Links to Robert Alter Sheets on Sefaria - Parashat Hashavua In Process

On Sefaria there is a collection of Sheets explaining:

*Robert Alters methods of reading the Bible, its literary style and religious meanings;

*how you can listen to lectures by Alter ( the best way to get inside of his ways of thinking);

*introductions to his books and translations and comments on Alter's work by other public intellectuals;

*the 28 essays introducing each book or major work;

*and, of course, his masterful Translation with Notes on all of Tanach.

LEVITICUS

Vayikra

[MS: In the story of the rape of Dinah there is violence, deception murder and mayhem. Who is at fault? It's complicated and subtle - and therefore a gripping tale about humans and their troubles - and the Divine.

Alter's Essay and Notes focus on:

- Moral blindness, why do people do what they do and why don't they fear the consequences?

In Alter's Note on verse 47:9, he discusses the human dilemma of living in a world where very little seems reliably clear or within our real control; nor undone by ignorance, error, tyrants or bad people; nor in the confusing hands of God or Fate - like doing the right thing but apparently overruled mysteriously by the Divine Plan. These themes of "Narration and Knowledge" are explored in Chapter 8 of Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative. Alter unpacks how the Bible's literary style is a precious medium for making "this sort of difficult sense."

Robert Alter - Parshat Vayakhel Exodus 35:1-38:20 - Alter's Correct Translation of One Word Upholds Women, Their Mirrors and Love of Their Husbands - and Rashi's Affections

Bridegroom of Love by the circumcising (Shemot 4:26)

I am uncircumcised of lips? (Vaera 6:12)

And I live among a people of unclean lips (Isaiah 5.)

"This upward displacement of a genital image ... "

Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible - A Translation with Commentary

[MS: A Metaphor? This Biblical literary device can take some explaining. Alter unspools the circumcision metaphor in his Notes. As the old joke goes: "What's a meadow for anyway? A Cow?"]

Alter provides in Introductory Essays and Notes - Can the Bible be "Quite Funny"?

"It is painfully evident that this is an instance in which the biblical outlook sadly failed to transcend its historical contexts."

For example in this Parsha: On 6:20, Alter's Note is:

"20. Justice, justice. Though much ingenuity has been exercised by exegetes to explain the repetition, its function as a verbal gesture of sheer emphasis is self-evident: justice, and justice alone, shall you pursue."

Similarly, see Numbers 31:17, where Alter's Note finds the attempted justification for killing children during a war is just "strained apologetics."