Yoram Kanzler Article
Bibliodrama in Israel by Yoram Kanzler, circa 2008
Coming to write few words about Bibliodrama in Israel, a memory rise in my mind; it was the time when “surfing” meant only wave surfing, the mid sixties, when the world (our world) was young and promising and the seashore of Tel – Aviv stood at the center of our lives. We were a gang of about 15 surfers, the only ones in Israel, surfing in one specific shore. Very few in Israel knew then what really the “Beach Boys” were singing about. But we were fascinated and grew up with their music and learned our English by reading the Surfer magazine.
Today. You can see thousands of surfers all along the Israeli shores, from Naharia in the north to Ashkelon in south.
While writing, it is made clear to me why this association occurred; it is the potential, the inner certainty I have about Bibliodrama, like I had about surfing in those days, that it will fill the minds and imagination of many, because it is, like surfing, a deep, unique, joyful and a sweeping experience.
The vast seashores of Bibliodrama are still waiting for the many Israeli Bibliodrama surfers; in schools, Teacher and Rabbi’s Education institutes, in the variety of performing arts, literary and religious training, in therapeutic and spiritual groups etc. But, there is a more deep level of resemblance. It is the powerful experience itself and its main features that are common to both surfing and Bibliodramatic participation.
Riding on a wave, like acting Bibliodramatically, you “forget yourself”, loosen your ego (choosing bravely and in the right time) and give place to a dynamic “being with”. You enter into an intense dialogue with the always new, always becoming reality that surrounds you. You don’t ride on the wave but in it, and you let it awaken your full alertness to it. There are many watchers outside there on the shore. They also see the wave but only you and your brother surfers know it from within. Reading Bibliodramatically, you don’t read about a biblical scene or speak about a phrase in it. A radical change of perspective happens in a Bibliodramatic happening: you become the subject of the text by endowing yourself to it. The text surrounds you like a wave rooted in the deep, that connects you with its particular yet universal energy. I’m sure it is sometimes like being in the tunnel of a big wave when it works on all of your senses. You transcend then the normal reality, being you in an intimate dialogue with something else, vibrating, resonating.
From good old Parmenides to forever young Dr. Peter Pitzele. They all taught us we can’t catch the same wave twice, as every (good) Bibliodramatic occurrence is unique, rises from the deep and must have its individual end, its “death” which means it was real, organic and alive. It means we are dealing with Process that gives birth and gives place to new occurrences.
They come from the deep; the wave and Bibliodrama. From a sphere that transcends the here and now or, to phrase is more accurately; the concrete has deep relations with the whole which is more than the sum of its elements. As to Bibliodrama, a fuller significance and development of what I mean here, you can find in Pitzele’s first book: Our Fathers’ Wells.
In Israeli – Jewish terms Bibliodrama’s spiritual and technical roots are imbued in the Midrashic way of learning the Torah and, may I add, the Hasidic way, which involve the whole personality in the process of Torah studies. So to us Israelis, Bibliodrama can mean reviving important Spiritual areas, personal and communal, that our modern history and the complicated political and social situation have made us forget. Bibliodrama in Israel can surely become an important tool for dealing with our identity issues in a creative, authentic and therapeutic way.
Well, now back to reality of Bibliodrama in Israel: Let us call The contemporary tree which Bibliodrama belongs to, “creative reading in the Bible”. It’s a name was given to a group- method of Bible studies by the late Haya Ben – Nathan. She was an educator and Bible teacher in Seminar Hakkibutzim College in Tel- Aviv.
Already in the seventies she could sum up her method and experience in a very special book, THE BIBLE AND I. Through her teachings I first really met the opportunity of personal encounter with the bible and its study. In Jerusalem a well known master of creative reading is working, teaching and inspiring her surroundings through the medium of the plastic arts, Dr. Jo Milgrom. Her teaching method, rooted in young’s notion of the unconscious, in the old Hebrew Midrash mentality and in plastic arts, is described in her Handmade Midrash: Workshop in Visual Technology.
Peter Pitzele’s Our Fathers’ Wells and, Scripture Windows Toward a Practice of Bibliodrama, made me feel I’ve found a teacher; a Founder of Method and an old friend. I’ve contacted him and since then, more than ten years ago, his personality, biography and the depth of his method endowed me much more than my initiative best aspirations have. With the aid of his books I began to conduct Bibliodrama sessions, first in ‘Seminar Hakkibutzim College’ and afterwards, in ‘Iyun academy’, which is the main Jewish- studies institution of the Conservative movement in Tel-Aviv and directed by Rabi Roberto Arbib.
Rabi Arbib and I have conducted many Bibliodrama groups since then and each of us have developed his own ways. We activated Bibliodramatic meetings with various kinds of groups; children, teachers, young artists and spirit seekers.
Rabi Arbib considers himself a Sufi Jew. he is a peace activist, member in the ‘immams and Rabbis for Peace’ movement . In his Bibliodrama conducting, he impregnates his Sufi wisdom and methods for the sake of finding new insights to ancient issues and for spiritual growth.
Peter Pitzele and his wife Susan’s short visit to Israel in February almost two years ago, as guests of the ‘Bayit Hadash’ congregation has made many new adherents to Bibliodrama in new circles; members of the ‘Bayit Hadash’ community, young people with a “New-age’ orientation and professional Psycho-dramatists.
Meeting face to face with the man and experiencing Bibliodrama under his conducting and Susan beside him, I, and I believe also Rabi Arbib, was filled with a fresh energy and vision about the future of Bibliodrama in Israel. Since then, Rabi Arbib conducted for a whole academic year a very unique group of young actors and stage managers, having outstanding Bibliodramatic achievements that are worthy of a separate description. He intends to go on with this initiative next year.
As for me; I’ve finished translating to Hebrew, Pitzele’s Scripture Windows and now I’m in the search of a proper publishing house for the book.
My wife Ruth, a Psychoanalyst and group analyst conductor, and I have conducted ten long sessions of Bibliodrama integrated with group dynamics. We wanted to see how can psychoanalytic insights serve the Bibliodramatic Polyphonia, the relations among the participants and between the group as a whole and its individuals. We had in mind Pitzele’s belief that the variety of different voices in a Bibliodramatic occurrence, are all connected somehow to each individual’s inner space. We used to write persistently, after every meeting, a documentation of it. This affair, its conclusions and findings deserve also a place for itself and maybe, if participants allow of course, an English translation.
These last two mentioned Bibliodrama groups are intended to create a base for new young Bibliodramatists that, after meeting and experiencing Pitzele’s conduction, will be really able to bring Bibliodrama in Israel to its proper place. Bibliodrama’s interpretive values should be an inseparable part of Jewish education and Biblical studies and may many as possible men and women enjoy its curing qualities.
Yoram Kanzler was born and lives in Tel -Aviv, where he is a lecturer of Jewish studies and teaches education at “Seminar Hakibutzim” college. He is a group director and Bibliodramatist. His main spiritual and professional teachers include: Pr. Hugo Bergmann, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger – Sefat Emeth, Razi Goren, Haya Ben – Natan, Peter Pitzele.
For any questions or requests you may contact me, Yoram Kanzler or the ‘Iun Academy’. Thank you. Adresses: Iun Academy: Midreshet iun Tel aviv 88 Bugrashov st. Tel – Aviv 63429 Tel: 03 – 5253907 Fax: 5257238 arbibr@zahav.net.il Yoram Kanzler 20 Shlomo Hamelech st. Tel – Aviv 64378 Tel: 052 8809897 bidur1@bezeqint.net