the self” that is more important than the “self” and that commands the self. Without the transcendent teachings of the Torah, I fear, the ideology of the left can quickly become idolatry. The Torah is necessary to Jews and to the left, precisely because it is divine in this way. Without a notion of the holy, we are left only with ourselves, with no real reason, except perhaps irony, to prefer the ideology of Zuccoti Park rather than the amoral capitalism of Ayn Rand. Or, to return to Rabbi Akiva’s parable, without transcendence, we are like fish out of water.

You ask many important questions about the living Torah and how it can inform our values. I will plan to follow up on this in my next letter. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. B’Shalom, Ari

•••

Dear Ari,

I find your response to my letter very interesting, both in terms of the transcendent Judaism you prescribe and the empirical limitations or tendencies of progressivism you describe. Left-wing ideologies have been used to justify terrible violence as well as liberal democracies, human rights, and civil liberties. You argue that religion with a transcendent commanding God provides a better moral framework for overcoming the undesirable tendencies of progressivism. Why the Torah, as opposed to the King James Bible or the Qur’an? That is, is there something specific about this transcendence (i.e., Torah) that makes it especially well-suited for moral understanding?

In my first letter, I wrote that the Torah could contribute to progressivism, but that its conception of a commanding, transcendent God who chooses one people can easily result in a totalizing ideology. The Torah’s conception of divinity suggests that we must obey God’s will or be punished. This transcendent divinity does express the notion of something greater than the self, cultivating a sense of humility; and yet, this can also justify a reductionism — a reading of the Torah as the source of all truth. It permits interpretation that could lead to human intolerance and even violence. The Torah must contribute to progressivism without dominating it, but can the Torah play a role in progressive ideology without the theological supposition of its own supremacy?

Judaic notions of divinity may provide a moral framework for evaluating ideologies that inform the “Occupy” movement and laissez-faire capitalism, but you seem to suggest that atheistic ideologies cannot. Immanuel Kant argues that the concept of “enlightenment” enables us to transcend the self through an understanding of the other — without divine transcendence. God, as an example of something greater then the self, is a humbling notion, but Kant holds, enlightenment frees us of the “inability to make sense of one’s own understanding without direction from another.” The transcendent may be humbling, but it also curtails our freedom and prevents personal ownership of our moral understanding and ideological preferences.

The notion of the other emancipates us from the self without transcendence and highlights a difficulty in reconciling contemporary progressivism with the Torah: the latter’s treatment of the other. A transcendent understanding of Judaism easily slips into an inherently exclusivist perspective. The very belief in “chosenness” undermines the inclusiveness of progressive ideologies. Perhaps secular Judaism, like Slavoj Žižek’s secular Christianity, overcomes some of the difficulties I’ve mentioned, but it seems that the commanding God as a vehicle for transcending the self is incompatible with contemporary progressivism.

Can understanding the Torah as a living text allow us to completely reconceptualize its meaning? Can we embrace a Torah even devoid of its divine source? These questions return, in part, to my first letter. You have raised many interesting considerations, and I look forward to your next letter. Chisda

•••

Dear Chisda,

Thank you for your thoughts and for your letter. Reading your letter, I fear that you may have misunderstood my first letter or that I might not have expressed myself clearly. I do not think that the Torah, by which I mean the rabbinic tradition, and liberal thought are competing moral frameworks; to fall into this exclusivist trap would be naïve. What I passionately do believe is that the Torah opens the dimension of the holy and, in doing so, exposes the limitations of liberal thought, which promotes only freedom and not obligations, and whose project of emancipation takes us only so far.

Kant is all fine and good; yet his “Copernican Revolution” detailed in The Critique of Pure Reason, inaugurates German Idealism with its commitment to epistemic totality. Briefly stated, Kant’s thought is that consciousness, or the “I think,” creates meaning based on perception; knowledge can only be generated by consciousness and not by an outside source. This thought is applied to ethics in The Critique of Practical Reason: Here, the rational self legislates the universal moral law. It is only because of the will’s (Willkür) fidelity to the self-willed (Wille) legislated moral law that we are duty bound to act ethically. The self does not understand itself through an encounter with the other, nor does this encounter provoke a moral response unmediated by the self’s will. This point is essential for Kant. It follows that when there is a conflict between a commitment to the other and the commitment to the self-legislating will, Kant will (in)famously favor the latter and claim that to save a life by lying to a murderer is immoral(!), since to do so would be to act against the categorical imperative not to lie.

I dwell on this thought to stress that Kant’s goal, as you point out, is enlightenment, which is an emancipatory project whose aim is to place autonomy at the center of meaning and ethics. In a very limited and technical sense, it is transcendental; it would be a stretch to call it transcendent — further still to call it holy. As a counterbalance to Kant’s solipsistic fantasy, I maintain that the holy, as described in my previous letter, is necessary for progressivism.

In your letter, you point out that the Torah seems to suggest an exclusivist and punishing God. I agree. To read the Torah simply, simply leads to fundamentalism. It is a project for which the rabbis have little tolerance. Instead, they have long maintained that the Torah’s language is equivocal: it deliberately speaks in different voices and it should be interpreted through multiple hermeneutics, such as literalism, exegesis, midrash, mysticism, philosophical truth, ethics, and the list goes on.

Torah, like life, is messy and complex; in this sense it is and should be, as Emmanuel Levinas put it, a religion for adults, and like adults we should have a sophisticated relationship with it. We should recognize that we are not only informed by the Torah’s teaching, but we also have the responsibility to form it for the future of the Jewish people and the world. In this sense, I agree with you that the Torah is living.

I have enjoyed our correspondence; if there are topics that you raised that were not addressed, it is for lack of space and not lack of importance.

With blessings, Ari

David Wolkin: How important is it for the learner to have a prior connection to foundational subject matter (in this case, the Torah) in order to develop a relevant connection to and understanding of material inspired by it?

Yael Buechler: Prior connection to Torah study is key in order to ensure that students can create the most meaningful manicure. Midrash Manicures is nail art that students design based on their interpretations of the Torah portion. As students are linked to the text of Torah and midrashim, their learning empowers them to delve into designing their own Jewish nail art.

Sarah Lefton: If one thinks that prior connections with the text are important, then we’re basically invalidating art in general. And if the only people who can access something new are the people who understand the old thing, then we cut out most people. It’s like finally reading the book after you’ve been a fan of the movie. In fact, some people will read the book when they see that a movie is coming out. (The Hunger Games and A Game of Thrones are examples of books going mainstream after a film version is announced.)

Andrea Hodos: If we’re creating something compelling, people will come in and then go back to learn the source. It’s very possible that Yael and Sarah are saying similar things; but Sarah is speaking about the consumer and Yael about the producer. To be a consumer, you don’t always need knowledge of the source. But you want the people creating to have a certain amount of background; otherwise, the work is very shallow. In addressing an audience, you want to figure out how to frame the piece to give people enough background to climb onboard with you. Yael is working with people as producers, so a different level of knowledge is needed to create something meaningful.

David Wolkin: Let’s look at the other side of this question. How much grounding will a consumer need to access the work? There is no specific criteria about the background someone needs to connect with what I would refer to as secondary material — something inspired by the Torah. But there’s a tension because people will bring their own understandings to that process.

Andrea Hodos: As an example, let’s look at G-dcast and Moving Torah. The G-dcast material invites the viewer into the text; it’s artistic. It sets up the questions. You can see them right at the beginning. It frames the text for the viewer as part of the piece itself. They know what the issues are, and then they get to see the interpretation.

In Moving Torah, I will often present a short question at the beginning of a piece. But, then it becomes a bit more artistic, more abstract. When I present my work, in order for my audiences to understand the essential part of what I’m trying to get at as an artist and an educator, I need to give them some context in addition to the piece itself, which G-dcast doesn’t have to do because it’s worked into the medium itself.

I’m talking with my educator hat on, now. If the viewers aren’t familiar with the primary text, I need to offer them some guidance so they will understand my midrashic piece as it relates to the text. And even as an artist, I want my audience to understand as many of the nuances of the work as they can.

David Wolkin: That’s a perfect segue to my third question: In thinking about those frames, what are some of the best ways of drawing the learners back to the text if the starting point isn’t the text itself?

Yael Buechler: Engaging students with the text is pivotal. Tapping into their excitement about painting the actual midrash is a powerful incentive to deepen their learning. What’s incredible about the “manicure” is that the same learning model is applied both to the Torah study and to the manicure process. Students work in chevruta, with a learning partner, to study the Torah text or the midrash. Then, they work with their chevruta to create their manicure. Since most students are not ambidextrous, students can help paint each others’ dominant hands.

Sarah Lefton: For G-dcast, because we’re doing YouTube videos, it is essential to speak the viewer’s language. Our most “engaging episodes” — the episodes that most deeply capture the viewer’s attention — are shorter rather than longer. They employ music, and they are humorous. We reach out to all kinds of people, but our sweet spot is teens, so we try to start from experiences that ring true to them.

Andrea Hodos: When I’m teaching a workshop and people are creating their own works, I want to let them delve into the text and find themselves, find their own questions, and connect their questions with what’s happening in the text.

It’s different if I am producing something for consumption. Then, I spend more time framing the pieces with questions that I think will draw people in.

David Wolkin: Here is a tension: Some of you create a particular sort of representation of the Torah text to be consumed by others. And some of you are engaging learners in their own processes of creation based on Torah — you have a learning process and product. If, however, the starting point of engagement isn’t the text itself, what do we do to make sure that learners are drawn back to the text at some point?

Jeremiah Lockwood: It also depends on what we’re referring to as text. I see text as an unfolding process. And what we or others create in response to another’s response to the text is a further unfolding of — one more emanation of — the text itself. This kind of dialogic process is integral to Jewish communication; it is how language arts work, how meaning is created. The Torah’s infinite, right? So a priori, all dialogue is contained within the universe of Torah.

Yael Buechler: It is not the application of the nail polish but the enthusiasm about Jewish learning that is crucial. Adults or students for whom Jewish learning is not on their radar may become motivated by the concept of Midrash Manicures. People who visit our Website often come to study Torah and then utilize that Torah learning in their art.

Jeremiah Lockwood: G-dcast fits with people’s desire to seek authentic knowledge. And the Internet is a very good tool for Torah study. It’s like looking at a page of Talmud with all of its hyperlinks. Many people have noted a commonality among the Internet, technology, and Jewish traditional typography. G-dcast recreates the feeling of verbal midrash, a spoken teaching, which is a very important place where Jewish thought can be expressed.

Andrea Hodos: I think that inquiry is what draws people back to the text. It’s the questions at the beginning of G-dcast. It’s the questions that Yael and I pose to our students or adults in chevruta. Participants begin to see that their questions matter.

The Internet is a place of inquiry. We may start in one place and then we’re led somewhere else. The Torah is also like this. Sometimes, people experience Torah as a closed book dictated by God. When we provide them with opportunities to really open the book and see that it’s actually not about answers but more about questions, their own answers can take a variety of forms. Art is also about inquiry, which is why the collaborative opportunities between art and Torah are so rich.

David Wolkin: The four of you are a new generation of interpreters. For a very long time, classical interpreters and classical interpretation controlled the process. There was a sense of: “We need to check what they have to say about the Torah.” And now, we’re in a new era where we hear: “Let’s explore our own inquiries and also see what our learners have to say about this.” When you approach these Torah texts, what are the questions that you bring to it? What are your own points of inquiry?

Andrea Hodos: I begin with: What are the specific questions that the text as a literary or religious work is inviting us to ask? I start with Rashi’s or Abrabanel’s questions and then I invite other people in. I like to start with the text itself and then see where those textual questions connect with questions that I have about myself or the world, or that my students have about themselves and the world.

Jeremiah Lockwood: In terms of my music, I love finding moments of paradox, stories that undermine the sense of hegemony of a total truth. I feel like the truth of Torah is in the places where the seams show, because, to my mind, in order for the Torah to be infinite, it can never be completely correct. I look closely at passages that point to places of conflict and tension. And I love the human stories.

Yael Buechler: When I look at texts, I try to ascertain what the text is trying to achieve. I access and encourage others to explore great teachers, from Rashi to Nahum Sarna to Nehama Leibowitz. These commentators’ insights are part of the process of making the text our own. No matter how challenging the text, I hope to determine how this text is relevant in my own life. I often ask myself: What messages can I gain from this text?

Sarah Lefton: I’m not an educator. I usually partner with an educator on these questions, and that person will vary from episode to episode.

Andrea Hodos: Would you mind if I pushed you a little bit, because it would be interesting for us to hear from somebody who isn’t primarily a text person. What is it that you’ve learned or gained from engaging with the text in the process of making G-dcast?

Sarah Lefton: Making G-dcast has been my Tanach education. I didn’t go to day school. I slept through Sunday school. I have learned how to study text by working with the 55 wonderful people with whom we partnered to animate the Torah. I learned the mechanics of how to talk about a parasha, how to construct divrei Torah.

Jeremiah Lockwood: I have a hard time understanding why you don’t include commentary in G-dcast. I see you want people to go straight to the text. But commentaries are not really separate from the text. For me, they’re part of the same body. It’s an interconnectedness of different periods of history. I can’t understand any one aspect of a story without being open to what other people have said about it over time.

Sarah Lefton: I’m open to commentaries. It’s just complicated in a short video presentation. And our initial funder asked us to stay focused on the primary text rather than bringing in midrash and commentary. And yet, I do want people to see that the text is an open-ended question: What Rashi said is interesting and informative and what another commentator says may be equally informative and might even give an opposite answer to the question.

Jeremiah Lockwood: By taking away the power of the commentators, you’re undermining the Jewish historical belief in the power of individual commentary. Why should the words of some guy who lives as a wine farmer in France be as powerful as the words that have been revealed through divine revelation on Mount Sinai? That tension is the essence of the Jewish notion that an individual can turn around and utterly alter what has been revered truth for thousands of years. The fact that individual creativity can become part of the canonical tradition is fascinating and beautiful.

Yael Buechler: What we’re hearing in this conversation is that we allow our students to take ownership of their own Torah learning — whether it’s through creating a movement or painting a manicure based on their understanding of a sacred text.

Sarah Lefton: Just to clarify, we do include Rashi and Ramban, but they are noted as commentators in the video. Our guest storytellers, who create each segment, place themselves in that larger historical conversation of commentary: The goal is for everybody to be in the conversation.

Jeremiah Lockwood: That goal is different for me. I’m okay when people are a bit confused. And because I’m attracted to paradox and my format is the concert hall, there’s a lower expectation of coming away “educated.” It’s more experiential. So, yeah, it changes the game plan a bit.

David Wolkin: How do you conceive of the importance of classical interpretation, which has been canonized, and balance that with empowering either yourselves or others as modern interpreters? And, what are the implications where modern voices don’t necessarily get enshrined as they were historically? Will these voices survive?

Jeremiah Lockwood: Do you think our voices are important? I don’t know. I’m not sure my voice is important. It may be enjoyable, but is it important? I have some resistance to thinking about myself as a Torah commentator.

On the other hand, if I sang in a quiet room by myself, the words would disappear as soon as they were out of my mouth.

Part of the Jewish community, in the Orthodox world, still looks to rabbinic teaching as an unambiguous place of connection to the divine. Outside Orthodoxy, the unboundedness of our thought processes are an amazing impetus to creativity; they are also potentially an impediment to belief in the agency of our Torah inquiry.

Yael Buechler: I try to empower others through the models of the ancient and modern interpreters so that my students can form their own questions and find their own meaning in the Torah.

Today, we’re living in a world with the canon in 3D. And it’s up to Jewish leaders and educators to help pave the way to preserve and organize our own works, and to ensure that future generations have access to them.

David Wolkin: What is the responsibility to preserve and organize? Who determines what needs to be preserved — especially when there’s so much of mixed quality out there now?

Sarah Lefton: If I’m having trouble with something, I bet others are, as well. When I spoke with some of my hardcore yeshiva friends, I found out that even yeshiva bochers have trouble keeping track of the commentators. So now we’re bringing the commentators to life and fleshing out their characters. We’re trying to bring some of these dudes — they are mostly dudes — into sharper focus so that when we read one commentary we can connect it more broadly — and not just have it be some floating piece of wisdom.

David Wolkin: As I’ve been listening to you, I’ve thought of a question that I’d love to have you answer. As interpreters and artists in your own right and as translators of a text for other people, how do you address difficult texts — texts that you wish you actually hadn’t happened upon?

Andrea Hodos: I hope to get people to recognize that the text offers a moment of inquiry, that this is something to struggle with — going back to what Jeremiah spoke about in terms of paradox and places of conflict and tension.

This text is our inheritance, and it is both our right and our obligation to engage it. I would let people sit with it for awhile. People will respond in different ways to difficult texts. I have a solo theater show called “Cutting my Hair in Jerusalem,” about reengaging the tradition in Beit Midrash Pardes. In it, I talk about struggling with feminist issues, especially “Sotah.” And I talk about it being a satisfying struggle.

I hope to get people to a place where they can also experience this satisfying struggle; that it’s theirs, that they have a sense of ownership, and that they can ask questions and can talk back to the text.

Jeremiah Lockwood: Thank you. That’s very beautifully put. And just add to that, I find it to be more satisfying and more conducive toward personal growth to “look” at something disturbing than to try to change it. I’d prefer to look at a text and allow it to be ugly and to try and gauge my own responses to it and use it as some kind of test of my own mettle as a human being.

David Wolkin: If we were dealing with a text that didn’t make us uncomfortable, how would it push us to grow? As educators, such a huge part of the process is pushing people outside of their comfort zones rather than providing them with something palatable and easy to process.

Yael Buechler: When conveying a challenging text to students, I always provide the historical context and relevant information about the text itself. It is gratifying to discover that this material has challenged others before our generation. Many commentators help us frame responses through history and empower us to channel our reactions and interpretations.

Sarah Lefton: I was hoping I could just hide from the question. But, four years ago, when we were G-dcasting the Torah, there was a certain flurry in my inbox of messages: “Can’t wait to see what you do with Tazria-Metzora — the Torah portion when God instructs Moses about the purification rituals for mothers following childbirth.” We slam-dunked it in a way that was great for third graders. We talked about dermatology and how awkward it is to see the priest when there’s something wrong with your skin and how, in biblical times, gossiping could give you skin problems. We decided against focusing on the ritual impurity of women. We didn’t duck it exactly; we just didn’t dive into controversy — after all, we’re making three-minute videos for 10 year olds. We also did the Sotah story, and we just told it like it was in the Torah. For a lot of people, G-dcast is an entree into Jewish learning. We’re trying to introduce Torah to a new audience. I would hope that the educator using our Parshat Naso or our Parshat Tazria would take our piece and then leap into whatever difficulties that the educator wants to address.

David Wolkin: Each of you specializes in translating Torah into another medium. What do we gain from this translation? What is potentially lost?

Sarah Lefton: Here’s what’s gained: In Parasha Terumah, we get a bunch of architectural details about the building of the mishkan, the dwelling place or tabernacle that accompanied the Israelites during their wilderness wandering. G-dcast shows exactly how the planks in the mishkan were interlocked. We also use cool technology to describe the building process. We offer a great window into divine architecture. What’s lost? It may be a bit lazy to watch a video of the construction. We could encourage children to build the mishkan out of Play-Doh or to paint it, which would provide a more visceral experience.

Yael Buechler: It may not be easy to paint cherubim on one’s nails, which I did this week. Yet each design of creative nail art is an application of the text in our lives. My students are completely absorbed in the translation process. If a picture is worth a thousand words, our manicures become bold expressions of the volumes of Torah translations and interpretations that are close to us.

Andrea Hodos: What I find is that embodying the text provides both a visual and a kinesthetic experience. Interpretations are uncovered that we may not have discovered without the physicality of the experience.

Jeremiah Lockwood: Let’s say the text is a cantorial piece from the 1920s that’s been sitting in the back of a bin in a Judaica shop in Borough Park for the past 30 years. The piece is rather obscure to most people. So, even if what I do with it is absolutely terrible, it’s still going to be doing a service to the source material. I use this line of thinking to bolster my recklessness and encourage my experimentalism.

Andrea Hodos: We have to be careful that we don’t present a commentary as the commentary. I want people to see this as one response, one commentary on the text, and I hope they will feel invited in for a longer conversation.

When I’m in an unfamiliar environment, I’m often asked to speak on behalf of Orthodox Jews, or the Jewish people, or Americans, as if any of those identities represented a unified opinion. In the same way that I’m uncomfortable lumping diverse groups of people into one overarching category, I am equally uncomfortable doing something similar with the texts that I spend most of my days studying as a rabbinical school student. Not all texts are sacred, and not all sacred texts are equally sacred. It would be easier if they were. For many Haredi Jews, rabbinic commentators composed their works with “ruach hakodesh” (divine inspiration); therefore, we cannot distinguish between the works of the prophets and, say, the commentary of Rashi. On the other hand, many liberal Jews believe that all of our texts were created by humans and have, therefore, less inherent spiritual value.

There are many levels and varieties of holiness in texts. Older texts are closer to divine revelation, yet newer texts are closer to our ultimate redemption. Some texts reflect God’s hopes for us; others reflect our hopes for God. Each new generation must produce texts that reveal, clarify, reapply, or reshape the divine truths found within the body of texts it inherits. What unites all these texts is that they are opportunities to connect with something beyond us. As someone engaged in that endeavor, I embrace the fact that these texts guide my life. Sometimes they tell me what to do. Sometimes they challenge me to think about something in a new way. Sometimes they teach me something about myself. Each text has the potential to affect me in a profound way, even, perhaps especially, when I passionately disagree with it. These texts are the paints I’ve been handed to create my life portrait.

Connecting to God is not easy, and neither is the process of trying to figure out what God wants from me. Texts won’t make these challenges disappear, but I do believe they can open a door to a meaningful relationship with God. These texts are authoritative in that they obligate us to wrestle with them. This process is what unites the Jewish people; it’s also why we are so disconnected. Holy texts rarely give us clear guidance. We are commanded not to murder, and yet we are also commanded to annihilate the nation of Amalek. We are told every person is created equally in the image of God, yet we are the chosen people. We are given detailed laws about bringing sacrifices, yet we are later informed that God cares about justice, not sacrifices. There are texts that can be used to support completely opposing viewpoints and ideologies. Perhaps the only thing I am certain about when it comes to God’s will is that we have no choice but to struggle with these texts. They are our identity.

We often hear about the desire to create communities in which Jews gather to actively engage in Torah study. But connecting learners to past and future Torah conversations takes a lot of work. It may also require a reframing of how we think about the task of Torah learning. The most efficient way to reach large numbers with a low barrier of entry is by offering classes or lectures with insightful and inspiring teachers. While valuable, this format does not require learners to be actively involved in their own learning, to take responsibility for it, or to develop deeper relationships with either the texts or the people sitting in the audience.

Another approach to Torah learning is relational, and calls upon all those involved in Torah study to work hard to understand the text; a relational approach asks us to take responsibility for our fellow Torah learners. This approach calls upon participants to be both active learners and active teachers, no matter where they are in their Torah learning journey. It requires a serious engagement with the text, even when (or maybe, especially when) it flies in the face of their own ideas and sensibilities. It is through this approach that we believe Torah learners can develop deep and enduring relationships with Torah as well as with a larger community of Torah learners.

One way that both cultivates and gives shape to this approach is “chevruta”: two people studying with one another and a text. Chevruta learning has become increasingly popular in the United States in the last decades. Today, it has migrated from traditional Jewish learning venues to a host of Jewish learning arenas that cross age, gender, and denominational boundaries. Sometimes, chevruta is considered the “authentic” structure for Jewish learning, as if to imply that other forms of study are inauthentic. The timeline of the widespread use of chevruta in traditional Eastern European yeshivot is debated among scholars.¹ While documents suggest that chevruta as a form of study has its roots in the 16th century, the professed merits of studying with other people seem to have more ancient precedent in the Babylonian Talmud. Today, widespread use of this method has caught on across the spectrum of Jewish learning. And while learning through chevruta may be a link in the chain of Jewish tradition, this is far from its only benefit.

The benefits of working in chevruta lie in its power to cultivate certain attitudes and skills. These attitudes include a willingness to take responsibility for our own and another’s learning as well as a willingness to believe that both the text and one’s chevruta partner have something to teach. In this sense, we must act as if there are three chevruta partners, not just two: the two people and the text. And, in order to benefit from the shared learning experience and to develop rich understandings of our texts, we must be willing to give space and time to all three partners. This mode of Torah learning requires what we call a “stance” in which one sees oneself as being in relationship to a text and to other people, and one works to cultivate this relationship as part of the study process.

In addition to these attitudes, there are certain skills, what we in the Beit Midrash Research Project call “chevruta practices,” that enable chevruta learners to activate the three partners and make the most of the learning experience. These paired practices are listening and articulating, wondering and focusing, and supporting and challenging. Listening and articulating are at the heart of chevruta learning: The interplay of partners both articulating ideas and listening enables them to build a pool of ideas and to forge collaborative relationships. Wondering and focusing enable the dynamic between curiously looking in multiple directions and identifying something interesting and delving into it. This dynamic helps us to find a middle ground between endless inquiry and premature closure. With supporting and challenging, we explore the text more deeply to strengthen the ideas at hand and to generate and consider different ideas and interpretations. We strive to support and challenge ourselves, our partner, and the text, as we eschew the simplistic goal of advocating our position and instead help all three partners “speak” to develop the strongest ideas.

We have found that people can learn the art and skill of chevruta. And, even when one doesn’t use the structure of two people studying, one can still engage in “chevruta-inspired pedagogy,” a pedagogy that is informed by ideals of the relational model of chevruta learning. This pedagogy favors immersive learning experiences that are concerned with the whole person and, in particular, favors the close study of texts with other people.

Engaging in chevruta or in “chevruta-inspired pedagogy” draws on a relational pedagogy that we already have — although we rarely use it to its potential. It is a tool that helps people become comfortable picking up a Jewish text and trying to understand it; a tool for those more experienced to deepen their understandings, conversations, and relationships; a tool to create enduring relationships between people and our rich tradition. Ultimately, this is a tool to engage learners as full human beings along intellectual, social, ethical, and spiritual dimensions.

¹ See Shaul Stampfer, The Lithuanian Yeshiva as well as  Elie Holzer and Orit Kent, “Havruta: What Do We Know and What Can We Hope to Learn from Studying in Havruta,” in International Handbook of Jewish Education, edited by Helena Miller, Lisa D. Grant, and Alex Pomson, 2011.