A dramatic approach to Scripture
A Jewish institute brings a modern method to an old way of studying text by "entering" its gaps.
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| Rivkah Walton oversees Jacob Birnberg and Rena Blumenthal (right) in a "bibliodrama" scene. (Laurence Kesterson/Inquirer) |
FOR THE INQUIRER
Rivkah Walton, holding a paperback volume of Jewish Scripture, read aloud from the first verses of Genesis. As she spoke, the 30 adults gathered in the music room of Goodhart Hall at Bryn Mawr College emitted a riot of sounds: soft whooshes, odd hand claps, eerie tones, bird calls and, finally, everything from raucous monkey screams to seal barks.
In another setting, such cacophony during the reading of a sacred text might be disrespectful. At this Summer Training Intensive of the Institute for Contemporary Midrash, it was intended instead as an imaginative "sound portrait" of creation.
Walton, the Jewish institute's executive director, was guiding attendees through what was, for many, a first exposure to the emerging art of bibliodrama - in which people creatively "enter the text."
Specifically, they were using bibliodrama to construct midrash, an age-old form of biblical interpretation that involves reading between the lines. Jewish mysticism, Walton said, sees the texts in the canon as containing both "black fire," the actual words on the page, and "white fire," the spaces in between. Bible study can look at either element.
Midrash manipulates the white fire to seek answers to questions such as: How did Eve persuade Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit? Did Ruth love Boaz?
Midrash is probably as old as the Bible itself. The Talmud abounds in examples of it. Because midrash is commentary and not canon, tales attributed to some of the greatest sages may directly contradict one another without troubling anyone.
"Play with it," Walton said, urging "educators, artists, clergy and laity to use midrashic methods in their own work and in the classroom."
For five years, her small institute has aspired to democratize the use of midrash. Walton, 48, is a longtime Jewish Renewal activist who works out of an office in Mount Airy, the renewal movement's ground zero.
Her calling is interdenominational and interfaith, and it has nothing to do with art for art's sake. Walton perceives that the Bible "has become the property of the right wing in America, Jewish and Christian." Her goal is to get religious liberals and others who feel estranged from Scripture to have direct encounters as a way to see the text as alive and flexible.
"People have been doing this [midrash] in one form or another for centuries," said Tamar Earnest of Allentown, who took bibliodrama at previous intensives and came back this year for a writing class led by poet Alicia Ostriker.
The institute has run national conferences, workshops and congregational programs and has issued a newsletter and a journal, Living Text. Every artistic discipline is pressed into service, including music, dance, painting and sculpture.
Walton calls upon a committee of prominent advisers, including Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, the Jewish Theological Seminary professor who inspired Bill Moyers' TV series on Genesis; genealogist Arthur Kurzweil; and Ellen Frankel, editor of the Jewish Publication Society.
Bibliodrama was invented by "psychodramatist" Peter Pitzele. Pitzele has written two books on the subject, Scripture Windows and Our Fathers' Wells, and has worked with Walton to train about 200 leaders in the interactive art.
In the entry-level workshops earlier this month, Walton and her co-trainer, Amy Clarkson, a Presbyterian and music therapist, began by stressing "safety." It's not physical strains and bruises they fear, but what the text may stir up emotionally.
"Many people have been very damaged by Bible," Walton said, citing passages troubling to women and homosexuals as well as those that countenance slavery, violence and more. "It's a very problematic text for a sacred story of a people."
Emphasis was placed on keeping the "play" spiritually revelatory rather than therapeutic. Both teachers prefaced each bibliodrama by assuring people they didn't have to take part if things got uncomfortable.
"Unlike most text study, when we talk about the characters, in this methodology we only talk as characters," Walton said. To ensure that even those with little scriptural knowledge can participate, she said, "I am going to tell you what you need to know about the story." She and Clarkson stuck close to the text, without editorializing.
More guidelines followed: Would-be bibliodramatists learned to look for "accessible" texts; those that have a self-contained story, gaps in time or breaks in details, and actions with unexplained motivations and feelings. "Difficult" texts, unsuitable for bibliodrama, were identified as those with overly scripted stories, offensive values, horrifying moments or miraculous events.
An early exercise broke the 11 students into two groups to consider the fitness of several verses. Genesis 3:6, in which Eve eats the forbidden fruit and shares it with Adam, was accepted because some of the positive rules apply. Genesis 19:8, in which Lot offers his two "daughters who have not known a man" to appease the Sodomites seeking his angelic guests, was dismissed for its negative qualities.
The students came for a variety of reasons. Some, such as Gail Nalven and Nellie Harris, who both traveled from the New York City area, are Jewish educators seeking another tool to engage children in synagogue schools.
The classes' two men, Jacob Birnberg and Marcus Freed, came the farthest. Birnberg flew in from Oakland, Calif., "because it sounded interesting." Freed, a professional actor, came from England and was combining the visit with a short tour of his one-man show Elijah: The First Action Hero.
Clergy was represented, too. Rena Blumenthal is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, and Leslianne Braunstein just graduated from Wesley Theological Seminary, a Methodist school in Washington.
Braunstein, a Presbyterian who trained with Walton and Clarkson at the seminary, said she was there because "I hope to use this as a way of opening up text for people." Christians, she said, "are afraid to step outside of the printed text" and so "it takes Christian groups a little longer to warm up because they are afraid of working with 'white fire.' "
According to Michael Carasik, who teaches Biblical Hebrew at the University of Pennsylvania, a few traditional Jews would object to the institute's promotion of new midrash because they consider the midrashim of the Talmudic era to be the only valid ones. Still, he said, "the question about midrash is whether it speaks to you or not" - and, although the institute's Living Text journal never spoke to him, "anything that increases contact with the text is good."
On the last night at Bryn Mawr, final projects were presented. The group was amused, moved and illuminated. For Walton, it was a bittersweet moment. All week long, she had seen the revelatory effects of mano-a-mano encounters with the text. Because of an inability to develop new funding, though, she expected this to be the last intensive. "It's frustrating," she said.
Inside, on stage, Marcus Freed loosed his long curls around his face and raised doubts among the audience about who he was among the many characters he had played that evening. He lowered his gaze with Elijah's intensity and concluded, "Real heroes never die."
Rivkah Walton's students already know that.
©Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., 2001. By permission of the author.