SAMPLE TEXT:
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame”
Materials:
- Pens for each participant (optional)
- Printed pages for each participant (see Steps)
- A few pairs of scissors
Steps:
- Introduce a page of gmara – show the makeup of the page
- Introduce the concept of PaRDeS
- Pshat – clear literal reading
- Remez – clues to other meanings/intents
- Drash – unwritten stories, moments of extrapolation
- Sod – secrets
- Distribute the page of gmara modeled after MLK’s “Dream” speech so that every participant gets a copy.
- Ask them to underline/circle moments of clear literal intent, moments where clues are being given to other meaning, moments of extrapolation, secrets
- Put everyone in chevruta (partnered up) so that they can share what they discovered
- Bring the whole group back together to share insights
- Distribute blank pages of gmara with ‘sacred texts’ boxed in the middle of the blank page. (see attached appendices)
- Ask everyone to take the page they got and, by themselves, do the PaRDeS process.
- Talk them through by saying “everyone underline or circle words/phrases of literal meaning and then notate it in the blank space” and then after a couple of minutes, move on to Remez, and so forth.
- Ask everyone to take the page they got and, by themselves, do the PaRDeS process.
- Ask everyone who shares the same central text to find each other and make a group.
- If you have lots of people, you can split into multiple groups for the same text. One group should not have more than 5 or 6 people.
- Ask them to compare their sheets and insights.
- Give each group a blank sheet with their text in the middle and ask them to create a master sheet that has all the insights gathered from the various sheets in the group.
- Give every group a pair of scissors and ask them to cut out the central text in the master sheet.
- Assign every group to make a theater piece (or a sculpture with their bodies, or a painting, etc.) using only the language on the margins of the master sheet as inspiration but not using any of the now absent core sacred text.
- Have everyone present
Debrief:
- What did you learn about the original text from this exercise?
- What did you learn about the talmudic process of analyzing sacred text?
- What makes a text a sacred text?
*The In[heir]itance Project is collecting responses/stories. Please feel free to email images of your new pages of gmara to genesis@inheiritance.org. Include the source text in the body of the email.
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