We are in the basement bar 🍻

"The white spaces on the page can be spaces both of death and breath. Both are texts of drowning, the Egyptian enemies, their horses and chariots, and the African slaves, who were thrown overboard the slave ship in an insurance scam."

"Raz explores what she calls “weak prophecy,” emphasizing the ways in which biblical prophecy is tentative and confused, marred by failure and anxiety—hardly authoritative in any straightforward way."

To read Klawans' original piece, see: www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2025/5/...

"What is Yosefa Raz doing when she speaks of prophecy in this way, when she fuses poetry, scripture and secular writing, essay and academic research, when she blends old and new, past and future, until the compass spins out of control and the ice shatters into tiny pieces?"

"With Yosefa’s book, we now have nuanced poetic language with which we may read this homily. The Rabbis were not prophets, nor singers or poets. They were strong readers. They saw reading as an opportunity to stretch out biblical scenes into their present."