Hey, are you looking for something to do THIS Friday morning/early afternoon?

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah at Congregation Beth Elohim, Pulitzer Prize finalist James Goodman will be interviewed by Rabbi Andy Bachman about the binding of Isaac, the subject of his new book But Where is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac (Schocken). 

Goodman and Rabbi Bachman will grapple with a story that Jews have been trying to make sense of and arguing about for more than 2000 years. It is a story many Jews believe is the most enduring symbol — the very definition — of what it means to be a Jew (Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice the son he so longed for to God) and many others wish weren’t even in the Bible.

They will discuss a story that lovers of peace and love and joy (and haters of war and sacrifice and blind obedience and faith) love to hate. He will ask how and why we would want to worship a God who (for no good reason) would ask a man to sacrifice his son, and how and why we would celebrate and revere, as the patriarch of patriarchs, a man who without protest, question, or hesitation, set out to obey. He will explore the answers that other people have given over the years. Although there is a lot not to like about the story, we can take comfort even hope in the endless debate about it and the thought that there has never been a time when people read the story we read and wanted to leave it as it is, on the page.

After the class, everyone is invited to Community Bookstore for wine and snacks catered by D’Vine Taste. James Goodman will sign books.

JAMES GOODMAN is a professor at Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches history and creative writing. He is the author of two previous books, including Stories of Scottsboro, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His new book But Where is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac comes out September 15 from Schocken Books. He lives in New York.

Full disclosure: James Goodman is a client of Brooklyn Social Media.