Home and Exile, Center and Periphery: Ambivalent Journeys in the Torah

Date: Jun 14, 2021 - Jun 14, 2021

Time: 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Sponsor: Online Learning

Location: Online

Category: Online Learning


Home and Exile, Center and Periphery: Ambivalent Journeys in the Torah

Part of our summer learning series, “A Wandering People: Jewish Journeys, Real and Imagined”

June 14, 2021, 2:00–3:30 p.m. ET

The theme of the journey—to home, and from home—plays a prominent role in the Torah. But repeatedly, these stories force us to wonder what is home and what is exile. Join Dr. Benjamin Sommer to read narratives from Genesis and Exodus that present a tangled-up view of center and periphery. This persistent ambivalence about the nature of a journey carries weighty implications for biblical understandings of God as nearby but hard to grasp, and about authority and autonomy in religious Judaism. 

If you have previously registered for another session in this series, your registration admits you to all sessions in the series, and you may attend as many as you’d like. 

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About the Series

As the pandemic surged and forced us into our homes, many of us dreamed with new intensity of being elsewhere. For Jews throughout the ages, the promises and perils of travel have been central to shaping the individual and collective experience. Notions of home and homeland have been redefined by Jewish wandering. Drawing on literary, spiritual, and historical sources and responses, JTS scholars will explore what happens when Jews—whether by force or voluntarily, whether in reality or in the imagination—travel from one place to another. View all sessions in the series

Note: The Zoom link for this session will be in the confirmation email that you will receive after you register.