Women Making Trouble: Honoring Our Biblical Mothers during Women’s History Month

Each week, Rabbi Pam Wax will guide us through select texts about two or more Biblical women, alongside contemporary feminist midrashim (including music, visual art, and poetry) that respond to those texts. We will pay particular attention to how these women navigated a patriarchal and oppressive social and political order, looking to these female forebears for guidance as to how to resist (or accommodate to) injustice in dark times and extreme situations.

For those who would like to write their own midrashim, take-home prompts will be offered at each session.

On Zoom--4 Wednesday evenings —March 5-26, 7-8:30 PM

1. Yiftach’s daughter/Vashti/Esther – when laws are unjust

2. Daughters of Tzelopchad and Tamar – when the legal system works

3. Pharaoh’s daughter, midwives, Rahab – when civil disobedience is called for

4. Yael/Judith – when violence seems the only way

Rabbi Pam Wax serves as the Director of Adult Education and Programming at Congregation Knesset Israel in Pittsfield, MA. She teaches on Jewish spirituality, Mussar, and poetry in venues all over the country. Her articles on these topics, as well as her poems, have been published broadly. She is the author of two books of poetry, Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street Rag, 2022) and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023).