Torah commentaries: How they form and inform our understanding of Torah

Taught by Elsie Stern, PhD, Professor of Bible, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
On Zoom only, click here.

We will read excerpts from a range of contemporary Torah commentaries to explore how they encourage different understandings of the Torah text and its potential role in the lives of its readers. We will ask questions like: Does the commentator privilege the text’s historical context or its contemporary relevance? How does the commentator view the relationship between the Hebrew text and its English translation/s? What kind of authority does the commentator ascribe to the Torah text and other texts from Jewish tradition? What does the commentator think the text can teach us? What does the commentator hope will emerge from our engagement with the Torah text?  While the commentaries will be our “primary text” for the class, we will, of course, also engage with the Torah text and explore how the commentaries add to our understanding of it.