Animal midrash

When I was in seminary, I took care of a preschooler most days of the week. She knew that I was going to school, and one day she asked me, “What are you going to be?” I asked her if she knew what a minister was. She thought hard. Then, undoubtedly recalling her board book about the nativity story, she replied, “It’s something to do with donkeys.”

Like a child who takes your face in her hands and turns your head toward the object of her gaze, Laura Duhan-Kaplan calls our attention to key animals in scripture and helps us view them through different (and often fascinating) lenses. Duhan-Kaplan, a rabbi who teaches Jewish studies at Vancouver School of Theology, opens our eyes to see many of the biblical birds, insects, and mammals we might otherwise regard as insignificant or meaningless. She uses “strictly traditional methods” to illuminate the stories of these animals, following the inquisitive, imaginative spirit of early rabbinic interpreters. Mouth of the Donkey reads like midrash.

Duhan-Kaplan’s interpretations are well documented and rooted in Jewish tradition. She describes scripture as “loaded with so much meaning that humans will never fully map it. We study in groups, learn old interpretations, craft new ones—and we still barely scratch the surface.” Describing the approach of the rabbinic interpreters, she explains that “at every opportunity, they asked a crea­tive question. Then, they came up with an imaginative answer, grounded in the biblical text. And when you’re always engaging that deeply, the text is always relevant.”