Spiritual Growth, Torah Learning

Discovering The Difference: Writing Through the Torah

Jewish texts can shape a person in many ways. For some, they are something to study and puzzle over. For us in this community, it becomes a lens through which we write, create, and understand their own lives afresh. .

What It Means to Study Torah

Studying Torah is, first and foremost, an act of receiving. You come to a text that is wiser, larger than (one hopes) older than you. And you allow it to teach you. It's an ancient practice: reading, learnign the classic commentaries. Asking questions about what the text means.

The goal is to understand: What does the verse say? How do the sages read it? What halachic or ethical conclusion emerges? Y

By contrast, what we do in the Jewish Voice Project workshops is that we ask who we are as whole, evolving, story-filled, dreaming feeling individuals - prompted by the text.

In the first case, we bring ourselves to the text in service of the text.

In the second, we utilize the text to explore the universe, the unique self, even the "divine spark" that each of us is.

What It Means to Write Through Torah

The text in the Write through Torah workshops becomes the mirror through which you explore your own inner world. Instead of asking only, “What does this verse mean?” you also ask, “What does this verse awaken in me right now?”

• You might journal about how an ancient story echoes a family conflict you are facing.

• You might write a contemprary version of a scene in the desert, with you at the center - or the margins

• You might craft a personal midrash, filling in emotional or spiritual gaps you've noticed in the text and in the text's thinking, bringing your unique insights to what's already there.

In writing through Torah, you are not only entering the text - you are creating with it!

You are adding your voice to a conversation that has been speaking for countless generations.

Personal writing through Torah turns learning into an ongoing inner dialogue.

How Studying and Writing Work Together

As it happens, when we look at a text from the Torah, the sages, the mystics, the prophets, from the poets or contemporary writers, you will be learning a lot about the Jewish tradition. You will see it from angles you've probably never heard before.

So even though we use the text to spark your reflective writing about your own life, you're getting a broad education as part of the process.

The goal of course is not to show how much you can explicate text, but how much you can use it to shine light on your own inner world -- and then turn that into finely crafted writing.

in our workshops, we let the text provoke us, challenge us, inspired us. And then you answer back with your own unique, unmistakable words.

Why do we love these workshops? Because maybe for the first time in your life, ancient text stops being only a book on the table or a scroll on a lecturn and becomes a deeply personal, living intimate conversation between you and the whole of the tradition . You never know what you will discover.

To learn more, receive new prompts, inspiration and invitations to our workshops and programs, please stay in touch through our weekly newsletter here -- or jump in and come join our weekly writing workshop here.