Alicia Ostriker gives Midrash Workshop at Inkberry

There is a tradition that the Bible was written in heaven, as black fire on white fire, Alicia Ostriker said: and midrash is the white fire. Midrash is storytelling based around the Bible, and it is as old as oral interpretations of the Torah. Ostriker, author of The Little Space: Poems Selected and New 1968-1998, The Imaginary Lover and other books, came to Inkberry in North Adams April 28, to give a workshop on the writing of midrash, and to read her own. Participants came to her workshop from across the county: Sandisfield, Great Barrington, Savoy, Williamstown, North Adams.

A Biblical story provides a plot, Ostriker said; a midrash gives the background. It adds description or psychological detail. Rabbis have traditionally filled in details to explain Biblical stories to their listeners, to add morals, to answer questions.

Some midrashim are still taught, because they make a point; there is a midrash that tells that Abraham broke his father’s idols. Some subjects have yielded many midrashim: Moses’ sister Miriam had a well that sprang up wherever she camped. It appears in many stories, Ostriker said. Some midrashim built on others. A midrash told that Rachel hid under the bed, when Leah married Jacob in her place, and spoke for her sister, so Jacob would not discover the substitution. In a later midrash, Rachel reminds God of this act, to convince him to let his people return to Israel.

There has been a renaissance of Christian and Jewish midrash today, Ostriker said. Classical midrashim still survive, and new midrashim appear daily. It is a test of the Bible’s power as a work that people still find its stories relevant. The writer enters into the story and the story enters into the writer, Ostriker said. Bible stories are complex and difficult — as she said of one, “It isn’t fair. But it is accurate.”

The telling of midrash is a venerable classical tradition, done in reverence. A workshop participant asked Ostriker what she thought of those who took the Biblical as literal truth. Ostriker said that a Biblical literalist is also someone who is interpreting. “I’m not a literalist. I’m a poet. What’s sacred for me about the Bible is precisely that it doesn’t have just one right way…it keeps rippling outward. That’s how you recognize it as sacred.” No finite human can know the workings of all creation. And she quoted the book itself: “Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee — how much less, this house that I have builded.”

After the introduction, Ostriker asked each person in the workshop to think of a Biblical character — and she told the group they had to stick with the first character that suggested itself. They were not allowed to dismiss their first thoughts — ‘Oh, no! Not that one — I can’t do that! That’s so predictable…’ She asked everyone to close their eyes and think of their character in its native background. Then she gave the group seven minutes, for each to write what their character wanted to say. These are some of their answers.

Golden Sunset

By Myrna Hammerling I’ve often pressed my elbow into his arm as I squealed with discovery, “Look at that amazing orange and black butterfly!” Or, “Can you see the glorious red feathers above the black ones on that bird’s wing?” Or, “Do you see how the blossoms on that tree range from light pink to deep purple?”

“The colors,” I pointed.

“What? Oh yeah, sure.”

I remember how he just didn’t get what I was excited about.

And then, in one of my afternoon walks, in the warm rays of the slowly setting sun, I noticed a gleam from the tree in the middle of the garden. A lone fruit hung with a blushing glow. Beautiful, yes, and delicious too, I’ll bet. I wish I could touch and taste.

The Burning Bush

By Emily Banner You have heard of being on fire — figuratively. You have heard of being consumed from within, by flames of passion. You have heard of being a vessel — for an idea, for a certain knowledge.

It was agony. I remember the moment it started, flames searing every fiber of me, and the absolute certainty that I had to contain it, that I couldn’t give in to it and let myself be burnt. I had to burn without being burned, to withstand the pain, the physical inevitability, because then I was a container for something more terrible than fire. It worked through me, took hold of me and did what it needed, while I kept my leaves green inside orange flames, held my shape in the inferno, the roar, the blinding smoke.

I wish, if I can still wish, that this were the kind of world in which pain did not have to accompany truth. That the message could have had its same impact with pretend flames, orange light and flickering fabric that gave the appearance of fire without harming the vessel.

Jonah’s Indigo Brain

By Greg Scheckler Jonah liked to grin as if to say really it had been quite nerve-wracking, his big trip away from home. The truth is he just sort of slipped into the whale’s maw. The day: calm. The sea: placid. Then the whole whale’s mouth had arrived, open. Stupefied by its oddity — the size, the teeth as big as a man’s brain — Jonah teetered and slipped. It had been just another stupid accident.

“I wish I’d worn my skid and slip-proof boots!” thought Jonah as he slid into the whale’s gut. “And darn it all how am I gonna spin this? I’m gonna have to come up with another story, a great story, something to really make them talk for years. Dang this is embarrassing oh yes it must’ve been quite stormy. I know! There was a sudden squall and God was talking and I wasn’t listening and all hands lost. Or probably, um, at least some kinda really big turbulence.”

White Light of Being

By Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser Standing in the moment between Let there be And there was I only am. Was there a moment before this one? I remember only The ache of not being turning into being A whiteness, a bright blindness That stings. Lost in the shattering of hue and dimension I become separateness, differentiation, Shattered from being. But the white remains Singular Wishing only the wish of being The wish of the moment before this moment, Of still being part Of my source.

Rachel: Veiled in Grey

By Rachel Barenblat You don’t know what it’s like being the baby sister. Mom was unavailable, first metaphorically (eyes distant) then physically (shipped us off to the farm). Leah wiped my brow when I was sick, taught me to weave, calmed me when my bleeding came and I thought I was dying. She was my hero. I wanted to grow up to be her, do you understand? Then he showed up: tall, broad, with eyes that looked into you instead of through you. I remember the first twilight we stayed up talking. Had he been younger, poorer, stupider, I might have thought we were flirting, but I couldn’t believe he saw anything in me. I remember our first kiss. I remember running back to the room Lee and I shared, my heels flying over the dirt, to tell her. I remember how hurt clouded her face, dulled her green eyes to gray. I loved him in a way I’d never imagined: never doubt that. But I couldn’t stand the shawl over Leah’s countenance. When the wedding night finally came, I draped her in veils and sent her in and sat in our room and wept. I wish it could have been enough to bring back the mother-sister I never imagined I could lose.

Green Stream Moses

By Howard Faerstein I remember fish, green, size of gemstones, in grass basket. I felt them with toes, cried, but only a moment, then rising dead tree standing in the current, bumping it, turning me toward shore. The fish shine, jade dazzling green eyes of a woman. I wish I had never been placed in the green stream but I was— weaved into my life.

Frank Tempone and Alix Ohlin, both local writers, will be reading at Inkberry May 18. Martín Espada, American Book Award winner and author of Imagine the Angels of Bread and other books, will come to the Berkshires for a reading, June 2. Inkberry offers regular writing workshops, book groups and readings, year round. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the written word. Local and nationally known authors have given readings at 63 Main St. in North Adams, where Inkberry also holds classes. Anyone is welcome to stop by for a comfortable chair, space to write, or a look at the reference library; it is open Wednesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. The three founders of Inkberry — Emily Banner, Rachel Barenblat and Sandy Ryan — also give one-on-one writing tutorials by appointment.

Congregation Beth Israel and the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires co-sponsored the Midrash workshop. Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser at Congregation Beth Israel will be offering a class on the mystical Tales of Barri Nachman of Brastlav later this month: it begins May 23 and runs for six consecutive Thursday evenings at 8 p.m. The Jewish Federation will be hosting A Way with Words May 9, sharing stories and jokes and quotations. Neil Simon’s God’s Favorite, a modern look at the story of Job, will play at the Jewish Federation May 11 and 19.