Gender Identity in Rabbinic Literature
Date: Mar 27, 2023
Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Sponsor: Online Learning | Public Lectures and Events
Location: Online
Category: Online Learning Public Lectures & Events
Gender Identity in Rabbinic Literature
Part of our spring learning series, The Space In-Between: Thresholds and Borders in Jewish Life and Thought
Monday, March 27, 2023
1:00–2:00 p.m. ET
Online
With Dr. Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Assistant Professor, Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS
Great fans of ambiguity, the sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud loved to problematize what people of their day considered the most deeply ingrained of binaries, including gender and sex identity. For them, human understandings were imperfect, and every perspective was up for debate. Torah was Divine and perfect, but its interpreters were not. Long ago, our sages debated questions of sex difference and the extent of our capacity to know what we are. We will see some of these debates and ask if they still hold relevance for us.
If you have previously registered for another session in this series, your registration admits you to all sessions in the series, and you may attend as many as you’d like.
Note: The Zoom link for this session will be in the confirmation email that you will receive after you register.
ABOUT THE SERIES
“The Space In-Between: Thresholds and Borders in Jewish Life and Thought”
We are living in an undefined time: our daily existence is no longer dominated by the pandemic, yet neither have we settled into a new normal. This sense of being in transition—neither here nor there—can feel destabilizing; but is the time in between really temporary, or are we always living in between moments, identities, and phases of life?
In this series, JTS scholars will delve into the idea of liminality—the time or space in between—which we encounter often in Jewish ritual, identity, law, and life. Join us to consider what these many manifestations of “in-between-ness” can teach us about ourselves and about Judaism, and to explore how we might find strength and meaning in an orientation not of “either/or” but of “both/and.”
