Archives for August 16, 2021

Wednesday, August 18, is the last chapel service of the month as the summer term ends. Please join us to hear Director of Enrollment Services Jessi LeClear Vachta break open the word for us. We’ll gather via Zoom at 11 a.m. Central. The Zoom link will be included in the community announcements email.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Stewardship Leaders Program/Thrivent Charitable Impact and Investing, all members of the Luther Seminary community are invited to participate in a Zoom class providing a gentle and accessible introduction to rabbinic literature and thought. Don’t know your midrash from the Mishnah? This is for you!

The course will be held over Zoom 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Central (with an hour for lunch) Monday, August 30-Friday September 3.

The foundation of this short course will be exploring a “Dynamic of Mutual Welcome,” drawn from Luther Seminary’s Welcome Statement, as addressed in early rabbinic writing. We will look at rabbinic thoughts on gender, sex, race, ethnicity, intersectionality, and belonging.

Participants will receive a free copy of Strack and Stemberger’s “Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash.” Early sign-up will aid in making sure students have the text before the sessions begin.

This is a non-credit, fully online learning opportunity. There is space for 25 participants. If there are more interested folks than spots, preference will be given to participants who are able to attend all the sessions.

Deacon Cory Driver will lead the course. Cory holds a Ph.D. in Jewish religious cultures and an M.A. in Hebrew literature, in addition to an M.Div. from Luther Seminary to be awarded at the end of Summer Session 2021. He has taught and written widely on rabbinic thought at the intersections of ethnicity, gender, sex, and nationality. His first book, “Drinking the Milk of Trust” (Palgrave, 2017), explored ways in which Muslim Moroccans, especially women, appropriated Jewish traditional and ritual practices to cultivate alternative forms of spiritual authority for themselves in their communities. His second book, “Life Unsettled: A Scriptural Journey for Wilderness Times” (Fortress, 2021), combines memoir and rabbinic studies to meditate on the Book of Numbers as a path forward for periods of societal disorientation. Cory is an adjunct professor at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, teaching Bible and Interfaith Encounter courses.

Please sign up on this Google doc.

Inquiries may be sent to cdriver001@luthersem.edu.