Mastering the Art of Midrash 4: Asking an Expert

Okay so I don’t like to drop names too much but this week I feel compelled. If you could name 3 people in the world who—if they came to your house—would give you palpitations of the heart, who would it be? Most people find it hard to answer this question, but for me it is easy: Paul McCartney, Yo-Yo Ma (have you ever seen him play the Bach Cello Suites?) and Aviva Zornberg.

Well, this week I got one of my three wishes. Aviva Zornberg was speaking at Beth Hillel in Wilmette and I invited her to dinner. I obsessed for a week about the menu and we had a fine time, talking about families, music, traveling for work, etc. I have met her before and she is gracious and lovely.

In the car on the way to the lecture, I decided to ask her a pedagogical question. “Aviva, I have to ask you something. This year I am teaching a Midrash class and I am struggling to find a pedagogy that works. How did you come to develop your style of teaching?” She looked at me a bit puzzled (“Why is this woman bothering me when I want to prepare my head for the lecture" was what she must have been thinking. But I had just fed her this amazing soup (this IS a cooking blog) with roasted apples and butternut squash, dried cranberries and almonds, so she had to respond.) And said: “I am really not sure. No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I am finding it a challenge,” I confessed. “ It seems to midrash that Midrash is the type of text that has to maintain its presence and its voice all the time, in the way that Gadamer or Elie Holzer might say. You can’t just read a bit of it, and let a class jump off into finding some sort of personal meaning in the text. This causes a tension for moderns, who love to be at the center all the time. Midrash is forcing my class to hold back, they have to learn to stay with the circular moves and jumps in the Tanach to get to a point that might seem pointless to them. They are frustrated. What do you think I should do?”

Now she was thoughtful. I know that thinking about teaching is right up there for me as it is not for everyone, but she was interested now. “Well, I suppose I would say that I let the Midrash have its voice to tell me more truth about the Torah.”

That was it. But it gave me a lot to think about since that time. Next blog I will report on how I incorporated what she said into the next lesson, and how it made a huge difference.

What a gift that there are such teachers in the world as Aviva Zornberg.

Now what would I ask Yo-Yo Ma? Never mind, what would I cook for him? At least McCartney eats veggie.