Red Tent

Wednesday my book group is meeting here so I have to get a dessert ready. We’re reading The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. It’s a “modern midrash” on the rape of Dinah story. For preparation, we read the Jacob cycle in the Bible to get a handle on all the women and all the events surrounding the rape. I didn’t push this topic. For some reason the group has gotten interested in reading the Bible and then going on to a modern commentary. Last year we did the Abraham and Sarah cycle and then read a dramatic poem by Pamela White Hadas (from her book In Light of Genesis) called “The Departures and Voices of Sarah” of which the first lines are: “I knew before I married him/he wasn’t such a good catch, as my mother said.”