An abbreviated complete service without chanting from the scroll, followed by extended study on the Torah portion, exploring traditional and contemporary interpretations, as well as the insights of participants.

 

Parshat Vayishlah: Exploring Who’s In and Who’s Out

Join us this Saturday December 14, 2019, 9:45 am in the NOW Room for our first Shabbat Limmud (Shabbat of Learning) of the year. We will pick up a few of the themes explored last week on Human Rights Shabbat. The parshah reveals some of the painful outcomes of our ancestral saga of stolen blessings, betrothals gone bad, and divided siblings. We begin with an abbreviated service grounded in singing, chanting and quiet reflection, followed by a sequence of text study and reflection in two segments:

I - Text Study on Chapter 34 – led by Rabbi Liz. A close reading of the story of Dinah. Is it rape? Is it a tragic love story between two warring clans, a biblical Romeo and Juliet/Tony and Maria saga? How does this #metoo and #timesup era change our reading of the story?

II- Writing and Reflecting – led by Sarah Waisvisz. Using the biblical snapshots we see from Jacob and Esau’s family albums, plus contemporary texts about adoption and varieties of families, we’ll explore questions of who’s in and who’s out, and how that leads to social structures of inequity.

We’ll conclude with song and our usual communal pot luck.