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History, the Bible, and Secular Jewish Identity

Introduction

Like many other issues of the Journal of Textual Reasoning, this collection of essays takes the form of commentary on a commentary. It is distinctive, however, in that the base text to which the contributors have responded comes from a d’var Torah (“word of Torah”) delivered by biblical scholar Blaire French at Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, Virginia on June 7, 2014. By bringing modern biblical scholarship to bear on difficult questions about Jewish identity in the context of a worshipping community, French’s d’var—entitled “A D’var Torah for Beha’alotcha: The Search for Evocative History”—provides an opportunity to reflect on how the academic study of Jewish texts can help respond to problems of Jewish life outside of academia. The six suggestive responses gathered in this issue, together with French’s closing reply, “Between Belief and Wonder,” are a testimony to the power of French’s initial word.