Kitah Vav 4/30

Last Sunday, Kitah Vav worked with the text recounting David’s battle with the giant Philistine Goliath. Performing a close reading of the story, we examined the specific language used to describe Goliath in the story, and the motivations of the author(s) of the Tanakh that exist behind the choice to describe him in certain ways. With the understanding that a story or a history is invariably affected by the perspective of its author, we discussed possible driving factors behind Goliath’s actions that are not reported in the Tanakh. Working as a class, we built a possible (fictional) backstory for Goliath that would have led him to the battlefield where he met David, and sought to humanize him in the process. We discussed at length the importance of considering stories from perspectives other than our own, and the fact that the villains in our stories may be the heroes in someone else’s, and vice versa.