What stories do we tell?
Over the last several years, most times we have led studies on Hannah or Ruth, the community would comment about how much they didn’t know about these women of the Bible. In many people’s religious experiences, the stories of women were not featured.
Though it had risen up in studies and had been simmering as an idea for a long time, once we said we were going to do a Daughters of the Torah Roots, we weren’t ready to choose the women.
How on earth would we narrow it down to 10 passages?
(For the record, that’s a difficult choice with each of our Roots programs.)
As we finally got to the point of making the choices, it was Lisa who said we should stay inside the framework of the name we had chosen: Daughters of the Torah. In other words, choose only from women named in the first five books. At first, I (Stephanie) objected. What about Deborah? Or Esther? Or Huldah? So many narratives about great women rest outside of the first five books.
Yet, I knew Lisa was right. (She usually is.)
Staying inside the Torah formed an important boundary. It meant that we would tell not only the stories that are encouraging, but also the stories that push us to wrestle with uncomfortable things. Stories like that of Dinah.
Dinah. The woman who, in Genesis 34, has sex with a man named Shechem. A woman whose brothers then respond by slaughtering the entire village.
Why is a passage like this even in the Bible? Are there gems we can look for? Is there any good to be found?
As I dug deeper, I began to see that if 40 Orchards is going to lean into our mission of expanding how we see, that has to include narratives that are difficult, and struggles that are unresolved.
After all, isn’t a big part of why many have left organized religion because of the ways it has sugar-coated history for the sake of maintaining power? What if it’s through telling the stories we’d rather avoid that we will be able to find a new way forward?
What would it look like to hold faith with a courageous honesty that can admit injustice, even when it is found inside our sacred Text?
My first instinct was to avoid the painful story of Dinah. I’m beginning to see just how central she is for all of us. Perhaps Dinah can guide us to uncover more ways of seeing our histories.
-Stephanie
Daughters of the Torah is a Roots about women, but that does not mean it’s a women’s Bible study.
This is an opportunity for people of all genders to gather to see more. There are narratives that haven’t been elevated and stories that haven’t been told. What will happen as we look at them together?
We hope you can join us this fall. We are offering Daughters of the Torah Roots at 2 different times, in two different ways.
Virtually and in the evening, from 6:30-8:30 pm on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, beginning September 28.
In-person and in the morning, from 9-11 am on the 1st Friday of the month, beginning October 1.
Daughters of the Torah Roots meets for 10 sessions and is open to all, whether or not you have studied with us before, and whatever your religious affiliation or history.
Make sure to check out this and other program offerings on our register page.