After organizing Bible by the Bay all these years, director Rachel Biale knows her audience.
She can even sort attendees into three categories: the perpetual learners, the people fascinated by biblical archaeology, and those who can’t explain exactly why they are so drawn to the daylong feast of workshops, lectures and Torah study.
People in the latter group, Biale says, “feel somewhere in their gut the Bible continues to be a big part of our culture, but they don’t know how.”
Sponsored by Berkeley’s Lehrhaus Judaica, Bible by the Bay tries to help such seekers find answers. This year’s menu includes everything from a deep reading of Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon … ”) to a discussion about the role of the matriarchs to a Freudian analysis of biblical sacrifices.
It’s all part of Biale’s goal to connect biblical issues to contemporary life. “We try to have a balance between workshops that are fairly scholarly and how the Bible resonates in modern culture,” she adds. “Then we tailor the mix to the audience in the region.”
Biale rotates the event around the Bay Area from year to year. This time, the South Bay gets the nod, with the event to take place May 2 at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto.
As always, Biale tries to recruit some of the world’s foremost Bible scholars. She succeeded with this year’s keynote speaker, James Kugel, longtime Harvard professor and now director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. Kugel will examine the Jewish calendar and its evolution since the days of the Bible.
Other scholars appearing include Deena Aranoff of Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union (she’ll talk about the poetry of biblical law) and Stanford Professor Steven Weitzman, whose topic is “A Biblical History of the Senses.”
Not all Bible by the Bay speakers teach college courses. Rabbi Melanie Aron of Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos will lead a workshop titled “Jewish Women’s Bodies in the Bible and Beyond.”
Her workshop will explore Jewish teachings concerning the body, with a focus on how those teachings have affected women’s attitudes toward their bodies.
“With women, the parts of their bodies identified as most Jewish are parts they are most unhappy with: hips, thighs, weight,” Aron says. “They see this as negative because it doesn’t meet some generalized standard.”
Aron plans to explore what she calls the “dualistic” nature of Western culture, which, she says, believes “the mind is good, the body is bad.” Adds Aron: “Jewish culture does not say that. It’s monotheistic: Mind and body are one.”
She also will bring into the discussion biblical passages that deal with the topic, including the notion of humans created “in God’s image.”
Another presenter, Adam Berman, is neither scholar nor rabbi. A noted Jewish environmentalist, Berman will talk about biblical teachings as they relate to global warming, in the workshop “What Would Moses Drive?”
“It’s an invitation to see how Judaism sees the environment totally differently,” says the Berkeley activist, “this switch from global warming being an environmental issue to being a social issue.”
How can melting ice caps, rising sea levels and shifting global weather patterns be social issues? When the lives of billions hang in the balance, says Berman, climate change becomes personal.
“If we say our activities are causing massive human suffering around the world, it gets out the category of environmentalism to core Jewish values that no one questions, like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.”
Berman, 38, knows his Judaism as much as he knows his environmental science. The L.A. native is a product of Jewish day schools and has devoted his career to marrying Judaism with environmentalism.
He founded Adamah: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship, a leadership training program for Jewish young adults, and served as director of the Teva Learning Center, a Jewish environmental education program. Most recently he completed a tenure as executive director of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in the Berkshires.
Berman says his view of environmentalism stemmed from a conversation with a friend 10 years ago.
“She said, ‘I care more about people than I do about trees and birds,’ ” Berman recalls. “It struck me that we have a huge marketing problem. When most people think about the environment they think about recycling, spotted owls and redwoods, not about the human suffering. If our goal is to think about what Judaism says about global warming, the Torah says nothing about global warming but a lot about human suffering.”
Thanks to funding from a variety of individuals and foundations, Bible by the Bay requires only a minimal registration fee ($15 in advance, $20 at the door).
But Biale is confident the day’s intellectual worth is beyond measure, which is why Bible by the Bay always draws a big crowd.
“[Lecturers] are all very eager to come because the academics see [Bible by the Bay] as an important part of their role to bring scholarship to the broader community,” Biale says. “And it is a community event. Come and you will see your friends.”
Bible by the Bay takes place 12:30 to 5 p.m. May 2 at the Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. $15-$20. Information: www.lehrhaus.org/category/events/bible-by-the-bay.