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Yale University Professor, Christine Hayes, PhD, will deliver ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ÊÓƵÎÞÏÞÖƹۿ´’s 2018 Joan and Henry Katz Lecture in Judaic Studies lecture entitled, " C an We Laugh at God? Humor and Truth in Rabbinic Judaism ," at the Dolan School of Business Dining Room on Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

In many legends and stories, the talmudic rabbis famously depicted God in human terms: the divine being studies and prays, argues and learns, makes mistakes and suffers correction by humans. “Were the rabbis just having fun? Or were their irreverent representations of God grounded in a deep and subversive resistance to prevailing Greco-Roman ideas that equated the divine with all that is rational, true, and immutable?” Hayes will answer these questions in her lecture.

A Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, Hayes is one of the foremost scholars specializing in talmudic-midrashic studies. She is the author of What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives , which received the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship, a 2016 award in Theology and Religious Studies from the American Publishers Association, and a 2016 Jordan Schnitzer Award. Dr. Hayes has also authored Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (1997 Salo Baron Prize) and Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities .

Reservations are requested for this lecture. Please contact the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at bennettcenter@fairfield.edu or call 203-254-4000, ext. 2066. For more information about other Bennett Center events, visit fairfield.edu/bennett.