My proposal has been accepted to teach a 4-day afternoon course at this Augusts National Havurah Institute, in New Hampshire, on the topic Jerusalem: City of Peace, City of Blood. It will focus on Talmud study and involve a lot of havruta learning around the following topics: *Day 1*: What is Distinct about Jerusalem? (Bava Kama 82b): A gemara enumerating municipal regulations for Jerusalem, which tell us a lot about Rabbinic ideas of the ideal public good and whats at stake in elevating a city to have special status. *Day 2* :Jerusalem & the Violence of Religious Zealotry (Yoma 23a-b): We will compare two early versions of a disturbing incident of violence in the zealous pursuit of religious worship in Jerusalem -- a sanitized version in the Mishna and a sinister version in the Tosefta -- and the Talmuds reaction, in order to look at the dark underbelly of religious passion and consider what dangers the Rabbis see lurking in religious service in general, and in Jerusalem in particular. *Day 3*: The Sword within, the Sword without, & the Cycle of Violence (Gittin 57b) We will explore a macabre story about the addictive mind sucked into a cycle of violence, and how the Rabbis view external violence against the Jewish people to be ultimately a consequence of internal hostility and violence within. *Day 4*: God Has Never Retracted a Promise for Good...Except with Jerusalem (Shabbat 54b-55a) A passage that explores the dark sides of what it means to be accountable, and how Jerusalem is the city of ultimate accountability. This accountability gets measured out in blood when not acted upon properly. The trial run for this course was carried out in the wonderful Open Talmud Project in London last summer. Thanks Rachel Godfrey and team for making that possible!
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:03:46 +0000
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