In
August 2002, Aviya Kushner left Jerusalem, where she had been a correspondent
for the Jerusalem Post,
returned to her parents’ home in Monsey, New York, and then drove a thousand
miles west to Iowa City to begin an MFA program in nonfiction writing. A native Hebrew speaker with an
expressive face, Kushner would prompt her professor to stop and ask what it was
that she found so surprising in the class discussions of the text. At first,
Kushner thought that explaining the differences would be easy, but slowly it
dawned on her that the gaps in understanding were not so easily bridged. Kushner
came to realize that the experience of studying Bible in English with her
classmates began with her needing to know what they brought to the text as they
read. “I found that my classmates believed all sorts of things that I did not
think were possible,” she said, but eventually “I understood where they were
coming from, and I had a lot of empathy for them.” Read complete article at -- http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/193339/aviya-kushner-translation
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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