Qohelet: A New Reading and a New Seeing
Professor Menachem Fisch (Tel Aviv University) and Debra Band
Fisch and Band will draw on their recent book on Qohelet (aka Ecclesiastes): Qohelet: Searching for a Life Worth Living (2023). According to publishers Baylor University Press:
“Philosopher Menachem Fisch and artist Debra Band together probe Qohelet’s inquiry into the value of life “under the sun” in this brilliant work—the first illuminated manuscript of the entire biblical text, the first philosophical analysis tracing the coherent path of this biblical thinker’s full argument. Whereas modern readers influenced by the famous declaration, “vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” from the 1611 King James Bible have commonly understood that Qohelet found only futility and hopelessness in human life, Fisch restores the literal meaning, vapor, to Qohelet’s key word, hevel, with implications that reveal Qohelet’s path to wisdom and even serenity.
“Through linguistic precision and careful unfolding of the book’s philosophical argument, Fisch uncovers Qohelet’s twin concerns: life is short, and situated as we are, far below the heavens, we can never be assured of comprehending our world, or understanding divine will and intent. He reveals Qohelet’s understanding that since we can never fully predict or understand our fortunes or the heritage we leave behind us, the best we can do is to live our lives fully, relating to others attentively, always aware of the limits of human life.
“In her glowing, immersive, and discursive illuminated paintings of the entire text, Band imagines Qohelet’s teachings, employing the grandest of palaces, the Alhambra, as the central metaphor for the beauty and impermanence of human life and accomplishments. She fills its halls and gardens with often surprising imagery, symbolism and related poetry, creating a visual midrash that reveals the relationship of Qohelet’s thought to other biblical texts and Jewish lore, and its reverberations across the centuries and cultures of western civilization, from ancient Israel to today’s America.
“Each illuminated page is complemented by lucid commentary explaining its full meaning. Renowned scholars Ellen R. Davis and Moshe Halbertal crown the work with a penetrating foreword and preface.”
The lecture will take place in the Runcie Room at the Faculty of Divinity. All are welcome to attend; refreshments will be served after the lecture.
About the speakers
Menachem Fisch is Joseph and Ceil Mazer Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University, TAU codirector of the Frankfurt–Tel Aviv Center for Religious and Interreligious Studies, and senior fellow of the Goethe University Frankfurt’s Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. He is author of The View from Within: Normativity and the Limits of Self-Criticism (with Y. Benbaji) (Notre Dame, 2011), Creatively Undecided: Toward a History and Philosophy of Scientific Agency (Chicago, 2017), and Covenant of Confrontation: A Study of Non-Submissive Religiosity in Rabbinic Literature (Hebrew) (Bar-Ilan, 2019).
Debra Band draws upon her love of both the manuscript arts and the Jewish textual tradition in her acclaimed illuminated manuscripts. She is the author and illuminator of The Song of Songs: The Honeybee in the Garden (JPS, 2005), I Will Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms (with Arnold J. Band) (JPS, 2007), Arise! Arise! Deborah, Ruth and Hannah (with Arnold J. Band) (Honeybee in the Garden, 2012), and Kabbalat Shabbat: The Grand Unification (with Raymond P. Scheindlin) (Honeybee in the Garden, 2016), among other works. Her paintings have been widely exhibited across the United States and Canada.
About the Yerushah Lecture series
The annual Yerushah Lecture was established with a benefaction from the Righteous Persons Foundation, created by Steven Spielberg from the proceeds of his 1993 film Schindler’s List. “Yerushah” is the Hebrew word for “heritage”. The Yerushah Lecture is devoted to Jewish heritage in all its aspects, with an emphasis on the transmission of Jewish identity and values across the generations. It is organised by and hosted at the Faculty of Divinity.