January 25-April 26: “What Does Love Have To Do With It: A Midrash Workshop” with Alicia Ostriker

A workshop with Alicia Ostriker.

Four Sundays, 1/25, 2/22, 3/29, 4/26, 12:00-3:00 pm EST

Torah does not deal with love very often, but when it does, it is life-changing.  In this workshop we will read biblical texts dealing with four love-relationships.  Writing midrash, we discover what the stories can mean for our own lives, our own time, our own language. Writing midrash, we surprise ourselves. We surprise each other.  It’s almost like being in love.

Session 1: based on Isaac’s love of Rebecca (Gen 24: 67, and all that leads up to it and follows it)

Session 2:  Jacob’s love of Rachel (especially Gen 29:11, 18-20, 30) and its consequences.

Session 3:  Jonathon’s love for David (1 Samuel 18:1-3; 19:1-7; 20:1-23; 2 Samuel 1:1-26

Session 4:  The Song of Songs (all)

Alicia Ostriker is both a poet and a critic. As a prose writer she is best known for her book Stealing the Language: the Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America. She has also published several other books on poetry and on the Bible. As a poet she has published 20 chapbooks and full collections, been twice nominated for the National Book Award, and has twice received the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, among other honors. Her most recent book is The Holy and Broken Bliss: Poems in Plague Time (2024).