2004: Rabbi Lewis M. Barth

Camp Kesher was delighted and honored to have Rabbi Lewis M. Barth as the 2004 Scholar-in-Residence.

In response to the current URJ (formerly the UAHC) initiative to renew the Reform commitment to study Torah, we sought out Rabbi Barth to guide us in practicing Torah study skills and interpretation from a Reform perspective.

For his program, Constructing Our Sense of the Human: Biblical, Rabbinic and Reform Jewish Sources on Violence, Hatred and Social Responsibility, Rabbi Barth has chosen some provocative and politically relevant passages that are sure to stimulate passionate discussion. We will take on such topics as sibling rivalry, greed, revenge, holy war, and evil, and learn to formulate interpretations that have a solid basis in tradition, but also make sense to us in modern context. Knowledge of Hebrew or prior Torah study experience is not required.

Rabbi Barth is Dean of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, and Professor of Midrash and Related Literature. At HUC-JIR, his courses include Midrash (rabbinic biblical interpretation), Aramaic, and an occasional seminar on rabbis as charismatics and wonderworkers. Rabbi Barth has studied, taught, and lectured in Berlin and Jerusalem, and has published numerous books and articles in the field of Midrash. He is presently engaged in the preparation of an electronic critical edition of Pirqe d’Rabbi Eliezer (the Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), an eighth century midrashic retelling of biblical history.

Rabbi Barth is the Founding Co‑Chair of the Berit Mila Board of Reform Judaism and— working with Dr. David James, Founding Chair of the Berit Mila Board —was responsible for the creation of a program which has now trained more than 200 physicians and certified nurse midwives as mohalim/ot. In this capacity he edited the book Berit Mila in the Reform Context, the first major work in Reform Judaism dealing with this subject.