Midrash and the Rabbinic Imagination
Course Details
Despite some caricatures of this ancient genre, midrash is neither the mechanical reading of biblical verses, nor the invention of Rabbinic flights of fancy, but the meeting place between the features of a text and an idea in need of articulation. Through exploration of four midrashic themes, this course is designed to encourage appreciation for the midrashic craft of the creative and careful reader.
By looking closely at the texts from Tanakh and the works of midrash, we will read Scripture as our Rabbis did—like a love letter addressed directly to us. We'll explore questions like: why do characters from elsewhere show up in midrashic expansions of biblical narratives? In what way does a reader's context inform their reading? And who do we trust to hold and transmit our cultural treasures?
Rabbi Ethan Tucker is President and Rosh Yeshiva at Hadar. Ethan was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and earned a doctorate in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Harvard College. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, he was a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar and a winner of the first Grinspoon Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellowship. He is the author, along with Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg, of Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law (2017).
