When David becomes king, he demands Michal back, and her new husband Paltiel follows her, weeping, as she returns to her first husband. In spite of her loyalty, David abandons Michal. She then hides her terafim (household deities of some kind) in his bed, with goat hair on top, so Saul’s soldiers will think David is sick in bed. When Saul seeks to kill David, Michal saves her new husband by letting him out a window. She is, in fact, the only woman the Bible depicts as falling in love (outside the Song of Songs). Michal, younger daughter of Saul, falls in love with David after his meteoric rise to fame. Throughout our five-day workshop, one character continued to demand my attention. As we did so, we felt the multiplicity and complexity of the biblical voice and our own voices. So we wrote as other characters, to offer their perspectives, their versions of the sacred. ![]() Reading these texts in today’s environment, we couldn’t help but see in David a hint of many problematic men occupying the national stage. Throughout the stories, we were forced to confront the text’s portrayal of David as a man who commits and enables violence, particularly violence toward women. My students wrote pieces in the voices of Michal (daughter of Saul and David’s wife), Jonathan (David’s friend and maybe lover), Bathsheba, David’s son Absalom, and others. ![]() Last week, I had the privilege of teaching a week-long writing seminar at the Academy for Jewish Religion called “Sweet Singer of Israel: King David and a Life in the World.” During this seminar, we took a whirlwind tour of biblical texts about King David, from his anointing as a shepherd boy to his rise to kingship to his son’s rebellion against him in his old age. My research, as part of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, into women’s forms of spiritual leadership in biblical Israel is based in textual evidence and archeology, yet is also is inspired by the midrashic process and the way that process has given marginalized characters a voice. ![]() Now, I teach ancient midrash as well as contemporary midrash at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic rabbinical and cantorial seminary in Yonkers. I also served as the editor of Living Text: The Journal of Contemporary MIdrash for a few years. My own book, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (2001), as well as my book of poems The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries (2016), were my contribution to the field of contemporary midrash. I studied both ancient and modern midrash in rabbinical school. I’ve been writing and teaching midrash since I was in my twenties. And of course many others, from poet Yehuda Amichai to bibliodramatist Peter Pitzele, have added to this rich tapestry. Voices like Andrew Ramer and Joy Ladin have invited us to see queer and trans themes in the text. Wilda Gafney has made contributions to a Christian and womanist form of midrash. Alicia Ostriker, Norma Rosen, Veronica Golos, and many others have joined in this creative play which highlights marginalized voices within the text. Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent changed the conversation on Dinah forever. Judith Plaskow’s “The Coming of Lilith” made a huge impact on the reading of the story of Eve and the legend of Lilith. From Miriam to Vashti, female biblical characters shine in the creative interpretations of feminist midrashists. Each of them allows a new generation to add its own perspectives to the tradition.Ĭontemporary feminists, and many other contemporary artists, writers, and exegetes, have used a modern form of midrash to add liberatory perspectives to Jewish tradition and to biblical lore. Each of these stories derives from a particular close reading of text, whether a Torah text or a verse elsewhere in the Bible. The story in which God stops the angels from singing as the Egyptians drown in the Sea of Reeds is a midrash. Midrash comes from the word “to ask,” “to seek,” or “to divine.” For example, the tale in which a well follows the prophetess Miriam through the wilderness is an ancient midrash. When I was in my late teens, I discovered midrash: the Jewish exegetical process by which commentators weave creative and additive interpretations into the sacred text. Michal the Priestess: Midrash, Multiplicity, and the Tales of King David by Jill Hammer Home › Academics › Michal the Priestess: Midrash, Multiplicity, and the Tales of King David by Jill Hammer
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