Bibliodrama

Bibliodrama

playing with White Fire

"His guidance of students and faculty through the emotional layers of the text was of great importance to those who were there."

Rabbi Gordon Tucker

"An extraordinary method of teasing out new meanings from stories you think you know all too well. Important for Jews and Christians in dialogue with their own traditions and with one another."

Rev. Chris Leighton,
Executive Director of the
Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies

"I'll never read the Bible the same way again."

Alicia Ostriker
poet and author

"Where this work really flies is when you get kids and adults together. Bibliodrama creates a level playing field where the insights of innocence and of experience mingle in unique ways. You have to see it to believe it."

Patrick Culligan
Rector of the House of Inter-generational Dialogue.

Press Release

Peter Pitzele and Bibliodrama

By Sheila Wilensky

Peter Pitzele likes to invite participants at synagogues and seminars to get into other people’s shoes -- specifically those of Abraham, Ruth, and Moses. According to Pitzele, who will serve as scholar-in-residence at … on… ,role playing biblical figures can clarify psychological and emotional issues that we all face.

Pitzele never felt part of any religious tradition growing up, and only knew the Bible as literature. But at 29, when he was finishing his Ph.D. in literature at Harvard, he wanted to teach the Bible as the “foundational text for all writers.” His own religious epiphanies had taken place while sitting with Quakers, practicing Buddhist meditation, and participating in Jungian workshops. In his 40s, he began to study Judaism, the religion of his parents. Only then did he realize the circuitous path he had taken.

Asked to teach a class on leadership skills at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1983, Pitzele presented fifth year rabbinical students with biblical concerns: “You’re Moses; what are your issues?” The students pointed out that he was teaching the Midrash -- Jewish interpretive tradition. He sees this technique as “identifying personal challenges embedded in the mythic structures of the Jewish religion, and continually acting them out. For example, the re-enactment of the father/son relationship goes back to Abraham and Isaac. The personal is also archetypal.”

Pitzele relates the story of a woman playing Miriam on her deathbed: “The woman received the farewells of her brothers, and of the young women who have danced with her. Then, alone, she reflects on what her death will mean to the Israelite people. Miriam is aware that she has been their water-finder, their dancer, their mother. She fears that without her, the tradition will become too priestly, too hierarchical. She is afraid too that her concern for the natural world will not be carried on. Later, I got a letter from the woman who played Miriam. She has started an ecological movement in her synagogue. They call themselves the Sisters of Miriam.”

A faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary and certified psychotherapist, Pitzele is the author of Our Fathers’ Wells: A Personal Encounter with the Myths of Genesis (Harper San Francisco, 1995) and Scripture Windows: Towards a Practice of Bibliodrama (Torah Aura, 1998), considered the “how to” manual for seminars at the Institute for Contemporary Midrash Training. “Bibliodrama transforms the Bible into a mirror through which participants confront the most important aspects of their lives,” he says.

“As Jews, we worship in community. Bibliodrama is a way to make the Bible accessible and relevant; it can help us to practice Judaism. It can contribute to both individual and communal transformation,” he continues, stressing that anybody can take part in Bibliodrama.

“I actually hate the term ‘Bibliodrama,’” he says. “People are afraid that they are going to make asses of themselves, that it’s all about being dramatic, but there is no stage. It’s hard to explain what it really involves -- you have to experience it. I might change the name to ‘Biblical Transformations.’ I’ll give a $100 prize to anyone who comes up with a better name.” Pitzele adds: “Even children age seven and up can participate in Bibliodrama. They will really groove on it.” When a workshop participant says: “I’m never going to read the Bible in the same way again,” Pitzele feels he has done a good day’s work.

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