Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers Contributor(s): Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb (Author) |
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ISBN: 0805212515 ISBN-13: 9780805212518 Publisher: Schocken Books Inc OUR PRICE: $18.00 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2017 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Religion | Biblical Criticism & Interpretation - Old Testament - Religion | Judaism - Sacred Writings - Religion | Biblical Studies - Old Testament - General |
Dewey: 222.14 |
Physical Information: 1" H x 6.1" W x 9.2" (1.20 lbs) 400 pages |
Themes: - Religious Orientation - Jewish - Religious Orientation - Christian |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Through the magnificent literary, scholarly, and psychological analysis of the text that is her trademark, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg tackles the enduring puzzlement of the book of Numbers. What should have been for the Israelites a brief journey from Mount Sinai to the Holy Land becomes a forty-year death march. Both before and after the devastating report of the Spies, the narrative centers on the people's desire to return to slavery in Egypt. At its heart are speeches of complaint and lament. But in the narrative of the book of Numbers that is found in mystical and Hasidic sources, the generation of the wilderness emerges as one of extraordinary spiritual experience, fed on miracles and nurtured directly by God: a generation of ecstatic faith, human partners in an unprecedented conversation with the Deity. Drawing on kabbalistic sources, the Hasidic commentators depict a people who transcend prudent considerations in order to follow God into the wilderness, where their spiritual yearning comes to full expression. Is there a way to integrate this narrative of dark murmurings, of obsessive fantasies of a return to Egypt, with the celebration of a love-intoxicated wilderness discourse? What effect does the cumulative trauma of slavery, the miracles of Exodus, and the revelation at Sinai have on a nation that is beginning to speak? In Bewilderments, one of our most admired biblical commentators suggests fascinating answers to these questions. |