{"id":47391,"date":"2025-08-22T01:45:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T08:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=47391"},"modified":"2025-08-21T16:44:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:44:27","slug":"hebrew-bible-stories-inspire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/08\/22\/hebrew-bible-stories-inspire\/","title":{"rendered":"Hebrew Bible stories inspire"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sept. 16, Stephen Schecter will retell three stories from the Hebrew Bible at the 40th anniversary celebration of L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre. He promises the stories will bring laughter and tears.\u00a0<\/span>(photo from Stephen Schecter)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI love the Hebrew Bible,\u201d Stephen Schecter told the Independent<\/i>. \u201cIt is, after all, the template of Western literature and the DNA of the Jewish people. Its stories are all told twice, inviting the reader to ask what is going on here. And the stories invariably end badly, teaching us the importance of getting a handle on our passions if we want to have a halfway decent life together.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 16, in celebration of L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre\u2019s 40th anniversary, Schecter will share a few of his favourite biblical tales.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRetelling these stories,\u201d he said, \u201cis my way of giving the Jews back their pride and their backbone, steeling them to be proud Zionists, once again going back to \u2018In the beginning,\u2019 which is the title of my show on Sept. 16. The stories \u2013 and I will be retelling three of them \u2013 when you examine them closely are rather funny, but this is no laughing matter. Some of them bring you even to tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schecter, who was a sociology professor at Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al, has always been interested in literature, but not necessarily the Hebrew Bible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my kids had their bat and bar mitzvahs, I started going to Shabbat services again, which meant I read the weekly Torah portion and, lo and behold, I was swept away,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen a friend put me on to a contemporary rewrite of some of the books of The Iliad<\/i>, I thought I could do that too but within my tradition. The upshot turned out to be a 170-page poem called \u2018David and Jonathan,\u2019 published in 1996.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom there, I went on to lecturing about the Hebrew Bible to multiple audiences in Montreal and ended up doing a one-man show on the first half of the book of Genesis in 2003 at the Saidye Bronfman Centre theatre [now the\u00a0Segal Centre for Performing Arts]. In 2005, I moved to Vancouver and gave a number of series of talks on the Hebrew Bible to seniors at the JCC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schecter continued to write about sociology and, in 2012, published a book called Grasshoppers in Zion<\/i> about Israel\u2019s situation in the Middle East. In that book, he said, \u201cI explained how a reading of the Hebrew Bible could help Jews immeasurably in dealing with the Palestinians. No one listened, but I continued to write and now do so on Substack at\u00a0schecter.substack.com<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted how people don\u2019t listen to \u2013 or even know about \u2013 the lessons of the Hebrew Bible. Hence, he quipped, \u201cthe constant rewrites. Steinbeck\u2019s East of Eden<\/i> retells Cain and Abel. Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet <\/i>turns the Dinah story into a five-act play. The end of the Book of Judges replays Sodom and Gomorrah, which now finds its rehash on our TV screens in Gaza. Not for nothing is the Hebrew Bible laced with irony, engendering that particular form of Jewish humour Sholem Aleichem and S.Y. Agnon each captured.\u201d<\/p>\n

The English-speaking world once used the Hebrew Bible to learn to read, but people have stopped reading it altogether, said Schecter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Jewish day schools do not teach it, especially at the high school level, which is where Jewish youngsters could begin to immerse themselves in their tradition,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I attend shul, I often hear more about food banks than the wild poetry of the parashah<\/i> [weekly Torah portion]. The answer to antisemitism lies not in refuting the arguments of those who slander us; it is in asserting the timeless truths of this sacred text, which lay out the indissoluble link between the Hebrew Bible and the land of Israel and our identity as Jews.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am blown away every time I reread these stories,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I hope Jews come to see the show,\u201d said Schecter. \u201cI hope especially community leaders, activists, rabbis, principals and teachers come and hear these magnificent tales and see how they still speak to a modern audience. It is a show to celebrate the 40th anniversary of L\u2019Chaim, the only adult Jewish day centre in the Lower Mainland, whose exceptional level of care would have well served even our founding patriarchs, all of whom could have used its services. Come and see why.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on our way to becoming the gold standard of adult day programs in Vancouver,\u201d said L\u2019Chaim executive director Leah Deslauriers of but one of the many reasons to celebrate the organization\u2019s 40th year.<\/p>\n

\u201cL\u2019Chaim is fortunate to have community support, from foundations to private donors, which allows us to offer an enriched program to our clients and their families. All of us at L\u2019Chaim are forever grateful for this support,\u201d she said, adding that \u201cL\u2019Chaim continues to grow, and shows no signs of slowing down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the coming years, said Deslauriers, \u201cL\u2019Chaim will prepare to move into the new JWest building upon its completion. In the next 10 years, our hope is to increase our funded spaces from 16 to 22 each day. And, if demand increases, maybe even add an additional day and be open on Sundays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tickets ($18) for In the Beginning<\/i>, which takes place Sept. 16, 7 p.m., at the Rothstein Theatre, can be purchased at eventbrite.ca<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sept. 16, Stephen Schecter will retell three stories from the Hebrew Bible at the 40th anniversary celebration of L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre. He promises the stories will bring laughter and tears.\u00a0(photo from Stephen Schecter) \u201cI love the Hebrew Bible,\u201d Stephen Schecter told the Independent. \u201cIt is, after all, the template of Western literature and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47392,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[218,1679,617,3714,24242,4838],"class_list":["post-47391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-judaism","tag-lchaim-adult-day-centre","tag-leah-deslauriers","tag-seniors","tag-stephen-schecter","tag-storytelling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}