By Cindy Mindell

Political and cultural commentator David Brooks recently described Torah scholar Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg as “magnificent.”

The compliment appeared in Brooks’ April 3 New York Times op-ed, “On Conquering Fear,” as Jews were preparing for the Passover seder. He was quoting a passage from Zornberg’s Torah commentary, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, about the effects of fear on Moses and the Israelites in Egypt.

The volume is Zornberg’s third as she works her way through each of the five books of the Torah. Reviews are littered with similarly adulatory descriptions, as the author brings to her work a unique mix of Torah and literary scholarship, infused with psychoanalytic concepts. Writing in the Washington Post (April 1, 2001), Paul William Roberts gushed, “The Particulars of Rapture, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg’s reflections on the Book of Exodus, is quite simply a masterpiece.”

The magnificent, masterful Zornberg will be the featured speaker at the community scholar-in-residence weekend co-sponsored by three New Haven area congregations and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, Friday, May 15 through Sunday, May 17.

Zornberg has just published Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers. This fourth commentary follows her three earlier works: The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious; Genesis: The Beginning of Desire, awarded a 1995 National Jewish Book Award, and The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus.

A native of London, England, Zornberg grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, where her father, Rabbi Dr. Wolf Gottlieb, was spiritual leader of the Queen’s Park Synagogue and head of the rabbinical court. She studied with him from childhood and refers to him as her most important teacher of Torah.

“I was influenced deeply by my father’s approach to Torah,” she says. “He was a scholar, a European refugee from Hitler, and a widely literate man. I was privileged to learn with and from him daily in my childhood. Among other things, he bore the legacy of Hassidic forebears. Later, I found other rabbis and teachers who conveyed to me some of the depth of Midrashic and Hassidic commentary on the Torah.”

Zornberg earned a BA and PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University, which, she says, opened her up “to the possibilities of larger contexts for my Torah study.”

After making aliyah in 1969, Zornberg taught English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A decade later, she turned to teaching Torah. Since then, she has taught Torah in Jerusalem at Matan, Yakar, Pardes, and the Jerusalem College for Adults. She also holds a Visiting Lectureship at the London School of Jewish Studies. She appeared on the 1996 10-part PBS series, Genesis: A Living Conversation, produced and hosted by Bill Moyers.

For the New Haven scholar-in-residence program, Zornberg will discuss four biblical figures. “I chose these characters because they all struggle with language in ways that both hide and express inner wishes and aspirations,” she says.

On Friday, May 15 at Westville Synagogue in New Haven, Zornberg will look at the relationship between Moses and Korach, first cousins and “apparently, political rivals,” she says. “We will discuss more subtle aspects of their relation to language, which evokes radical differences in sensibility and behavior between the two men.”

On Saturday, May 16 at BEKI – Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel in New Haven, her talk will focus on “the “quintessential biblical stranger” – Ruth. “Who is this unknown woman who is destined to become the mother of royalty?” asks Zornberg of the woman who is presented in enigmatic ways in the Torah.

On Sunday, May 17 at Congregation B’nai Jacob in Woodbridge, Moses’ sister Miriam will be the topic of discussion. “Miriam begins her career as prophetess by assuming a more-than-sisterly role in relation to Moses,” Zornberg says. “By the end of her story, she speaks against her brother, in a mysterious episode that places the two prophets in tension with each other. We will follow the trajectory of Miriam’s narrative as we try to understand the passion of her life.”

The veteran Torah student and educator offers age-old wisdom to the Torah-curious. “Although there are many aids to independent study, the ancient advice to the beginner is to find a teacher,” she says. “I think this is good advice where it is possible. This can be one of the formative relations of a lifetime.”

For more information on the community scholar-in-residence weekend with Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg call: BEKI, (203) 389-2108; Congregation B’nai Jacob, (203) 389-2111; Westville Synagogue, (203) 389-9513.