God of Our Mothers: What Our Matriarchs Teach Us About Connecting to God
Learning With Your Own Havruta
Course Details
The image of God as “King” reverberates throughout the High Holiday liturgy. This image evokes a hierarchical relationship with God, suggesting that we relate to God as subjects. Rosh Hashanah’s Torah and Haftarah readings, however, center our foremothers.
In this course, we will explore what these matriarchs teach us about connecting to God. Each mother – Hannah, Rachel, Sarah and Hagar – offers a different perspective on how we might understand God and our relationship with God. Perhaps most powerfully, their stories open up the metaphor for relating to God as “Mother.” While this course does indeed center matriarchs and the maternal experience, the wisdom it offers is for everyone, regardless of gender identity.
Rabbi Miriam-Simma Walfish is faculty at Hadar and a Senior Coach for Pedagogy of Partnership. She holds a PhD in Rabbinics from Harvard University. Her interests include rabbinic approaches to gender, parenting, and education. She has published several articles, including, "Upending the Curse of Eve: Reframing Maternal Breastfeeding in BT Ketubot" (2017). Rabbi Walfish has taught Tanakh, Talmud, and Jewish Law in numerous settings including the Conservative Yeshiva, Hadar, Harvard University, Hebrew College, and the National Havurah Committee's summer institute. She revels in the process of learning Torah with and from her students.
