Why Study Talmud in the

Twenty-first Century?
Why Study Talmud in the
Twenty-first Century?
The Relevance of the Ancient
Jewish Text to Our World

Paul Socken

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Socken, Paul, 1945-

Why study Talmud in the twenty-first century? : the relevance of the ancient Jewish text
to our world / Paul Socken.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-4200-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-4202-8 (electronic)
1. Talmud. I. Title.
BM501.S63 2009
296.1’25—dc22
2009027478

Printed in the United States of America

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 Dedication

This volume is dedicated to Moshe Avraham Weissmann

and Temima Esther Weissmann, my grandchildren.

May they grow in Torah and in good deeds.

 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Talmud Introduction 1
Women’s Voices 9
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander 11
Judith Baskin 25
Jane Kanarek 41
Devora Steinmetz 47
Devorah Zlochower 67
Teaching Talmud 73
Tsvi Blanchard 75
Pinchas Hayman 93
Academics Respond 103
Michael Chernick 105
Shaye Cohen 125
Yaakov Elman 135
Richard Kalmin 151
Ephraim Kanarfogel 161

vii
viii Table of Contents

Jeffrey Rubenstein 177

Barry Wimpfheimer 195
Azzan Yadin 207
A Philosopher’s Approach 221
David Novak 223
Bibliography 241
Biographies 243
Index 251
 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Professor Arnold Ages, Distinguished Professor

Emeritus of the University of Waterloo, and Professor James Diamond,
Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of
Waterloo, for their invaluable advice on this project. A good idea is of little
value if one cannot develop it and their assistance was indispensable. I am
deeply grateful for their kindness and their friendship.

ix
 Talmud Introduction

My family moved back to Toronto after many years in Kitchener-Waterloo, a

mid-sized city with a major university, where I still work, and a small, close-
knit Jewish community. In Kitchener-Waterloo, I studied Bible (Chumash)
with the revered and brilliant teacher, Rabbi Phyvle Rosensweig.
Once in Toronto and commuting to the University of Waterloo, I took
up the study of Talmud.1 However, not having a day/parochial school or
yeshiva background, this was truly a daunting task and very different from the
analysis of French and French-Canadian literature, my academic field.
Literary critics tell university students that authors invite readers into their
novelistic world and share with them their vision. We remind students of
Coleridge’s dictum of the willing suspension of disbelief until they have a
complete view of the author’s universe and are in a position to judge. Talmud
is different. Besides the obvious difference of the Talmud’s dealing with the
interpretation of the sacred and the writer’s usually secular vision, it would be
impossible to wait until all of Talmud is thoroughly examined before coming
to conclusions because of the vastness of the Talmudic enterprise.
Nevertheless, after seventeen years of study, I have more than a passing
acquaintance with both the content and the methodology of Talmud. As has
been noted before, Talmud is perhaps the first interactive text. Not only do
rabbis over a period of approximately five hundred years comment on one
another’s interpretations, the extensive and elaborate reflections continue
through the Middle Ages and beyond in sidebar comments and analyses. This
massive set of volumes is clearly the distillation of many centuries of thought
and wisdom that have been transmitted to each succeeding generation.2
However, the point needs to be acknowledged that Talmud is studied by a
fraction of the world’s Jews. In addition, the organization, presentation, and

1
2 Talmud Introduction

discussion of the issues raised are sometimes exceedingly detailed, elaborate,

and ostensibly unfocused. This was essentially an oral tradition that was
eventually set down in writing and reflects the informal structure of oral
transmission. This means that comprehension is not automatic, that under-
standing evolves over time, that texts sometimes seem impenetrable, and that
their relevance to today’s world is not always obvious.
Understanding that most Jews have little or no knowledge of Talmud and
realizing that its study requires a serious, disciplined, long-term commitment,
I asked myself why it is studied at all. What reward is there for such engage-
ment and effort? What precisely is the point? Those committed to it have done
so for so many years that I am not sure they have reflected on the “Why?” of
the matter. It is part of the chain of sacred transmission from Mount Sinai,
it is a link through the millennia to the great Sages and their insights. That, I
imagined, would be the response of most practitioners of the tradition.
I set out to pose the question to some of the finest academic Talmudists
and to get their considered response. To receive answers that were worthy
of the subject, I cast my net very wide. I decided to ask scholars from Israel,
the United States, and Canada and from a broad range of Jewish interpretive
traditions. It seemed to me that this was not a topic that should be restricted
to a parochial approach, hence my inclusion of thinkers and teachers from a
variety of Jewish schools of thought. One thing I have learned is that Talmud
should not be the exclusive domain of any single group and that, if it is to be
appreciated widely, it must be broadly approached.
The revered Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein addressed this issue in a chapter
(“Why Learn Gemara?”) of his book Leaves of Faith.3 After conceding that
the text itself is “unwieldy, rambling, allusive and convoluted,” he identifies
four factors that make the study of Gemara/Talmud essential.
The first is “its status as a primary—in a sense . . . the primary—text” of
Jewish sources so that the “sense of challenge and concomitant invigoration
is pervasive.” Second, the student of Gemara feels “the pulsating presence
of our masters in the primal forge of the [Oral Law].” The third factor is the
“substantive nature” of Gemara: “anecdote and proverb jostle with rigorous
textual and legal analysis; within which the excitement of confrontation takes
precedence over the lucidity of exposition, discourse over conclusion, debate
over resolution—such is the fabric of the Gemara.” Finally, he concludes
that the individual becomes wholly engaged as a result of the process, “the
activated self is then open to a more intensive relationship, religious as well
as intellectual.”
What I found even more striking than the four reasons for studying Talmud
was his realization that the question “Why Study Gemara/Talmud?” was
not merely one for novices: “The question may also be asked of bnei Torah
 Talmud Introduction 3

(students of Torah) fully committed, intellectually and emotionally, to the

study of Gemara, and yet seeking to define the basis of their aspiration. Even
when no need is felt for an apologia or a raison d’être to shore up personal
learning, a richer understanding of its import may very well enhance it.”
From this perceptive and insightful acknowledgement from one of the great
Torah sages of the modern era, I took encouragement and inspiration.
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander views Talmud study as both an academic
exercise and an intensely personal Jewish experience. She sees the Talmud
as an important great text of world literature in its ability to develop critical
thinking, amongst other qualities. However, it also presents an opportunity
for 21st century Jews to come to an understanding of Judaism and them-
selves in ways not possible before because of the postmodern acceptance of
sustained contradictions. New research holds profound implications for the
role of women in Judaism.
In light of the fact that “revealed texts demand continuous rereading,”
Judith Baskin discusses what she discovered about “rabbinic convictions of
female otherness.” The Talmud’s view of women is as varied as it is on every
other subject, but the fundamental belief is in the separate nature, the dis-
tinctions, between men and women, physically, morally, and intellectually.
Baskin reads the rabbinic interpretation of the source of women’s subordinate
status as Divine intention from the moment of her creation.
Why, then, should she and others study Talmud today? Baskin concludes
with a series of reasons, including the fact that it is a “rich and enduring
component of the Jewish heritage,” that its teachings “united and sustained
Jewish life and identity,” and “all contemporary forms of Jewish religious life
are constructed on the foundation of rabbinic Judaism.” In addition, feminist
interpreters have focussed on alternative and minority voice in the Talmud, a
text of “endless possibilities.”
Tsvi Blanchard sees Talmud as part of one of the great human wisdom tradi-
tions. Like other contributors, he finds talking about Talmud to be impossible
without exploring specific passages because the ideas are inextricably embedded
in the text. In order to discuss values, meaning, and culture in the Talmud, he
studies a passage about cooking and comes to the conclusion that the Talmudic
discussion, ostensibly a technical disagreement about placing food on a fire on
Sabbath, reveals a cultural distinction about the nature of food and cooking.
Similarly, prohibitions about moving objects on the Sabbath and what we
may wear engage fundamental cultural questions about the nature of how we
dress. In the arena of illness and healing, Talmudic passages portray a pro-
found sensitivity to the fear of death and to mortality itself. Finally, Blanchard
gives legal examples of compensation for liability. He finds that the Talmud
allows for a creative ambiguity between the individual’s desire for strict jus-
4 Talmud Introduction

tice and society’s need for social harmony. Balance is provided by an intricate
legal system tempered by much experience and great wisdom.
In “The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study,” Michael
Chernick makes the claim that knowledge of the Talmud’s literary structure
provides insight into the “more global messages” that Talmud’s particular
way of expressing itself generates. Those messages include grappling with
the notion of truth and the extent to which truth is accessible. The Talmud’s
content has important lessons to teach, including the “totality of what it is
to be human, and especially human in a particularly Jewish way.” While
the whole paper is valuable and instructive, I found Chernick’s treatment
of what he calls “hard cases,” ones that “moderns would find problematic if
not unpalatable” to be particularly striking. Finally, understanding Talmudic
reasoning “has the potential to help the Jewish people develop meaningful
responses to emerging contemporary religious and secular concerns.”
Shaye Cohen’s “Why Study Talmud” is a response on two levels, the
personal and the general. As an individual, Cohen is a lover of antiquity, has
been immersed in Talmud study since his youth, considers himself good at
parsing it, and enjoys it as an intellectual challenge. His elaboration of just
how intellectually challenging it can be is entertaining and illustrative. He
places the rabbis of the Talmud in their historic context and demonstrates
lacunae as well as greatness. He praises the Talmud’s ability to support con-
flicting positions on a single question and concludes with a stimulating and
contentious reason for others to study Talmud.
Yaakov Elman asks why Jews educated in Jewish schools often turn away
from the study of Talmud and suggests that it is because they do not under-
stand the extent to which “the Bavli presents us with a microcosm of a Torah
society in formation,” that its “society holds up a mirror to our own, and we
may learn a tremendous amount from the challenges its leaders . . . met and
overcame.” This view permits the Talmud to become relevant and seen as “a
fascinating, exciting, stimulating and even captivating work.”
Pinchas Hayman argues for the exclusive status of Torah study which inex-
tricably includes Talmud: “Other disciplines teach knowledge; Torah teaches
existence. Other disciplines help us know or do, Torah helps us to be.” For
Hayman, asking why we should study Talmud reflects a modern disconnect
from the Jewish oral tradition. Modern Jewish identity is influenced by the
Protestant Reformation’s rejection of the Catholic interpretive tradition.
Emancipated Jews in Protestant western Europe essentially became Protestant
Jews with an emphasis on individual interpretation and a rejection of the oral
law (Talmud). Hayman writes that the traditional Jew believes that the oral
law is part of an ongoing, divine revelation: “I learn Talmud, therefore I am
a Jew.” The extraordinarily complex combination and interplay of languages,
 Talmud Introduction 5

history, law, stories, authors, and perspectives yields a unique text of unsur-
passing value that constitutes its own universe. Hayman’s contention is that
the Talmud’s associative thinking, without restriction, as opposed to a topic
by topic approach, reflects a monotheistic view of the world—“all knowledge
is one since all creation is one, the work of the One.”
Richard Kalmin came to Torah study as a graduate student with no back-
ground. He appreciated the “concreteness” of the text and its ability to assist
him in experiencing “the sights and sounds of antiquity.” As a Conservative
Jew, he appreciated the Talmud’s “multiplicity of possibilities and legitimate
alternatives” and its ability to “expand my notions about what is possible in
a human being.” He presents an imaginative reading of the Talmud’s discus-
sion about a woman’s rights and obligations concerning the benediction after
meals (Berakhot 20b) to illustrate his thesis.
Jane Kanarek, in “Ancient Voices,” also confronts the inevitable difficulty
of being a woman and a Talmudist, a field previously an exclusively male
domain. She movingly recounts her own personal journey toward Talmud
study and eventually her adoption of it as a professional teacher and re-
searcher in the field. She examines the reasons for her attraction to Talmud
study, including the acquisition of “a deep voice within the Jewish world” and
an understanding of “how I want to live as a Jew.”
Torah learning may well be a commandment (mitzvah), but it also provides
great enjoyment writes Ephraim Kanarfogel. In his essay, he sets out the rea-
sons that this particular form of study affords him such pleasure—from the
linguistic and literary challenges to understanding the concepts that buttress
the text: “the ability of someone to find something really new to say in the
midst of so much that has come before . . . is truly exciting.”
David Novak’s contribution examines the Talmud as a source of philosophi-
cal reflection. He asserts first, that there is such a thing as religious philosophy
—and Jewish philosophy in particular—and that the most important Jewish
thinker of the rabbinic tradition, Maimonides, considered it an actual religious
duty to practice philosophy (for those who were inclined and able to do so).
In this current volume, Jeffrey Rubenstein (“Talmudic Stories and their
Rewards”) lists a host of reasons for studying Talmud, chief among them
being the biographical anecdotes about the Sages whose aim is to teach
values, beliefs, and ideals which are relevant today. His illustration of these
lessons, based on two passages from the Talmud, demonstrate how Talmudic
stories move characters—and the reader—from a conventional, simplistic
view of reality to a deeper spiritual insight, helping to mold the reader’s moral
and spiritual character. His complex, multilayered analysis yields profound
insights into the meaning of Talmudic passages. His discussion of a revealing
6 Talmud Introduction

passage in Tractate Menahot stunningly reflects a deep rabbinic frustration in

understanding theodicy.
Devora Steinmetz argues that Talmud study should be a component of reli-
gious practice that shapes a person’s life, not only an essential part of one’s
formal education. She uses a number of texts to demonstrate the Talmudic
ability—among many other values—to shape attitudes, make one appreciate
the wisdom of another’s point of view, and thereby to instill a sense of humil-
ity. She applies the lessons of Talmud as a living text to modern Israel in a
dramatic and engaging fashion.
Barry Wimpfheimer’s submission is based on a personal anecdote about
a question asked of him at a shiva house. The question leads Wimpfheimer
to reflect on the relationship between traditional scholars of Talmud and aca-
demics. He concludes that the intellectual creativity in both approaches yields
a joy in learning that is similar and that is unique to Talmud study no matter
who is studying the text and no matter the setting.
Azzan Yadin’s contribution is unique. As a secular Jew deeply immersed
in the academic study of Talmud, he chooses to recount his personal relation-
ship in a series of four vignettes. He reveals a profoundly emotional as well as
scholarly attachment to Talmud, at one moment calling it “overwhelming”: “I
felt the historic chasm that separated me from the Talmudic sages collapse.”
His analysis of royal power would hardly be typical of traditional rabbinic
commentary, but it is in keeping with his desire “to think through questions of
meaning and interpretation together with the rabbinic texts themselves.”
Devorah Zlochower adds to this collection an intensely personal meditation
on the question of being a woman and a student of Talmud. She plumbs the
depths of both her own personal journey toward the discovery and the teach-
ing of Talmud and the omnipresent tension that enterprise necessarily engen-
ders. Secular studies did not satisfy her desire for spiritual sustenance, and so
her quest for Talmud was undertaken after three and a half years of graduate
school. She grappled then, as she does now, with how Talmud speaks to her
as a woman of the 21st century who seeks religious meaning in these texts.
She concludes that she finds herself “engaged in an impossible dance between
delight in tradition and its foundational texts and discomfort with its limitations
and exclusions.”

When organizing the structure of the volume, I thought it would be simplest

to place the essays in alphabetical order, as any ordering is almost certainly
arbitrary. However, I finally decided to divide the text into four parts—
women’s voices, academics respond, teaching Talmud, and a philosopher’s
appraisal. I am fully aware of the cross-overs—for example, the women con-
tributors are academics, indeed so are all the eminent writers. Still, I wanted
 Talmud Introduction 7

to convey a sense of the variety and range of responses. Talmud study engages
women as academics, but also—and in some cases, primarily—as women;
David Novak is a celebrated academic and a philosopher as well, and so
forth.
It is my hope that this volume will yield “a richer understanding”—to
borrow Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s phrase—amongst the cognoscenti, serve
as an enticing introduction to those unfamiliar with the rich heritage, and
provide insights, understanding, and motivation for those embarked on the
voyage of Jewish self-discovery.

ENDNOTES

1. If the Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is the central pillar,
soaring up from the foundations and supporting the entire spiritual and intellectual
edifice. In many ways the Talmud is the most important book in Jewish culture, the
backbone of creativity and of national life. No other work has had a comparable influ-
ence on the theory and practice of Jewish life, shaping spiritual content and serving
as a guide to conduct. The Jewish people have always been keenly aware that their
continued survival and development depend on study of the Talmud, and those hostile
to Judaism have also been cognizant of this fact. The book was reviled, slandered, and
consigned to the flames countless times in the Middle Ages and has been subjected
to similar indignities in the recent past as well. At times, Talmudic study has been
prohibited because it was abundantly clear that a Jewish society that ceased to study
this work had no real hope of survival. The formal definition of the Talmud is the
summary of oral law that evolved after centuries of scholarly effort by sages who
lived in Palestine and Babylonia until the beginning of the Middle Ages. It has two
main components: the Mishnah, a book of halakhah (law) written in Hebrew; and the
commentary on the Mishnah, known as the Talmud (or Gemarah), in the limited sense
of the word, a summary of discussion and elucidations of the Mishnah written in
Aramaic-Hebrew jargon. This explanation, however, though formally correct, is mis-
leading and imprecise. The Talmud is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish
wisdom, and the oral law, which is as ancient and significant as the written law (the
Torah), finds expression therein. It is a conglomerate of law, legend, and philosophy,
a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes
and humor. It is a collection of paradoxes: its framework is orderly and logical, every
word and term subjected to meticulous editing, completed centuries after the actual
work of composition came to an end; yet it is still based on free association, on a har-
nessing together of diverse ideas reminiscent of the modern stream-of-consciousness
novel. Although its main objective is to interpret and comment on a book of law, it is,
simultaneously, a work of art that goes beyond legislation and its practical applica-
tion. And although the Talmud is, to this day, the primary source of Jewish law, it
8 Talmud Introduction

cannot be cited as an authority for purposes of ruling. Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential
Talmud, New York: Basis Books, 1976.
2. For an outstanding appreciation and explanation of Talmud that is accessible and
even lyrical at times, see “Chapter 15. The Talmud,” “Chapter 16. Jewish Common
Law,” and “Chapter 17. From the Talmud to the Present” in Herman Wouk, This is My
God: The Jewish Way of Life, New York: Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster), 1974.
3. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2003.
 Part I

WOMEN’S VOICES
 Why Study Talmud in the 21st
Century: The View from a Large
Public University
OR
Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander

I had my first meaningful encounter with Talmud when I was an undergradu-

ate Religion major at a liberal arts college. A short selection from the Talmud
appeared on the syllabus of my Intro to Religion class. The class exposed
students to sacred texts from various world religions: the Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament, the New Testament, the Quran and hadith, the Mahabarata, and
the Dhammapada. Until this point, the Talmud for me was nothing more than
a collection of aphorisms from which my Conservative rabbi occasionally
quoted in his sermons. I knew that Jews regarded the Talmud as a central text,
but I couldn’t begin to tell you how or why. In the afternoon Hebrew school
that I attended twice a week, I had learned that the Talmud was a commen-
tary on the Mishnah and that the Mishnah was a commentary on the Torah. I
knew the definition so I could quote it by heart, but it didn’t add anything to
my understanding.
The professor who introduced me to the Talmud was a specialist in early
Christian theology. He probably knew as much about the Talmud as he did
about the Mahabarata: not a lot by professional standards, but enough to stay
two steps ahead of us undergraduates . . . and enough to select a few accessible,
but intriguing passages for us to break our teeth on. He may not have been
an expert in the Talmud, but he was a master at close reading. He knew how
to tease meaning out of cryptic passages, alerting us to implicit claims of the
text. I loved my first exposure to the text: the Talmud was replete with subtle
textual clues that could be mined for rich, and often opposing or counter-
intuitive, claims. My professor’s knack for close reading meant we regarded
each textual detail as the tip of an iceberg which lay deep beneath the surface
of the text. Our goal was to imagine the shape, size, and contours of each
structure.

11
12 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

This minimal exposure to Talmud was enough to light a fire. From my

other classes I had already come to feel a strong affinity for the method of
close reading emphasized by my Religion professors. When I turned to apply
these methods to Jewish texts, I was surprised at how much more deeply I was
able to probe. When reading the Talmud, I had a sixth sense that allowed me
to push my readings in unexpected, but productive, directions. What’s more,
the Talmud with its cryptic, but suggestive, style lent itself to slow, purposeful
reading. This material was for me—and I knew it. I wanted to study more.
I often joke ruefully that if my undergraduate Religion major had offered
an Intro to Talmud class I might have saved myself the arduous labor of get-
ting a Ph.D. But none of my professors were experts in Judaism and none
had condensed the intricacies of Talmudic thinking into a one-semester syl-
labus suitable for undergraduate consumption. Lacking that option, I applied
straight out of my undergraduate major in Religion to do a Ph.D. in rabbinic
literature.
One could reasonably ask why, given my newly ignited passion for Talmud
study, I chose to pursue a Ph.D. I needn’t have taken eight long years to do
coursework, comprehensive exams and write a dissertation. By the late eighties
when I graduated from college, traditional settings for serious women’s learn-
ing were popping up all over the place. It was about that time that Vanessa Ochs
published the book Words on Fire, chronicling her experiences at the many
places of high-level women’s study in Jerusalem. The fact is it never occurred
to me to spend a year or two at one of the yeshiva-like institutions for women
in Jerusalem or New York. My intellectual aspirations were shaped so strongly
by my undergraduate experience that I couldn’t imagine pursuing them outside
the academy. For one thing, I wanted to apply the methods of close reading
I had practiced in college on the sacred texts of so many other traditions to
a Jewish text where my interpretive instincts were more acute. For another, I
left college with a mission: I wanted to get the Talmud up on the same shelves
with Plato and Aristotle in the “great books” curriculum. As an undergradu-
ate, I was entranced by my classes in philosophy and theology. Discussing the
questions that had absorbed the great thinkers of history allowed me and my
cohorts to wrestle with them anew: How could God be both all-powerful and
all-good? What is the nature of the “good”? What is the essence of “being”?
Does the world exist beyond our sensory experiences of it? Is there a purpose
behind creation and nature? By engaging the questions that fed the engine of
the Western philosophical and theological traditions, we came up against both
the limits and the grandeur of human existence and tried to imagine our place
in the world. I was sure that wrestling with the intricacies of the Talmud could
play an important role in the undergraduate drama of intellectual discovery.
Doing a Ph.D. would equip me to teach Talmud at a university or college where
I could make my vision a reality.
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 13

Finally, it never occurred to me to go a religious environment for Talmud

study because when I graduated from college I was not religious. Drawing an
analogy between how sacred texts functioned in other traditions, I recognized
that the Talmud could serve as a wellspring for Jewish identity. I wanted to
avail myself of this valuable resource for constructing and grounding my own
identity as a secular Jew. I sensed that in traditional settings, the range of pos-
sible selves that would emerge from Talmud study would be limited. I feared
that my questions would be dismissed—not necessarily because they were
theologically threatening, but because they were irrelevant by virtue of being
shaped in a different intellectual setting. I wanted to be able to ask questions
freely because experience had taught me that the degree of textual insight one
achieves is proportionate to the intensity with which one interrogates the text.
To put the matter in crude political terms, I wanted to take the Talmud back
from Orthodox Jews who I perceived to be dominating the field of Talmud
study. I acknowledged that Orthodox Jews were the experts of Talmud study.
But I feared that if I availed myself of their expertise I would have to accept
their social and theological framing of the text, which I was not prepared to
do. In retrospect, I don’t think I need have been as wary of traditional settings
for study as I was, but that was how I thought about things at the time.
As I entered my doctoral program, I was dimly aware that two different
selves were embarking on the journey. On one hand, I came to the Talmud
as an intellectual citizen of the world—tied to no culture or tradition except
scholarly excellence. This side of me wanted to study Talmud so I could
integrate it into the liberal arts curriculum where it could serve as fodder
for the self-formation of young adults. I felt that the Talmud was relevant to
people from all backgrounds and faiths, as long as they were committed to the
mission of the university. On the other hand, I came to the Talmud as a Jew,
eager to find within it models for the construction of my own contemporary
identity. This side of me was parochial, invested in the Talmud because of
what it offered my people and my people alone: a guide for what it means
to live as a Jew. Since entering graduate school, these two selves have
grown and become stronger on their respective paths. Eighteen years later,
each has a very different answer to the question “Why Study Talmud in
the 21st Century?”

THE TALMUD WITHIN THE LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM

I teach at a large public university that emphasizes excellence in under-

graduate teaching. According to the latest figures, only ten percent of the
student population is Jewish, which means I teach mostly non-Jews. Very
occasionally in my upper-level courses, the Jewish enrollment will hit fifty
14 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

percent. It is much more common, however, for Jewish students to comprise

a mere ten to twenty percent of my classes. Teaching my “Intro to Talmud”
class to a group that has little, if any, prior exposure to the Talmud, I’ve
learned that I need to build investment in the material from the first day
of class. As the semester goes on, students invariably get frustrated by the
Talmud’s logical complexity and technical arcana. Their brains are ready
to burst when I walk them through such things as the biblical derivation of
the Mishnah’s four categories of damages or Abaye and Rava’s competing
understandings of the principle of “despair without [active] knowledge.” If
they don’t have a good sense of why this material is relevant to their lives,
they can become discouraged and lose momentum. I can’t be subtle. I need
to be very transparent about what they stand to gain.
I start by building up the mystique of Talmud study. I acknowledge that
following the complex logical sequences that make up Talmudic argumenta-
tion will challenge them. But, I tell them, once you can follow the argument,
you will marvel at its subtleties; you will be enchanted by its playful turns
of logic. I also discuss the social context in which Talmud has been studied
historically. I note that up until about thirty years ago Talmud study was the
exclusive prerogative of men. Being learned in Talmud was a way to achieve
premiere social status in Jewish society, but women were denied the privilege.
I tell my students that, like them, I had to learn Talmud as an outsider. I reassure
them that by the end of the semester sequences of Talmudic argumentation
will make sense to them. I’ve thought long and hard about how to translate
Talmudic logic (internally consistent, but utterly foreign to Western-trained
minds) into paradigms comfortable to those acculturated in Western modes
of thinking. To up the ante, I note that a fair number of people think that it’s
impossible to “teach Talmud” if you’re working in translation; according to
them, the best one can hope for is to teach about Talmud. I, however, know
I can teach them Talmud, Talmud itself. I want my students to feel special:
that they are about to enter an exclusive, elite club.
Next I connect Talmud study to other aspects of their liberal arts curriculum.
As a teacher in the university, one of my most important mandates is the
cultivation of critical thinking in my students. The practice of critical thinking
requires rigorous interrogation of evidence before reaching conclusions. In
order to do this honestly, we must recognize where our assumptions bias
our interpretation of the data. Often students aren’t even aware of how their
assumptions act on them. For example, a student may superimpose onto a text
her assumption that the very concept of God implies a God that is all-powerful
when the text clearly indicates its author thought otherwise. One of my chief
pedagogical challenges is to help students disentangle their assumptions from
legitimate observations about the text.
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 15

I want my students to read Jewish texts without the overlay of their pre-
conceived ideas. I want them to construct their interpretations on the basis
of concrete textual evidence. These are fine pedagogical goals, you may
say, but how are they served by the study of Talmud, specifically? The short
answer is that because Talmudic logic is so thoroughly unfamiliar to students,
their hardwired assumptions do them little good. Following Talmudic logic
requires taking on altogether new habits of thinking.
Throughout the semester I work on identifying the assumptions that govern
Talmudic thinking and illustrating how they work themselves out in spe-
cific texts. Students are especially bewildered by the assumptions that inform
the rabbis’ reading of biblical scripture. In order to illustrate the difference
between their intuitive way of engaging biblical texts and the rabbis’ strategy
of reading I liken individual verses of the Bible to the tiles in our classroom
floor. The floor is made up of countless squares lined flush against each other
on single plane. If we were to start in one corner of the room, we could trace
a line from one tile to the next until we reached the next corner. Then we
would move onto the next row of tiles and the next. Eventually, we would
trace the surface of the entire floor. That way of mapping out the relationship
between the tiles conforms to my students’ intuitive way of interacting with
the biblical text. They read the text linearly, moving from one tile to the next.
For them, each verse makes best sense in light of the verses immediately
preceding and following it. For example, Exodus 2:7 (which tells of a young
girl offering to fetch a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby that the Egyptian
princess has just drawn from the Nile) makes most sense when read in the
context of the surrounding verses. Exodus 2:7 illuminates one moment in a
story about a baby who had to be thrown into the Nile because of Pharaoh’s
evil decree, but who was miraculously saved by the princess, who drew him
out of the water, and the baby’s sister, who went to fetch the baby’s mother
to nurse the child. In its broader narrative context, it tells how Moses was
rescued so he could go on to save his entire people from Pharaoh.
Gesturing to several rows of tiles on right side of the room, I propose that
these tiles represent the Five Books of Moses. In our way of reading, we step
from tile to tile, from line to line. As we move into the center of the room,
we leave behind one set of stories and shift to another. Now we are reading
through the Prophets. Finally, as we reach the left side of the room, we have
progressed to the last section of the Bible, the Writings. For us, each tile is
secured in its place by those immediately preceding and following it. We are
used to reading the Bible in a linear manner.
The Talmudic rabbis, however, had a totally different way of interacting
with the tiles. They pulled individual tiles out of their spots on the floor and
stacked them one on top of the other. For the rabbis, it didn’t matter if the
16 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

tiles were from different parts of the room. They read the tiles vertically,
rather than horizontally. That is, they divorced verses from their local literary
context and created new contexts based their own fanciful sense of what
belonged with what. For example, in the Talmudic way of reading, Exodus
2:7 (“Then his sister said to Pharoah’s daughter: Shall I go get you a Hebrew
nurse to suckle the child for you?”) is most profitably read with Isaiah 28:9
(“To whom would He give instruction? . . . To those newly weaned from
milk, just taken away from the breast?”). The students resist: Stacking the
tiles on top of each other like this does damage to the floor. The two verses
have nothing to do with each other. Each belongs in its own setting in its own
part of the floor.
Indeed, if one reads as they are accustomed to reading, the two verses have
no bearing on one another. I gently prod them, however, to accept an alternate
way of imagining connections. Once detached from their respective narrative
contexts, what comes to the fore is that each verse talks about suckling babies.
Exodus 2:7 describes Miriam offering to find a Hebrew woman to nurse
Moses. Isaiah 28:9 discusses the ability of newly weaned babies to receive
God’s instruction. For the rabbis, the common allusion to nursing shows the
two verses to be entirely relevant to one another. The rabbis of the Talmud
offer the following fanciful reading of Exodus 2:7 based on the “nursing” con-
nection: Why, they ask, did Miriam specify in her offer that she would find a
Hebrew woman to nurse the child? Apparently she knew that the princess had
already auditioned all the available Egyptian wet nurses. In each case, however,
Moses had refused to suck. This explanation of Exodus 2:7 is implied by Isaiah
28:9: “To whom would God give instruction?” Through whom would God
eventually give the Torah? To Moses: that is, “to one just taken away from the
breast,” one just taken away from the breasts of the Egyptians!1
No, my students exclaim: The Talmudic interpretation is a distortion of
Isaiah 28:9. In its original narrative context Isaiah’s question is a rhetorical
one. When the prophet asks, “To whom would God give instruction?” he’s
criticizing the contemporary leaders by suggesting they are not up to the job.
When the prophet gives the answer that God should give instruction “to one
just taken away from the breast” he’s making an absurd suggestion. Of course
a newly weaned baby can’t absorb God’s instruction. By saying that only a
newly weaned baby is pure enough, he’s emphasizing the corruption of those
who should properly be receiving God’s instruction: the priests and prophets
of his day. My students resist: How can the rabbis say that Isaiah 28:9 refers
to Moses eventually being able to “receive God’s instruction” because he was
“taken away from the breast” of the Egyptian women?!
I have become accustomed to the internal resistance students display
towards the underlying assumptions governing Talmudic logic. In fact, only
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 17

when my students express their discomfort with this foreign system do I gen-
erally feel they have wrestled with it sufficiently. It seems students need to
articulate how Talmudic logic is counterintuitive to them in order for them to
recognize where their own cultural biases conflict with fundamental assump-
tions of the Talmud. My ultimate goal is for the students to be able to regard
this foreign system sympathetically in light of its own internal consistency.
If one is stacking verses vertically, rather than lining them up linearly, this
interpretation does make sense. Of course, I do not require that my student
abandon their own deeply held commitments or the underlying structures that
shape their thinking; I ask only that they be able to reflect simultaneously on
another way of encountering the text. In the end, my students may not choose
to read Exodus 2:7 as the Talmud does, but they can marvel at the cleverness
displayed by the Talmud’s reading and the deep familiarity with the biblical
text it exhibits. This ability to balance two different ways of seeing (their own
intuitive one and the learned one they must adopt in order for the Talmudic
text to make sense) represents a high level of critical thinking. When I engage
my students in this delicate balancing act, I help them strengthen their “critical
thinking” muscles.
Talmud study promotes the ability to hold on to two different, even mutu-
ally exclusive, ways of viewing the same data because the Talmud itself
models the practice. In a standard move of Talmudic argumentation the
Talmud shows how two competing interpretations of a single datum are
equally viable. In this move, the Talmud initially represents one position as
more compatible with a particular piece of evidence. The argument goes on
to show, however, that a second, contradictory position can also be reconciled
with the evidence.
Consider the famous argument between Abaye and Rava on the question of
whether one needs to be aware of a loss in order for the lost object to become
ownerless (hefker). The significance of an object being ownerless is that
when another person happens upon an ownerless object, he or she becomes
its new owner. By way of contrast, if a person finds an object that still legally
belongs to another person (non-hefker), then the finder is obligated to return
the object to its rightful owner. Abaye and Rava have different opinions about
the conditions under which a lost object becomes ownerless. Abaye says the
owner must actively be aware of the loss and despair of recovering the object
in order for it to become ownerless. Rava, on the other hand, suggests there is
a legal principle called “despair without knowledge.” Even though an owner
may not be aware of his loss, we may presume that he will eventually become
aware of his loss. We may also presume that when he does become aware,
he will despair of recovering the lost object. The principle of “despair with-
out knowledge” is relevant to the case where a person finds an object before
18 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

the owner has become aware of his loss. According to Rava, the finder may
keep the lost object because we assume the owner “despairs without [active]
knowledge” of so doing.
A rule in the Mishnah seems to support Rava’s position. The mishnah
(m. Baba Metzia 2:1) stipulates that a person who finds coins scattered on the
street may keep them. Apparently, the coins are considered to be ownerless.
But how did they become so? Was the owner aware of his loss and did he
actively despair over the lost coins? Or is the owner not yet aware of his loss,
in which case we must assume that the coins became ownerless through an
act of “despair without knowledge”? At first blush, the mishnah seems to pro-
vide evidence in support of Rava’s position. The mishnah says nothing about
the owner being aware of his loss, and yet the mishnah regards the scattered
coins as ownerless. Apparently, the mishnah takes for granted the principle
of “despair without [active] knowledge,” or so claims Rava. The Talmud is
quick, however, to show that there is more than one way to read the mishnaic
rule. The rule can also be show to be compatible with Abaye’s position. The
Talmud explains that since coins are valuable the owner constantly checks
his pocket to make sure they are still there. Owing to the frequent checks, the
owner becomes aware of his loss almost immediately. In this way of reading,
the mishnah also comports with the view of Abaye. The finder is able to claim
the coins as his own because the owner is aware of having lost the coins and
has actively despaired over the loss.2 The positions of Abaye and Rava on the
question of whether one needs to despair actively in order for a lost object
to become ownerless are mutually opposed. Nonetheless, both draw support
for their respective positions from the same mishnaic rule. In order for my
students to follow this argument, they must be able to inhabit two different
points of view with equal sympathy. At these moments, the Talmud promotes
mental flexibility; it forces the students to let go of their investment in one or
another interpretation as the “natural” or “right” one.
Talmud study also opens one to recognizing the full range of interpreta-
tions any set of words can bear. It leads us to see texts in fresh and new ways.
In the first Talmudic interpretation I discussed we now see new significance
in the fact that Miriam specified that she would find a Hebrew woman to
nurse the baby. Miriam’s offer of a Hebrew woman was introduced to solve
the problem presented by the Egyptian wet nurses (from whom the baby
would not suck). Who would have thought Miriam’s reference to Hebrew
women was anything more than incidental? Likewise, the second Talmudic
interpretation I discussed helps us see the mishnaic rule in a way we had not
initially anticipated. We might have assumed that the rule takes for granted
that the owner has despaired over his loss without conscious “knowledge” of
so doing. Now, however, we know there is a different way to read the rule.
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 19

In these and many other cases, the Talmud trains its students to perceive the
world around them in fresh, creative, and even counterintuitive ways.
I like to tell the story of two wayward Talmud students. No matter how
much their teachers reprimand them, they can’t sit still. In a final move of des-
peration, the rabbi sends the students to the local tennis court to blow off some
steam. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to sit down seriously,” he yells
after them. Five minutes later, they’re back, with nary a drop of sweat on their
foreheads. “Nu?” the rabbi asks. The students explain that they came back
because of a sign at the courts: “Courts closed. No playing.” The rabbi shakes
his head in despair. “Haven’t you learned anything from your studies? You’re
reading it wrong: “Courts closed? No! Playing.” And he sends them back to
the courts with strict instructions not to return until they are ready to learn!
The insight of this joke is to introduce a new way of punctuating the words.
For the Talmud, all words worthy of interpretation are like that: with a little
mental flexibility they can be combined and recombined, emphasized and
deemphasized so as to reveal worlds of unexpected sense. Take for example,
the title of this book: “Why Study Talmud in the 21st Century?” Taking
our cue from the rabbi in the joke, we come to recognize that more than
one question is embedded in this line. The most common reading places the
emphasis on the word “Talmud.” It assumes we will read many great works
in the 21st century, but wonders why we would read Talmud specifically,
as opposed to, say Shakespeare or Faulkner. In this reading, the question is:
what does the Talmud offer people in the 21st century. That is the question
I must answer for my undergraduates and that is the question I have been
answering up until this point in the essay. I have argued that Talmud study
contributes to the training of critical thinkers, a resource which our society
needs in abundance if we are to thrive in the 21st century.
There is, however, another way to read the question. One might just as
well emphasize the words “21st century,” as in: Why study Talmud in the
21st century, as opposed to in, say, the 20th or the 16th century? Here one
assumes that Jews have read the Talmud for centuries. Now that we enter the
21st century, what does Talmud study stand to gain that it has not achieved
before? Now we are asking what the 21st century has to offer the Talmud. That
is the question to which I would now like to turn.

THE TALMUD FOR ME AS A JEW

When I began my academic study of the Talmud I had two different sets of
goals. One set was tied to the university, the other to my identity as a Jew.
Throughout my academic career I’ve struggled with how these two different
20 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

sets of internal motivations relate to each other. When I study in the univer-
sity, I obey the same rules of critical thinking that I am training my students
to observe: I examine this material without the overlay of Jewish dogma. For
example, Jewish tradition regards the Talmud’s interpretation of the Mishnah
as “the” inherent meaning of the Mishnah. By way of contrast, my academic
study emphasizes that the Talmud’s interpretations are constructions of
mishnaic meaning. They are not innate at all. In order to do my academic
work well—that is, in order to perceive clearly the forces that impact Talmudic
interpretations of the Mishnah—I can’t let traditional preconceptions that
the Talmud reflects the obvious meaning of the Mishnah color my thinking.
Adopting the critical stance, however, leaves me with a question for what it
means for me to read Talmud as a Jew. If I reject the traditional Jewish framing
of the text, in what way can I say that Talmud study affirms or contributes to
my identity as a Jew?
In my years of struggling with this question, I’ve learned that though the
critical stance might seem to interfere with my ability to draw on the Talmud as
a source for personal inspiration and insight, I have no other lens through which
to view the Talmud. The critical eyes are my eyes. If I want to have an authen-
tic encounter with the Talmud, I cannot pretend to be someone I am not. And
here is where I think the 21st century has something important to offer Talmud
study. In the 20th century, critical thinkers viewed their work as antithetical to
religious study of Talmud. Chaim Potok’s 1969 novel The Promise illustrates
this viewpoint. The protagonist of the novel is a young rabbinical student,
Reuven, who excels in technical Talmud study. He suffers discontent, however,
in that he is often dissatisfied with traditional explanations of the text. Under the
tutelage of his academically oriented father and unbeknownst to the great rab-
bis of his yeshiva, Reuven starts evaluating the received text in light of ancient
manuscript evidence. As the result of his investigations, he often reaches the
less than pious conclusion that the best reading is to be found in manuscripts
and not in the version of the text espoused as authentic and authoritative by his
community. The novel reaches its climax when Reuven daringly introduces his
teachers to what is known as the text critical method (assessing the validity of
the received text in light of manuscript evidence) during his examination for
rabbinic ordination. The dean of students shakes his head, “Who would believe
it? Source criticism in an exam for rabbinic ordination?!” The authoritarian and
dogmatic Rav Kalman only grudgingly agrees to grant Reuven ordination and a
position in the graduate division of the yeshiva. Reuven must agree, however,
not to use the critical method in the training of rabbis; he must reserve it for
those students pursuing an academic degree. For Potok, there is no reconciling
the academic and the pious. The best one can do is to house them in different
wings of the building.3
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 21

The shift from the 20th century to the 21st coincides with the shift from
modernism to postmodernism. The 21st century with its postmodern ethos,
I believe, offers a way for those engaged with critical methods to integrate
them into tradition-serving encounters with the Talmud. Postmoderns are
known for their ability to compartmentalize, relativize and live with logical
inconsistency. In the 20th century, academics assumed that adopting the criti-
cal stance directly conflicted with the pious stance. The critical stance was
aimed at recovering a Talmud of the past—as it “really” was. To the extent
that the pious had a different tradition about how the Talmud came to be, the
two views were irreconcilable. In the 21st century, however, critical study
is moving beyond reading the Talmud exclusively as an artifact of history.
Critical textual studies are today equally as interested in reconstructing how
Talmud generates meaning for its readers. Critical study seeks to illuminate
not just the world that lies behind the text of the Talmud, but also the world
that is opened up by it. Insofar as the goals of critical study are shifting, I
believe the 21st century offers critical thinkers the chance to feel that their
insights contribute to the religious work performed by the Talmud. What
does the 21st century offer the Talmud? The opportunity for authentic Jewish
encounters with the Talmud to be informed and enriched by critical study.
Allow me to illustrate how this dynamic might work with an example
from my current research. Several years ago I became very interested in
how gender roles in Judaism are maintained and perpetuated by a rule in the
Mishnah. (The Mishnah is the earliest stratum of the Talmud). The mishnaic
rule (m. Kid. 1:7) stipulates that women are exempt from so-called timebound,
positive commandments, but obligated to perform all other commandments.
“Timebound, positive commandments” are ritual actions that must be actively
performed (the “thou shalts”) at, by, or within a certain timeframe. The rule of
women’s exemption from this class of commandments appears to shed light
on how the Talmud conceptualized the difference between men and women.
Whatever it is that makes women exempt from this class of commandments
is what marks women as different from men. If one could only figure out why
the Talmudic rabbis exempted women from timebound, positive command-
ments, one would understand what the Talmudic rabbis thought characterized
women’s nature. My project began as an examination of the past, a desire to
uncover and understand better a feature of Judaism’s sources.
My interest in this question, however, was not driven by a theoretical
fascination with history alone. I was curious about the rule of women’s
exemption because it had been invoked many times in my life as the basis for
articulating and affirming particular models of male/female difference. I had
been told that women are exempt from timebound commandments because their
maternal duties place such extensive demands on their time that it isn’t fair to
22 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

subject them to additional timebound responsibilities. I also heard that women

are exempt from these ritual acts because they are more spiritually intuitive
than men and don’t need the mundanities of timebound commandments to
achieve a rich and powerful relationship with God. Both explanations of the
rule offered a vision of womanhood that I might embrace or reject, but neither
provided an intellectually satisfying account of the many traditions addressing
women’s involvement in ritual. Neither explanation could account for the
many exceptions to the mishnaic rule. The project, then, had both historical
and contemporary aspects. I was keenly aware of the power of the mishnaic
rule to ground gender roles today. It was precisely this aspect of the rule that
made me want to understand its past.
What I have found has been interesting. I initially assumed that the rule
had been formulated with a particular social vision in mind. I assumed that
the rabbis exempted women from this class of commandments because of
their ideas about who women are, or who they should be. Instead I discovered
that the language of the rule was formulated as the summary of an academic
exercise in biblical exegesis. I have argued that only in the course of the
rule’s transmission did it come to be viewed as a prescriptive statement.4
Only when the rule was viewed as a prescriptive statement was it taken to
be a cryptic expression of the rabbis’ understanding of women’s nature. And
only then did the rule provide the occasion to articulate different visions of
Jewish womanhood. One cannot deny that the rule did eventually come to
function in a way that stabilizes and grounds a particular vision of women’s
roles. What is interesting, however, is that this function of the rule was not
programmed into it by the Talmudic rabbis who formulated it. Only late in
the course of its transmission did the rule begin to operate as a stabilizer of
gender identities. The bulk of my research documents the incremental shifts
in perception of the rule, eventually bringing us to the point where we view
the rule as a definitive, albeit cryptic, statement by the rabbis about the proper
role of women in Judaism.
This project is focused on reconstructing the past, but it has implications
for my contemporary self-understanding as a Jew. Whenever someone cites
the rule in the context of a discussion about women’s role’s (not terribly rare
in the Orthodox synagogues I now frequent), I can experience the rule in
ways that were not formerly available to me. Before I did this research, I might
have argued about the specific claims made by my conversation partners:
“You say that the rule confirms that women’s primary duties are domestic,
but perhaps the rule was motivated by other concerns?” Alternatively, if I
was uncomfortable with the particular vision of Jewish womanhood espoused
by my conversation partner as inherent in the rule, I could reject the rule’s
authority for myself. If, however, I wanted to claim the Talmud (with its
 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker 23

mishnaic rule) as relevant and central to my self understanding, I had to live

with a vision of Jewish womanhood that did not comport with my own self
understanding.
Now I have the option to observe (even if only quietly to myself) that the
law was not composed to encourage one set of behaviors as opposed to another
among women. Nor was it a tribute to women’s intuitive spiritual capacities.
I observe that only very late in the history of the rule has it grounded gender
identities. In making these observations, I see the transformative power of
communal transmission. The rule was once about one thing and now it’s
“about” something else. I am comforted to know that my research will also
become part of the ongoing conversation about the rule. As yet I cannot see
how the trajectory of the rule’s reception will be changed by my research.
My research, however, demonstrates to me that Talmudic traditions take on
unexpected meanings in the course of their transmission. I am content to know
that my research will enter the stream of tradition and coexist alongside other
understandings of the rule. Though I cannot see how, I know that the rule will
be understood differently by those who come after me (and all the more so,
by those who come after them).
A work of critical scholarship about the past can contribute to the ongoing
dialogue about who we are as Jews. The Talmud is an important point of
reference in this conversation. But as I have noted, texts (even important and
foundational texts like the Talmud) do not have an innate meaning. Rather,
the Talmud takes on meaning as different generations of Jews wrestle with its
obscurities. Each generation bequeaths the text to the next generation embed-
ded in a rich matrix of questions and assumptions. I am reassured knowing
that the very act of having engaged the Talmud with inquisitiveness and intel-
lectual integrity will shape how the future generations of Jews grapple with
it. When I perform the work of scholarship, the center of my community’s
conversation about the Talmud shifts, however subtly.
How, then, is critical study of the Talmud different in the 21st century than
it was in the 20th? I must acknowledge that it is unlikely that the fictitious
rabbis of Reuven’s yeshiva (or their real life counterparts) will be any more
open to my scholarship than they were to Reuven’s. But Potok’s novel wasn’t
written by them. It was written from the perspective of a critical thinker
wrestling to figure out if his critical methods are compatible with traditional
Talmud study. In the very framing of the plot, Potok indicates that he sees
the two types of study as discordant. The difference between the 20th and the
21st centuries lies not so much in how the Rav Kalmans of the world will
relate to critical methods of Talmud study. We can assume they will be just
as uncomfortable with them in the 21st century as they were in the 20th. The
audience of this essay, however, is the Chaim Potoks of the world. In the last
24 Studying Talmud as a Critical Thinker

century, critical thinkers faced a question that also challenges critical thinkers
now: Will we engage the Talmud as an artifact of history to be dissected and
demystified? Or will we feel that the Talmud, when viewed through the lens
of our critical analysis, has important something to say about who we are and
how we should live. The 21st century gives us the opportunity to take the
second—I think, more compelling—route.

ENDNOTES

1. See b. Sotah 12b for the interpretation discussed here.

2. This discussion is drawn from and based on the talmudic argument on b. Baba
Metzia 21b–22b.
3. The wonderful drama of Reuven’s examination for rabbinic ordination is told in
Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1969, 327–342.
4. For a fuller view of my arguments regarding the mishnaic rule see my
“From Whence the Phrase ‘Timebound, Positive Commandments’?” The Jewish
Quarterly Review, Vol. 97, No. 3 (Summer 2007), 317–346; and “How Tefillin
Became a Non-Timebound, Positive Commandment: The Yerushalmi and the
Bavli on mEruvim 10:1,” in A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud:
Introduction and Studies, ed. Tal Ilan et. al., Mohr Seibeck, 2007, 61–89.
 Female Alterity and Divine
Compassion: Reading the Talmud
from the Perspective of Gender
Judith R. Baskin

At the conclusion of one of his Talmudic readings, Emmanuel Levinas

declared that the most glorious title for God is “Parent of orphans and
champion of widows” (Psalm 68:6). Levinas, focused as always on the
meaningful encounter with the other, suggested that our own encounter with
the Exemplar of compassion is best achieved in engagement with Divine
revelation. As he wrote,

Consecration to God: his epiphany, beyond all theology and any visible image,
however complete, is repeated in the daily Sinai of [human beings] sitting before
an astonishing book, ever again in progress because of its very completeness.1

For Levinas, as for most Jews of the past fifteen hundred years, this “aston-
ishing book” of revelation encompasses the Hebrew Bible (the Written
Torah), and rabbinic literature (the Oral Torah). Jewish involvement with
this literary heritage is “ever again in progress” and represents a “daily
Sinai” because revealed texts demand continuous rereading and ever
renewed interpretation. Women and men of this present moment, as much
as those who stood at the historic Sinai, are a part of this ongoing process of
study and enlightenment.
My own involvement with “this astonishing book” has been through a par-
ticular focus. Through the entryway of aggadic midrash, I have spent more
than twenty years exploring the ways in which women have been imagined
in rabbinic writings; I have delineated, as well, the continuing ramifications
of these representations in Jewish social life, past and present.2 In this essay,
I discuss some of what I have discovered about rabbinic convictions of
female otherness.

25
26 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

WOMEN ARE A SEPARATE PEOPLE

Rabbinic views about women are as various as rabbinic opinions on other

subjects, and there are many positive portrayals of women in the Talmudic and
midrashic texts. The Rabbis praised biblical women who played central roles
in the destiny of the people of Israel, including the matriarchs, the midwives
of Egypt, and the women of the wilderness generation. According to the
Babylonian Talmud (abbreviated as BT), Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah,
Abigail, Huldah, and Esther had the status of prophets (BT M’gillah 14a); the
midrash collection Genesis Rabbah declared that all four matriarchs of Israel
were prophets (67.9 and 72.6). The Rabbis also lauded the women whose
supportive roles in the domestic realm enabled husbands and sons to participate
in public worship and communal study; according to BT Berakhot 17, this is
how women earn merit. Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, is cited as an exemplary
woman who sacrificed her own comfort for her husband’s scholarship.3 On the
other hand, the Rabbis condemned as immodest women who appeared unveiled
in public, gathered in groups with other women, or whose voices were consid-
ered too strident. Similarly, the Sages criticized women who asserted themselves
as public leaders. Thus, BT M’gillah 14a goes on to denigrate the judge Deborah
as a hornet and the prophet Hulda as a weasel (the meaning of their respective
names), since they held powerful positions usually associated with men.4
In general, rabbinic views of women are based on the certainty of women’s
essential alterity or otherness from men. The Talmudic statement that “women
are a separate people” (BT Shabbat 62a) conveys the basic rabbinic belief
that females are human entities inherently dissimilar from males, not only in
body but in moral and intellectual capacities. Moreover, the ways in which
women were perceived to be essentially different were not only ineradicable
but problematic for men. This is why it was considered best to limit female
access to male realms of communal worship, study, and leadership. This is
also why women occupied a subordinate place in rabbinic Judaism’s world
view where free, unblemished Jewish men alone participated fully in Israel’s
covenant with God.5
The following passage from BT Niddah 31b expresses many of the areas
of woman’s profound otherness from man that are so central to rabbinic
thinking:

R. Isaac citing R. Ammi further stated: As soon as a male comes into the world
peace comes into the world, for it is said, “Send a gift (khar) to the ruler of the
land” (Isaiah 16:1), [and the Hebrew word for] “male” (zakhar) [is composed
of the consonants of the words for] “this is a gift” (zeh khar). R. Isaac citing
R. Ammi further stated: When a male comes into the world his provisions come
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 27

with him, [the Hebrew for] “male” (zakhar) [being composed of the consonants
for the words for], “this is provision (zeh khar),” for it is written, “And he
prepared a great provision (khera) for them” (2 Kings 6:23). [Conversely,] a
female has nothing with her, [the Hebrew for] “female” (n’kevah) implying “she
comes with nothing” (n’kiyyah ba’ah). Unless she demands her food nothing is
given to her, for it is written, “Name (nak’vah) the wages due from me and I
will pay you” (Genesis 30:28).
R. Simeon b. Yohai was asked by his disciples: Why did the Torah ordain
that a woman after childbirth should bring a sacrifice? He replied: When she is
giving birth she swears impetuously that she will never again have intercourse
with her husband. The Torah, therefore, ordained that she should bring a sacrifice
(Leviticus 12). . . . And why did the Torah ordain that in the case of giving birth
to a male [a woman may resume sexual relations with her husband] after seven
days but in the case of a female [relations may not resume until] after fourteen
days? [On the birth of] a male, with whom all rejoice, she regrets her oath after
seven days, [but on the birth of ]a female, about whom everybody is upset, she
does not regret her oath [of abstaining from sexual relations] until after fourteen
days. And why did the Torah ordain circumcision on the eighth day? In order
that the guests should not enjoy themselves while his father and mother are
not in the mood for it [since they must abstain from intercourse until the
eighth day].
It was taught: R. Meir used to say, Why did the [Oral] Torah ordain that the
uncleanness of menstruation should continue for [an additional] seven days?
Because being in constant contact with his wife [a husband might] develop a
loathing towards her. The Torah, therefore, ordained: Let her be unclean for [an
additional] seven days in order that she shall be beloved by her husband as at
the time of her first entry into the bridal chamber.

A number of themes having to do with distinctions between males and

females are raised in this sugya (passage). They include the statement that the
birth of a male excites celebration while the birth of a female is a cause for
disappointment. Males come into the world well equipped to function fully
in society and to leave progeny after them. Women come into the world with
nothing; they are dependent upon male largesse for their very survival and,
as empty vessels, they must wait for male agency in order to become bearers
of children. A male child is circumcised on the eighth day of life to the great
delight of all; indeed, on that day his parents may resume sexual relations. No
rituals await a new born daughter and, as a sign of grief at her gender, marital
relations may only resume fourteen days after her birth. Women must be
separated from their husbands during their menstrual periods, and, as rabbinic
legislation evolved, for an additional week afterward. R. Meir is credited with
the view that this enforced hiatus maintains marital romance since it prevents
the husband from finding his wife tiresome and distasteful.
28 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

The secondary status of women is accepted in this text as a fact of human

life. Sifre B’Midbar 133, an early rabbinic midrash on the Book of Numbers,
acknowledged this reality and its concomitant injustices in its discussion of
the daughters of Zelophehad, the biblical sisters of Numbers 27:1. There the
daughters argued their case and received Divine approval of their argument
that they should inherit from their father, who died without male heirs:

When the daughters of Zelophehad heard that the land of Israel was being ap-
portioned among the males of the tribes but not the females, they consulted
together as to how to make their claim. They said: The compassion of God is
not like human compassion. Human rulers favor males over females but the One
who spoke and brought the world into being is not like that. Rather, God shows
mercy to every living thing, as it says, “Who gives food to all flesh/Whose
steadfast love is eternal” (Psalm 136:24) . . . and “The sovereign is good to
all/God’s mercy is upon all God’s works” (Psalm 145:9).

In this midrash, reminiscent of Levinas’s praise of the Divine epithet, “Parent

of orphans and champion of widows” (Psalm 68:6), cited above, the daugh-
ters of Zelophehad appealed to God. They trusted that Divine mercy would
transcend the mutable norms of a human society in which women, including
widows, are subordinate beings unlikely to be treated equally by men.
In constructing women as other than men and as inferior and subordinate to
them, rabbinic Judaism was far from unique among human cultures past and
present. Yet, the men who formulated these strictures were well aware of the
dichotomy they had established between male privilege and female disem-
powerment. So much did the Rabbis understand that women were destined for
a secondary position in the ideal society they wished to establish and enforce
that they actually listed the numerous disadvantages which made women’s
lives manifestly inferior to their own. What is even more noteworthy is that
some of the Sages also felt compelled to explain and justify these exclusions
of women from the activities and prestige available to their own sex.

WOMEN’S DISADVANTAGES

This topic of female disabilities is explored in BT ‘Erubin 100b.6 The context

is a discussion of appropriate and inappropriate modes of marital sexuality,
including the impermissibility of coercing a wife to have sexual relations.
The recounting of women’s handicaps in this Talmudic passage is prompted
by the citation of the tradition that, “A woman who solicits her husband to the
[marital] obligation will have children the like of whom did not exist, even
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 29

in the generation of Moses.” This statement, which appears to praise direct

expressions of female sexuality, is challenged on the following grounds, built
in part around an exegesis of, “And to the woman He said, ‘I will greatly
multiply/Your pangs in childbearing;/In pain shall you bear children./
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,/And he shall rule over you’”
(Gen 3:16).

R. Isaac b. Abdimi stated: Eve was cursed with ten curses, since it is written:
“And to the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply’” (Gen 3:16), which
refers to the two drops of blood, one being that of menstruation and the other
to that of virginity; “Your pangs” refers to the pain of bringing up children,;
“And your travail in childbearing” refers to the pain of conception; “In pain
shall you bear children” is to be understood in its literal meaning. “Yet your
urge shall be for your husband” teaches that a woman yearns for her husband
when he is about to set out on a journey; “And he shall rule over you” teaches
that while the wife solicits with her heart the husband does so with his voice,
this being a fine trait of character among women. What was meant is that she
ingratiates herself with him [by affectionate actions].
But aren’t these only seven [of the ten]? When R. Dimi came he explained:
She is wrapped up like a mourner; banished from the company of all men; and
confined within a prison. What is meant by “banished from the company of all
men?” If it be suggested: That she is forbidden to meet a man in privacy, is
not the man also forbidden to meet a woman in privacy? The meaning rather is
that she is forbidden to marry two men. In a baraita it was taught: She grows
long hair like Lilith; sits when making water like a beast; and serves as a bol-
ster for her husband. And the other [How do these three differ from R. Dimi’s
suggestions]? These [three qualities] he holds are rather complimentary to her,
R. Hiyya having made the following statement: What is meant by the biblical
text, “Who gives us knowledge from the beasts of the earth/Makes us wise
by the birds of the sky?” (Job 35:11). “Who gives us knowledge from the
beasts of the earth” refers to the mule which kneels when it makes water, and
“Makes us wise by the birds of the sky” refers to the cock which first coaxes
and then mates.

The first seven divinely ordained afflictions for women in this passage
are based on a sequential exegesis of Genesis 3:16. True to the rabbinic
principle that scripture contains no repetitions, this Talmudic passage
demonstrates that each component of this verse has a separate meaning.
Thus, the biblical phrase “I will greatly multiply [harbeh ’arveh],” in
which forms of the Hebrew verb “to multiply” appear twice for emphasis,
is understood to refer to two female flows of blood: the blood shed at men-
struation and the blood shed at the loss of virginity. “Your pangs” is said to
refer specifically to the pain of bringing up children, and “Your travail” to
30 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

the pain suffered during pregnancy, while “In pain shall you bear children”
refers to the discomforts of labor and delivery. “Yet your urge shall be for
your husband” is said to refer to a woman’s desire for her husband when
he is away on a journey and she has no sexual partner. The seventh curse,
based on the end of Genesis 3:16, “And he shall rule over you,” is said
to mean that a woman may not speak but must ingratiate herself with her
husband by her actions when she is desirous of sexual attention. It is this
statement that answers the question that prompted this entire excursus. A
woman may solicit her husband sexually but must do so indirectly. Having
to express her needs covertly is indicative of the sexual passivity imposed
on women, certainly an undesirable condition from the male vantage point,
and hence one of Eve’s curses.
Four of these curses are directly related to what men saw as undesirable
and distasteful features of women’s bodies and their biological functions
which result in blood flow and in physical pain. The other three disabilities:
the pains of bringing up children, a woman’s frustrated sexual desires when
her husband is absent, and her enforced sexual passivity, were results of her
dependence on male mastery.
At this point, the discussion turns to the three remaining burdens which
made women’s lot so much less appealing than that apportioned to men.
According to R. Dimi, the final three curses are, “She is wrapped up like
a mourner; banished from the company of all men; and confined within a
prison.” This is a strong expression of the consequences for women of their
separation from participation in the major activities of Jewish communal
life, as well as evidence that men were fully aware of the consequences of
that deprivation.7 Even if “wrapped up like a mourner” is understood as a
straightforward reference to women’s having to veil themselves when they
appeared in public, the comparison of woman’s ordinary public state to that
of a mourner is a telling and disturbing remark of male understandings of
female isolation from life beyond domestic confines.
BT ‘Erubin 100b then goes on to debate the meaning of “banished from
the company of all men.” This curse had to be distinguished from “confined
within a prison,” the disability which immediately follows, in order to eliminate
any possibility of repetition. What differentiated these two conditions for the
rabbinic expositors was that “banished from the company of all men” was said
to refer to the fact that a woman is forbidden to be married to two men at the
same time. We see an appreciation in this sugya, as in a similar discussion
in Genesis Rabbah 17.8, of the male’s relative freedom which allowed him
sexual access to more than one woman at a time, whether with an additional
wife or wives, or unmarried women he might encounter elsewhere; patriarchal
norms, however, demanded that a wife’s fidelity be assured. The rabbinic
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 31

frequent references to women’s lack of access to a variety of sexual partners as

a disadvantage strongly implies that polygyny and/or frequent resort to women
outside of marriage were accepted and appreciated features of men’s lives in
the various times and places in which rabbinic literature was composed.
“Confined within a prison” is the ninth disability suffered by women.
Rabbinic social policy apportioned separate spheres and responsibilities to
women and men, making every effort in its blueprint for an ideal society to
contain women and their activities in the private realms of the family and its
particular concerns, including home-based economic activities which would
benefit the household. Clearly, from a male point of view, this was tantamount
to imprisonment. That men would characterize the consequences of this social
pattern for women as “confinement in a prison” is reminiscent of a statement
in Genesis Rabbah 18.1 that women’s inherent potential for common sense and
understanding atrophies because they are isolated from the rest of the world.
In fact, in her separation from the public realms of Jewish life, women’s
situation was analogous to that of other excluded and disadvantaged classes
of human beings, including minors, disabled men, male slaves, and male
gentiles. Women were associated with men perceived as lacking or damaged
in some way, or those, like minors and slaves, who were subject to a master’s
will. Such incomplete individuals could not function in the ways available
to the unblemished, free, Jewish male who shared fully in the covenantal
relationship between God and Israel. The threefold prayer, part of the daily
morning liturgy, in which a Jewish adult male expresses gratitude for not
being created a gentile, a slave, or a woman maintains these distinctions
between completeness and deficiency. Moreover, the exclusion of women
goes further. Presumably a male Jewish slave who was freed could assume the
rights and privileges of any other free Jewish male. Similarly, a male gentile
could convert, undergo circumcision, and also join the covenant community
as a spiritual equal. Jewish males who were minors became adults. A woman,
however, was condemned by the essential qualities and characteristics of
her gender to permanent restriction from fully sharing in the privileges and
responsibilities of male-defined covenantal Judaism, particularly the highly
valued communal pursuits of worship, study, and communal governance.
As this sugya from BT ‘Erubin freely admits, women were disempowered in
rabbinic society and many of their so-called “curses” result from their physical
differences from men and their being subject to menstruation, pregnancy, and
childbirth. These and similar remarks strongly support the contention that the
roots of the exclusion of women from participation in public worship, liter-
ary culture, and the communal life of their community, and their relegation to
domestic, enabling roles, were deeply embedded in rabbinic Judaism’s profound
consciousness of corporeality and its consequences. Indeed, BT ‘Erubin 100b
32 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

concludes its discussion of women’s less desirable lot with three alternate
curses derived from a baraita (a legal opinion not in the Mishnah). Two of
these curses also stress aspects of woman’s physical otherness, while the
third is simply a bald acknowledgement of the distasteful nature, from a male
perspective, of a woman’s enabling role. These disabilities are as follows: “She
grows long hair like Lilith,8 sits when making water like a beast, and serves as
a bolster for her husband.” But are these curses or benefits? R. Dimi is cited
as saying that these three qualities are compliments to women. Perhaps from
a male point of view they are: women’s long hair can be sexually attractive;
urinating in a sitting position bespeaks modesty; that she serves as a support for
her husband is certainly desirable, at least from his point of view.
R. Dimi’s statement facilitates a segue into an apparently unrelated midrashic
discourse which serves both to complete the larger Talmudic passage and
offers a last word in this sugya on rabbinic understandings of the relative
roles and capacities of women and men. The mention of the inconvenience
of women’s need to sit while making water, which evoked an exegesis of
Job 35:11 explaining what humans can learn from the animals, leads to the
following concluding remarks:

R. Johanan observed: If the Torah had not been given we could have learned
modesty from the cat, honesty from the ant, chastity from the dove, and good
manners from the cock who first coaxes and then mates. And how does he coax
his mate?—Rab Judah citing Rab replied—He tells her this: “I will buy you
a cloak that will reach to your feet” [an interpretation of the spreading of the
rooster’s wings and the bending of their tips towards the ground prior to mating].
After the event he tells her, “May the cat tear off my crest if I don’t buy you one
when I have any money.”

This praise of the rooster in BT ‘Erubin 100b who seduces his mate rather
than coercing her, fittingly ends the sugya. This passage, which began
with the statement “A man is forbidden to compel his wife to the [marital]
obligation,” ends appropriately with a commendation of gentle seduction.
This depiction of women as easily persuaded, credulous, and likely to be
deceived, moreover, not only displays a typical rabbinic blend of eroticism
and humor, but must also have reinforced male satisfaction at not being
created female.
As literary arguments like these in BT ‘Erubin establish, women are indeed
subject to disadvantages, but men are in no way culpable: all of these handicaps
were either ordained by God at the outset of the human drama or were part of
women’s punishment for disobeying divine commandments in the Garden of
Eden. For the Rabbis, the origins of female disadvantages were preordained
in woman’s very creation.
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 33

CREATED DISTINCTIONS

BT Niddah 31b, partially cited above, is one of the several places in rabbinic
literature that attributes distinctions between man and woman to differences
in their modes of coming into being. The sugya ends as follows:

R. Dostai son of R. Jannai was asked by his disciples: Why does a man go in
search of a woman and no woman goes in search of a man? This is analogous
to the case of a man who lost something. Who goes in search of what? He who
lost a thing [his rib] goes in search of what he lost. And why does the man lie
face downwards [during sexual intercourse] and woman face upwards towards
the man? He [faces the elements] from which he was created and she [faces
the man] from whom she was created. And why is a man easily pacified and a
woman is not easily pacified? He [derives his nature] from the place from which
he was created and [she derives hers] from the place from which she was cre-
ated. Why is a woman’s voice sweet and a man’s voice is not sweet? He [derives
his] from the place from which he was created and she [derives hers] from the
place from which she was created. Thus it is said, “Let me hear your voice;/
For your voice is sweet/And your face is comely” (Song of Songs 2:14).9

This final section of this passage suggests that the preferred position for
sexual intercourse is that in which the man, on top, looks towards his origins
in the earth (i.e., to the cosmic substance from which God created him)
while the woman, facing upward, looks toward the man from whose body
she was created. Men communicate directly with God and the cosmos while
women experience that relationship only vicariously, if at all, through their
subordinate relationship to their husbands. Moreover, because woman was
created from a bone, which can be used as a musical instrument, her voice is
described here as sweet. A woman’s sweet voice can be as much of a sexual
incitement as her physical beauty and BT. Niddah 31b concludes with a
proof text from Song of Songs which evokes the pleasant and the problematic
aspects of woman’s sexual attractiveness to men, both of which play significant
roles in rabbinic constructions of the feminine.
As BT Niddah 31b makes clear, the essential differences between male and
female, and therefore the rationale for their separate status and roles in Jewish
life, have their origin in human creation. Although the subsequent behavior of
the first woman in convincing her husband to disobey God’s commandments
(Gen 2–3) further justified women’s lesser opportunities, rabbinic interpre-
tation explains that the ultimate source of women’s secondary status is not
human whim but was the Divine intention from the moment of her creation.
The initial chapters of Genesis relate two separate versions of the creation
of men and women. In the first account, contained within the cosmology of
34 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

Genesis 1–2:4, unnamed human creatures, male and female, are simultane-
ously created by God’s word, in the divine image and likeness (Gen 1:26–27),
as the ultimate act of six days of creation. These creatures, and it is never
stated explicitly that there are only two, are blessed by God and instructed,
“Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of
the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth”
(Gen 1:28). In this sophisticated theological narrative, the creation of human
beings, both female and male, as uniquely sentient among other living things
and as dominant over all other creatures, signifies the climax of God’s creation
of “Heaven and earth and all their array” (2:1).
The second and quite different narrative, attributed to the so-called Yahwist
writer, describes how the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the earth
and animated him with the breath of life (Gen 2:7), even before vegetation
had appeared on the earth. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden and placed
the man in the garden to tend it. At this point, the Lord God noticed the man’s
solitary state and, proposing to make a “fitting helper for him” (Gen 2:18),
formed all the beasts and birds out of the earth. Although the man gave these
new creatures names, no appropriate partner was found among them and the
man remains solitary until he is cast into a deep sleep. While he sleeps the
Lord God takes one of the man’s ribs and fashions it into a woman and brings
her to the man (Gen 2:21–22).
Adam proclaims this female being to be “Bone of my bones and flesh of
my flesh/This one shall be called woman, for from man was she taken”
(Gen 2:23). Here the biblical redactor editorializes, “Hence a man leaves
his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one
flesh” (Gen 2:24). Although Adam names his companion “woman,” he does
not give his “fitting helper” a personal name until after the episode of human
disobedience that leads to the expulsion from the garden. Only after assum-
ing the mortal burden of a life characterized by frustration and suffering,
does Adam name his wife Eve. In a folk etymology, the biblical author
connects the name Eve (Havvah) with the word for life (hai), explaining,
“The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the
living” (Gen 3:20).
Modern scholarship suggests that these stories were probably seen as com-
plementary rather than contradictory since each account provided information
about God, God’s creatures, and the nature of the human condition absent in
the other. The effort to merge them into one seamless whole is made overt
when the redactor summarizes the origins of the first human family at Genesis
5:1–2: “This is the record of Adam’s line./When God created humanity
He made it in the likeness of God; male and female He created them. And
when they were created, He blessed them and called them “adam.”
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 35

Rabbinic exegetical principles did not accept the possibility of either repetition
or contradiction in divine revelation; thus, the male and female created in the
Divine image in Genesis 1 were obviously the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2:4–3,
and their later actions are referred back to the circumstances of their origins.
Similarly, rabbinic readers understood Adam and Eve to be married; thus, rabbinic
comments on the nature of the first woman also reflect broader rabbinic views
on the roles and status of women as wives. Nevertheless, questions about the
details of human creation remained and had to be dealt with. The Sages won-
dered particularly whether both men and women were created simultaneously in
the divine image, or if woman was a later and essentially lesser creation. Genesis
Rabbah 8.1 addressed the quandary over simultaneous creation in its discussion
of “And God said: Let us make humanity” (Gen 1:26):

R. Jeremiah b. Leazar said: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the first
’adam, He created it with both male and female sexual organs as it is written,
“Male and female He created them, and He called their name ’adam”
(Gen 5:2). R. Shmuel bar Nachman said, “When the Holy One, blessed be He,
created the first ’adam, He created him with two faces, then split him and made
him two backs—a back for each side. To this it is objected: But it is written,
“He took one of his ribs (mi-tzalotav)” (Gen 2:21) [a reference to the second
biblical story of the creation of woman from the man’s body]. He replied, [“One
of his ribs” means] one of his sides, as you read [in an analogy from the similar
use of the same word elsewhere], “And for the other side wall (tzel’a) of the
Tabernacle” (Exod 26:20).

This comment, based on exegeses of Psalm 139:5, offers explanations for

the apparent contradictions in the biblical accounts of the origins of man and
woman. R. Jeremiah b. Leazar suggests that God created one entity with both
male and female genitalia. However, in this vision of a primal androgyne,
which imagines human male and female sexual characteristics as originating
in one simultaneous creation, the primary being is still constructed as male.
Only afterwards, as R. Shmuel bar Nachman elaborates, did God separate the
female “side” from the male entity to create a new and independent being. In
these interpretations, both biblical versions of human creation are accounted
for, while any possibility of imagining an initial female creation separate from
the original man is obviated. The idea of an essentially male being with male
and female characteristics is the closest the Rabbis came to acknowledging
the simultaneous and co-equal creation of man and woman described in
Genesis 1:26, and even this view is a decidedly minority opinion.10
Rather, most rabbinic voices assume that the initial human creation was a
solitary male. BT. Ketubbot 8a states categorically,
36 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

No. The whole world agrees that there was only one formation [and it was
of man alone], [but they differ in this:] one holds that we go according to the
[divine] intention [which had been to simultaneously create two human beings,
man and woman] and the other holds that we go according to the fact [only man
was created and woman was later created out of him]. [This is the import] of
that statement of Rab Judah [who] asked: It is written, “And God created man
in his own image” (Gen 1:27), and it is written “Male and female He created
them” (Gen 5:2). How is this [to be understood?] [In this way]: In the beginning
it was the intention [of God] to create two [human beings in the divine image],
and in the end [only] one was created.

Establishing that the first human creation was male was absolutely essential
to rabbinic Judaism’s conviction that men were created in the Divine image,
with all the implications of potency, dominance, and generativity which
followed from this analogy. The secondary nature of woman’s creation from
man’s rib affirmed her subordinate position in marriage, reproduction, and in
the public aspects of rabbinic society.
Genesis Rabbah 17.4 confirms women’s inferior nature in a discussion of
Adam’s naming of the animals (Gen 2:19–20):

Said he, “Every one has a partner, yet I have none”: Thus, “But for Adam no
fitting helper was found” (Gen 2:20). And why did He not create her for him
at the beginning? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, foresaw that [Adam]
would bring charges against her [for tempting him into disobedience in the
Garden of Eden], therefore God did not create her until he expressly demanded
her. But as soon as Adam did so, forthwith “So the Lord God cast a deep sleep
upon the man , and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the
flesh at that spot” (Gen 2:21).

In this account, even Divine foreknowledge of future female failings cannot

produce an improved product. Instead, God simply delays the inevitable. The
rabbinic conundrum is explicit: women are essential for human survival and
for human completeness, yet it was clear from the start that their potential for
upsetting the cosmos would be a perpetual concern.
In an extended midrashic excursus on the second version of creation,
Genesis Rabbah 18.2 points out the ways in which women are inherently
flawed:

R. Joshua of Siknin said in R. Levi’s name: Vayyiben (“And He built” [Gen

2:22]) is written, signifying that He considered well (hitbonnen) from what part
to create her. Said He: “I will not create her from [Adam’s] head, lest she be
swelled-headed; nor from the eye, lest she be a coquette; nor from the ear, lest
she be an eavesdropper; nor from the mouth, lest she be a gossip; nor from the
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 37

heart, lest she be prone to jealousy; nor from the hand, lest she be light-fingered;
nor from the foot, lest she be a gadabout; but from the modest part of man, for
even when he stands naked, that part is covered.” And as He created each limb
He ordered her, “Be a modest woman.” Yet in spite of all this “You spurned all
my advice,/And would not hear my rebuke” (Prov 1:25). I did not create her
from the head, yet she is swelled-headed, as it is written, “Because the daugh-
ters of Zion/Are so vain/And walk with heads thrown back “(Isa 3:16); nor
from the eye, yet she is a coquette: “With roving eyes “(Isa 3:16); nor from
the ear, yet she is an eavesdropper: “Sarah was listening at the entrance of
the tent” (Gen 18:10); nor from the heart, yet she is prone to jealousy: “Rachel
became envious of her sister” (Gen 30:1); nor from the hand yet she is light-
fingered: “And Rachel stole her father’s household gods” (Gen 31:19); nor
from the foot, yet she is a gadabout: “Now Dinah . . . went out to visit the
daughters of the land” (Gen 34:1).

In this literal excursus on the construction of the female body, God is

described as attempting to build a woman who would personify what the
framers of rabbinic Judaism believed to be ideal female qualities of humility,
sexual modesty, domesticity, discretion, and passivity. However, despite
the best divine intentions, woman, once built, possessed a profusion of unde-
sirable characteristics. Apparently something inherent in the very essence of the
female prohibited the elimination of undesirable traits.11
Indeed, this passage returns us to where we began: women as a separate
people (BT Shabbat 62a). That statement appears in a technical discussion
of M. Shabbat 6:3 about what jewelry a woman may wear on the Sabbath.
The Mishnah differentiates between acceptable ornaments and objects which
are considered burdens. The Talmudic discussion begins with the ruling of
the sage ‘Ulla that whatever applies to a woman in this particular instance
does not apply to a man, and vice versa. R. Joseph concludes from this that
“‘Ulla holds that women are a separate people,” or as the phrase is some-
times translated, “women are a nation unto themselves.” Emphasizing the
inherent sexual unreliability of the female, as opposed to the steadiness of
the male, the sugya ultimately progresses from whether women may wear
perfume flasks on the Sabbath to perfumed women who indulge in a variety
of vulgar and sexually immoral behaviors. The passage graphically details
the unpleasant physical afflictions such immodest women will receive as
punishment and ends with a description of the sexual coarseness of the men
of Jerusalem immediately prior to the destruction of the city. The message
of this passage is clear: perfumed women seduced men into ever greater
degrees of sexual immorality and the result was ruination. Women are
indeed “a separate people” and men must strictly limit their converse and
contacts with them.
38 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

WHY READ TALMUD IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY?

The Rabbis adapted the legal and ethical teachings of the Hebrew Bible to
their own circumstances and attitudes, but always with the conviction that
they were proceeding with Divine authority. The traditions they established
about the inappropriateness of women’s presence in the communal domains
of worship, study, and leadership were continued, with few exceptions, in
medieval and early modern Judaism. They persist in some Jewish com-
munities up to the present day. Although the patriarchal approach toward
women that is typical of rabbinic traditions was never unique to Judaism,
the consequences of these attitudes were long lasting in stifling female
intellectual achievement, spiritual empowerment, and leadership roles in
Jewish life. From the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, one
might well inquire why Talmudic literature, which is so often problematic
and even unpleasant on the topic of women, should continue to be read and
taught?
I would answer that the complex and many faceted Talmud, and the larger
body of Jewish rabbinic literature of which it is a part, constitutes a rich and
enduring component of the Jewish heritage. Talmudic teachings and legislation
united and sustained Jewish life and identity across immense distances for
well over a thousand years. All contemporary forms of Jewish religious life
are constructed on the foundation of rabbinic Judaism.
The Talmud is also a central guide to the ways in which Jews read the
Hebrew Bible. The Rabbis and later interpreters were profoundly immersed
in biblical literature and had considered deeply its wide range of mean-
ings and possible applications. The many dimensions they read into and
out of the biblical text over the centuries have shaped the course of Jewish
intellectual and spiritual history—and continue to amaze and enlighten us
today. Moreover, rabbinic interpretive ingenuity always allowed for cre-
ative legal responses to changing realities in Jewish social, economic, and
political life. Contemporary feminist interpreters of Jewish texts have used
these methods and the flexibility of the midrashic tradition to reconstruct
and tease out new images of women from the Jewish past and to justify
contemporary transformations in women’s religious practice. In doing so,
they have played a leading role in bringing about positive modifications
in women’s status in Judaism and in the larger world, and in enlarging
women’s access to Jewish learning.
In the twenty-first century, we also read the Talmud in an historical context,
as an edited anthology of religious texts that reflects a variety of eras and geo-
graphical settings. In many of these times and places, women were decidedly
secondary members of human society, and it is not surprising that we find
 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion 39

reflections of such social attitudes in rabbinic writings. However, close read-

ers of the Talmud are also able to find alternate voices. While the majority of
halakhic and aggadic teachings in the Talmud tended to limit female preroga-
tives and women’s range of social options, differing and less restrictive points
of view were also preserved.12 These minority voices indicate that at certain
moments in the Jewish past, particular Rabbis may have resisted dominant
views on topics pertaining to female qualities and religious opportunities and
may have imagined an alternative reality in which women were more than
bolsters to their husbands.
Such richness of opinions and alternatives is the essential characteristic of
this astonishing liferary production that continues to engage us through its
completeness and its endless possibilities.

ENDNOTES

1. Emmanuel Levinas, “The Nations and the Presence of Israel: From the
Tractate Pesahim 118b,” in In the Time of the Nations, trans. Michael B. Smith
(Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1994), 108. I have emended Levinas’s
words to read “human beings” rather the original “men,” just as I read the first segment
of Genesis 1:27 as “and God created human beings in God’s image.”
2. See, for example, Judith R. Baskin, Midrashic Women: Formations of the
Feminine in Rabbinic Literature (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2002);
idem, “Jewish Women in the Middle Ages,” in Jewish Women in Historical Per-
spective 2nd Edition, ed. Judith R. Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1998); idem, “The Changing Role of the Woman,” in Modern Judaism: An Oxford
Guide, ed. Nicholas de Lange and Miri Freud-Kandel (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004), 389–400.
3. On Rachel, see Baskin, Midrashic Women, 101–103; and Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours
are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill Aca-
demic Publishers, 1997).
4. Baskin, Midrashic Women, 31–32, 109–114, 140–154.
5. For discussion of the context in which this statement appears, see below, p. 35.
6. Similar enumerations appear in Genesis Rabbah 17.8 and Abot d’Rabbi
Nathan B 9; see Baskin, Midrashic Women, 65–87.
7. Genesis Rabbah 17:8 connects women’s wearing of veils with their shame at
bringing death into the world; see Baskin, Midrashic Women, 68–71.
8. The reference here is to lilith, a night spirit common in ancient Near Eastern
folklore who is said to seduce men and harm children. Rebecca Lesses, “Exe(o)rcising
Power: Women as Sorceresses, Exorcists, and Demonesses in Babylonian Jewish
Society of Late Antiquity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69, 2
(2001), writes, 358, that “the demonic image of the lilith’s long, flowing, and disheveled
hair [on incantation bowls from Sassanian Babylonia] may shed some light on the
40 Female Alterity and Divine Compassion

significance of women’s uncovered hair in rabbinic literature.” She suggests that

this statement in BT. ‘Erubin 100b “connects women’s demonic and bestial nature
to their sexual subordination to men.” On the figure of Lilith in later Jewish folklore,
see Baskin, Midrashic Women, 58–60.
9. See parallel passage in Genesis Rabbah 17:8; see Baskin, Midrashic Women,
33–64.
10. For further discussion of this aggadic midrash on the androgyne and its
significance in rabbinic Judaism, see Baskin, Midrashic Women, 60–64; and Daniel
Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993), 42–46.
11. A similar passage appears in Genesis Rabbah 45:5, in which women are said to
be greedy, eavesdroppers, slothful, envious, talkative, prone to steal, and gadabouts,
with many of the same proof texts.
12. For discussion of alternate traditions, see Judith Hauptman, Rereading the
Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice (Radical Traditions) (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).
 Ancient Voices
Jane Kanarek

BEGINNING TALMUD

It is my junior year at Brown University, and a group of my friends are

sitting in the sukkah trying to decide which tractate of Talmud they will
study together this year. Berakhot, they conclude, and bring out a few copies.
Although I am a complete beginner, having just started to study Hebrew
again after years of neglect, they invite me to join them. Appropriately
enough, they begin from the beginning, the first mishnah in the first trac-
tate of the Talmud. “From when does one recite the evening Shema? From
the time that the priests enter to eat terumah [the priestly offering] until the
end of the first watch—the words of Rabbi Eliezer. And the sages say: until
midnight. Rabban Gamliel says: until the dawn rises.” Because it is Shabbat
and we cannot write, my friends start to move glasses around the table in
order to explain the various divisions of time to me. I am captivated by this
ancient world of the Talmud and join the group every Shabbat afternoon for
the rest of that year. My senior year, we again meet, and now we study the
first chapter of tractate Pesahim.
But what is it that captivates me about Talmud study? Why am I drawn
into this foreign and difficult world? Part of my attraction is simply the
mystique of the Talmud. This is a book that I have heard talked about since
I was a child, something that has somehow defined us as Jews. It is a book
that I never imagined I would be able to read, but now here are my friends
telling me that I can. It is a beautiful book, with its main column of text sur-
rounded by yet more words, and I am a lover of beautiful books. It is also the
most difficult intellectual challenge I have ever faced; I know that reading
and understanding it will not come easily. Most importantly, it is an ancient

41
42 Ancient Voices

book, and I love the challenge of taking the ancient and combining it with the
modern, seeing where that dialogue will lead. Within all this mystique is also
hidden the idea that being able to read Talmud gives a Jew power. If I can
learn how to study Talmud well, I will have a deep voice within the Jewish
world.
But my attraction to Talmud does not stem only from its mystique and
potential power. As I begin to study Talmud, I have also begun to read widely
in modern Jewish thought and theology as well as feminist theory, Jewish and
general. Part of studying Talmud is trying to understand how I want to live
as a Jew. I believe that the Talmud grounds who we are, so that it can help
me to understand what it means to live as a Jew. Talmud study, then, is con-
nected to my increasing observance of Jewish practice—of Shabbat, Torah
study, the dietary laws, tallit, and tefillin. If I am to learn what it means to live
as a Jew, I want to enter into this ancient world to hear these shaping voices
of our tradition.

SPIRITUAL CHALLENGES

Much as I want to enter into this ancient world of the Talmud, I also face
it with some trepidation and anger. The Talmud will become not only an
intellectual challenge, but also a deep spiritual challenge. I ask myself, what
does it mean to study Talmud as a woman? What does it mean to study
this literature which contains the names of so few women? What would it
mean to immerse myself in a literature which can matter-of-factly discuss
the status of a three-year-old girl’s virginity or how a woman is acquired in
marriage? Most basically, I consider what it means to study a literature that
was not written for me—and often even forbidden to me. I consider why,
despite these hesitations, I may nonetheless want to place the Talmud at the
center of my Judaism. So I continue on with my journey into the Talmud,
spending a year studying at Matan, an Orthodox women’s yeshiva in Jeru-
salem and then on to rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America. I see more pages of Talmud along with many medieval and
modern commentators. But I still get angry at some of my teachers and the
text because I am not able to answer my questions. I have not yet found my
voice in the text. Even more importantly, I am not at all satisfied with my
ability to learn a page of Talmud. Perhaps this is why I have not been able
to find my voice.
So a year after I finish rabbinical school, I return to full-time study of Tal-
mud and Jewish law. I go to the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and sit and
learn. There are no shortcuts to learning how to learn. I simply have to sit in one
 Ancient Voices 43

place and read these texts, slowly and painstakingly. I want to understand the
twists and turns of the arguments, and I want the various voices on the page to
become coherent and distinguishable, one from another. Now I am strict with
myself, trying to separate the various layers of the text one from the other. I try
to internalize more of the methodology of academic Talmud which recognizes
the Talmud as a layered and edited book. I no longer see sugyot as the record-
ings of contemporaneous discussions of the ancient Beit Midrash (Study Hall).
Instead, they are constructed arguments and narratives, voices that are made
to speak with each other across generations and so build an ideology. In these
different voices, if we look closely enough, we can see the development of
religious ideologies and the process of forming Jewish law. I also choose to
study a tractate that I know will not touch on too many of the issues that make
me angry. Masekhet Shabbat is perfect, allowing me to examine and under-
stand the practice of Shabbat while permitting me to bracket temporarily my
questions about women’s voices. I will return to my questions and my anger,
but this pause allows me to do what I most want to do: learn how to learn.

A STEP FURTHER

After this year of intense Talmud study in Jerusalem, I feel that I am finally
learning how to analyze a sugya—to break a dense piece of Talmud into its
component parts and then to build those parts up once again into a bigger
picture. While I know that I am not done, that mastering Talmud will be a
lifelong journey, I also know that the words are no longer a blur on the page.
Instead, that column down the middle of the page has started to open itself up
to me. I see clearly now the earlier voices of the tannaim and the later voices
of the amoraim and then the editorial voice weaving among them. Best of all,
as I gain these skills, studying Talmud becomes more of a joy. I discover that
the sense of the Talmud’s mystique that kept me learning is beginning to be
rewarded. Equally important, I realize that Talmud study has become central
to my Judaism. Through it, I have a sense of the Divine, perhaps sometimes
even of God’s voice. Talmud study, much more than daily ritual prayer, is
where I approach God.
I begin a doctoral program at the University of Chicago. There I will
continue to study rabbinic literature, Talmud and Midrash, as well as legal
theory. My love of personal study of Talmud has become even more deeply
bound with my professional life. As the page opens before me, I find myself
drawn more into this ancient world, watching the formation of rabbinic
Judaism. I would love to meet some of characters from the Talmud’s pages:
Yalta, Abaye, Rava, and many others. I also love teaching others how to read
44 Ancient Voices

a page of Talmud, giving them the tools through which they too can access a
page. While I realize that learning Talmud is never easy, I still believe there
are ways in which I can make it less frustrating for others. I try to demystify
the page for my students and at the same time keep a sense of Talmud as a
sacred text. I want to help others acquire the ability to consider the core text
of our tradition for themselves, to begin to think more closely about how we
have gotten to the Judaism we practice today.

FINDING MY VOICE

While writing my dissertation, I start teaching at the rabbinical school of

Hebrew College. I am assigned to teach a Talmud course that focuses on rab-
binic Judaism and gender. My teaching task forces me to return to questions
that I have bracketed for a number of years. What does it mean to study this
text that can talk about women in dehumanizing ways? What does it mean
to call it sacred? I choose to teach the first chapter of tractate Kiddushin,
a chapter that focuses on procedures for betrothal, and I realize that now
I do have ways to respond to these questions. While our printed Talmud
is composed of certain words written on a page, those words certainly do
not end the discussion. As I now well know, the Talmud is a multivalent,
multilayered text. My task is to look for these multiple ideologies, to search
for the fault lines in the text—where a sugya reveals the issues with which
it struggles.
For example, M. Kiddushin 1:1 states, “A woman can be acquired in three
ways and acquires herself in two ways. She is acquired by money, document,
or sexual intercourse.” The very language of this mishnah is problematic:
“acquiring” (kinyan) is language that is used to describe the purchase of land
and slaves. Is betrothing, or acquiring, a woman similar to buying land?1 The
opening sugya (B. Kiddushin 2a—b) reflects this tension when it asks for the
Biblical source of the mishnah’s law that a woman can be acquired by money.
The sugya presents two different options, both based on the hermeneutical
technique of gezerah shavah, a comparison between equals. One option utilizes
proof-texts from the story of Abraham’s purchasing the cave of Makhpelah
to bury his wife Sarah (Genesis 23:13; 25:10). The other uses a verse from
the prophet Jeremiah, “Fields shall be acquired for money” (Jeremiah
32:44). On the one hand, both examples extrapolate from buying land to
betrothal. On the other, these two options emphasize very different types of
purchases. The example of Makhpelah comes from a marriage narrative, the
story of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage. Admittedly, the narrative is from
after Sarah’s death, but it is still a tale of a husband ensuring his wife’s proper
 Ancient Voices 45

burial. While Jeremiah 32:44 does come from a narrative of God’s promise of
everlasting covenant, it does not derive from a narrative of human marriage. It
describes the way in which fields will once again be purchased as part of the
restoration of Israel’s fortunes. Jeremiah 32:44 emphasizes the purchase of
land; Makhpelah emphasizes a husband’s securing a proper burial for his wife.
The choice of proof-texts reflects a fault line that continues through this sugya,
a fault line which addresses the question of the similarity between betrothal and
land purchase. As we can ask the question—to what extent is marriage like land
purchase—so too we can see this sugya confronting the same question.
Equally powerful as this tension within the Talmud is the continuing
conversation that takes place among the medievals and the moderns about
this sugya.2 They too deal with this fault line about the similarity between
betrothal and land purchase. They too represent multiple voices and ideologies.
I see how the medieval Tosafists have the ability to transform the meaning of
a Talmudic passage so that I can no longer read it the way I had once thought.
Because the Talmud is a living text, a text continuously studied and a text
still relevant for Jewish practice, the conversation will not end with the page
of Talmud itself or even with the medievals or even with the moderns. I find
room for my own voice within this chorus and understand that these words
do contain sacredness. But I believe that this sacredness lies not only in the
words on the Talmud page but also in the ongoing conversation about those
words and their meanings. I find sacredness in opening myself to letting
the text talk to me, in acknowledging that the ancients represented on the
page have much to teach me—as I also have something to teach them. I locate
myself firmly within this group of ancients, medievals, and moderns; then I
try to teach my students that they too, by learning how to read this text and
its commentaries, can place their voices inside this textual tradition. Yes, the
Talmud can dehumanize women, but I can stand within a long chain of com-
mentators who have countered such dehumanizing statements. If Yalta, living
sometime in the 3rd century C.E., can voice her opinion of her exclusion from
ritual by breaking four hundred wine barrels,3 surely I can do so by learning
how to include myself. By reading Talmud, I claim it as mine.

ANCIENT VOICES

In the 21st century, why should we take this journey into Talmud? It is not an
easy book to learn how to read. But I do believe that it is an essential one. First,
along with the Tanakh, the Talmud is the foundational book of Jewish culture.
Without it, we would not have the rabbinic Judaism that is practiced today.
Second, it is an ancient book. Studying the ancient has the potential to teach
46 Ancient Voices

us humility, to realize that those who lived long before us have something to
teach us about how to live—how to worship God, conduct business, construct
criminal law, observe the Sabbath, fast on the Day of Atonement, marry,
and mourn for the dead. Studying ancient legal debates and ancient stories
reminds us that we are not the first to construct a system of compensation
for physical injury or to try to understand how human beings were created.4
Studying the ancient not only trains our minds; it brings us into a different
world that has the ability to challenge us to consider more closely why we act
and believe as we do today. It brings the ancient and the contemporary into
close dialogue with one another, encouraging the ancient to speak to us as
we speak back to it. It reminds us that not everything has to be of immediate
relevance. Studying Talmud acts as a constant reminder that I am part of a
long, rich tradition that is thick with meaning.
Third, it is important for us to know and think about why we live as the
kinds of Jews we do. Learning Talmud provides us with unmediated access
into our history. Studying a sugya is very different from receiving a sound bite
about Judaism; it is being absorbed into the very process of Judaism’s con-
struction. Fourth, there is joy in mastering a difficult task, in investing the time
it takes to do so. There is joy in listening to voices that are both foreign and
still ours. There is joy in finding Talmud study to be a form of prayer. There
is joy in finding a good hevruta, a study partner, who enables me to see things
that I could not on my own. There is joy in becoming part of a chain of people
who have studied Talmud before me. Studying Talmud is a Jewish practice.
Fifth, studying Talmud enables me to find my voice as a Jew and to help me
articulate a vision for Jewish life—it gives me power. It gives me an anchor
from which to consider the world in which I now live. It gives me a place to
get angry and a place to mend my anger. It gives me a multiplicity of voices
and opinions and a constant intellectual challenge. Through its laws, stories,
and debates, it gives me a window into the past and thus a better understand-
ing of the present. Most of all, the Talmud gives me a place to be a Jew.
Really, I would study Talmud in any century.

ENDNOTES

1. Rabbinic marriage consists of two stages: betrothal (kiddushin/`erusin) and

marriage (nissu`in/huppah). This mishnah discusses the first stage of marriage,
betrothal.
2. See, for example, Tosafot to B. Kiddushin 2a, s.v. ve-kesef menalan.
3. B. Berakhot 51b.
4. See M. Bava Kamma 8:1 and B. Berakhot 61a.
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice
Devora Steinmetz

“Why study Talmud?” is a question that I think about often. I think about it
because of my role as a teacher of Talmud—why is this subject worthy of
the time that students must devote to it in order to become even marginally
competent beginning learners? I think about it, too, because of the time that
I spend on its study—and I have thought about it especially over the past
few years as I have adopted, in addition to my regular study of Talmud, the
practice of daf yomi study. And I think about it, also, as a parent who has
introduced my own children to the study of Talmud and who hopes that my
children will find it interesting, important, and engaging while being aware
that the language, form, and content of this text pose formidable obstacles
to the development of the kind of engagement into which I wish to see my
children grow.
The question “Why study Talmud?” can mean different things. It can mean
“Why should Talmud study be a part of every Jewish person’s education”—
that is, why is it important for any Jew, in order to be considered an educated
Jew, to have been introduced at some point in his or her life to the study of
Talmud? Or it could mean “Why should Talmud study continue to be a—or
even the—central component of the Jewish studies curriculum”—or should
Talmud study continue to have this pride of place in traditional educational
settings, whether high schools, yeshivot, or even rabbinical schools? Both of
these are important questions, and I have thought long and hard about each of
them. Certainly, one could argue that Talmud study is essential in order for
a person to be literate in Judaism’s foundational texts, in order for a person
to be able to engage in discourse about halakha, and in order for a person
to understand the dynamic nature of traditional Jewish ideas, interpretation,
and practice. But I have decided to limit my discussion here to a third possible

47
48 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

understanding of the question “Why study Talmud?” The question that I

would like to address is this: “Why should Talmud study be a component of
the ongoing religious practice that shapes a person’s Jewish life?”
In other words, I am not looking at knowledge of Talmud as something
that one must acquire as part of one’s education or at intensive Talmud study
as something that one might engage in as a central component of part of
one’s formal educational trajectory. Rather, I am looking at Talmud study as
a practice that, along with other traditional practices, contributes toward the
shaping of a particular kind of Jewish life, and I want to offer some thoughts-
in-progress on ways in which the regular practice of Talmud study can be part
of the ongoing formation of the person who incorporates this practice into
his or her life. These thoughts are in progress because, as with any practice
(or relationship) to which one is committed and in which one continues to
engage over the course of a long time, the meaning of the practice continues
to shift and grow as one changes and grows through the experiences of a
lifetime. These thoughts are also very personal, as I am well aware that they
are mediated by my own dispositions and experiences as well as by my own
particular history in relation to Talmud study. And they are also culturally
contingent, as I know well that, at least in relation to some of the domains that
I will mention, certain kinds of Talmud study can lead to the exact opposite
attributes and dispositions of those that I will discuss here.
Nevertheless, I hope that the thoughts that follow might resonate with
some of the readers of this volume and help give shape to some of their own
thoughts about the place of Talmud study in their lives and the kind of
Talmud study in which they might want to engage. I make no attempt here to
be comprehensive in my response to “Why study Talmud,” even in relation
to the specific way in which I have chosen to construe the question, but will
focus my discussion on several elements that I have been thinking about over
the past few years of reflecting on this question in relation to my teaching, my
own life, and my aspirations for my children.

*****
This is not the way of the Talmud [—to construe a teaching in a way that leads
to its rejection]— for they . . . put themselves in pledge to resolve the statements
of their teachers.1 (Nachmanides, Sefer Milchamot to bSanhedrin 72a)

In this passage, the Ramban (Nachmanides) describes his understanding

of one of the central commitments of Talmudic discourse. The Ramban is
reflecting on a common move in Talmudic argumentation, one that begin-
ning students of Talmud often find maddeningly unreasonable or perhaps
even disturbingly disingenuous. An amora’s2 statement, students quickly
come to learn, cannot contradict a ruling of a tanna.3 But when an amora
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 49

makes a statement that seems to be contradicted by a tannaitic ruling, the

statement is rarely refuted. Rather, the Talmud employs a variety of strate-
gies to defend the amora’s statement—distinguishing his case from the
case referred to in the tannaitic ruling, so that there is no longer a conflict
between the rulings; demonstrating that the tannaitic ruling is in fact dis-
puted by other tannaitic sages, so that the amora has a tannaitic position
that supports him; or, most extreme, at times changing our understanding
of the tannaitic statement by asserting that one must read additional words
into the statement in order to understand its true intent. While, at worst, this
can seem like a game that no one would want to play or like a dissimula-
tion in which no one should want to engage, the Ramban understands this
core element of Talmudic discourse to embody an underlying ethic. In fact,
it represents a commitment that motivates the Ramban’s own life work as
a commentator on both rabbinic and biblical texts and as a respondent to
scholars who preceded him and who he felt too easily dismissed the ideas
of those who came before.4
The core commitment of Talmudic discourse to which the Ramban is
pointing in the quotation above is, as Gadamer says in a rather different
context, to “try to understand how what he [the author] is saying could
be right.”5 That doesn’t mean that what the person says is right; it means
that our encounter with a text, or with a statement of the greats who came
before us—or, by extension, with the words of the person who sits next to
us—demands of us that we try to make sense of it, that we experiment with
ways of seeing whether it might be plausible, whether it might have some-
thing to teach us despite seeming at first glance to be wrong or irrelevant or
out of sync with the way we see the world. What the Ramban is suggesting
is that Talmudic reasoning offers us practice in a practice—not, it must
be emphasized, in the habit of playing mind games or in parking our good
judgment by declaring all positions to be equally plausible or valid, but in
the practice of seeing whether there is a way in which we can understand
the words of the other on the way to developing our own best understand-
ing, an understanding which may, in the end, not accept the position of the
other but which will, nevertheless, be informed by our encounter with that
position.
Implicated in this practice is the development of what I would call virtues
(or midot): in particular the virtues of generosity and humility, along with
the virtues of courage and integrity. It is a practice that develops generosity
because it refuses too readily to dismiss what at first glance appears to be
wrong or in conflict with our beliefs. We are obligated, as participants in this
discourse, to try to figure out how the person whose words we are reading
could be right—and it sometimes takes much effort (“we put ourselves in
pledge”) to suspend quick judgment and try to see the value and wisdom of
50 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

the point of view being expressed. It also takes humility—the humility not to
assume that I immediately understand the intent of the other and can judge it
at face value, the humility to think that the other might have an insight that is
not immediately apparent to me.
These virtues are both intellectual and moral dispositions. The challenge
posed by Talmudic discourse is the challenge of seeing the opposing point of
view in its best light—to see how what the other is saying could be possible—
but yet, importantly, never to confuse whether it is possible with whether it
is plausible or convincing. I am asked to engage the other point of view with
generosity and humility while sticking to what, ultimately, seems to me to be
right—and that is where the courage and integrity come in. As the Ramban
says in his introduction to Sefer Milchamot, in Talmudic discourse there is
generally no solid proof of what is right; there are only good arguments, and
ultimately we must use our good judgment to determine what is most plau-
sible, what we should believe in, and what we should act upon. This, he says,
is the goal of every wise and God-fearing person in the study of Talmud. And
the practice of Talmud study can, at its best, inspire us to strive to infuse these
same commitments into the way we lead our lives—into how we encounter
others with whom we disagree or others who make us uncomfortable, into
how we decide what we ought to believe, and into how we deliberate what to
do and to which paths we ought to commit ourselves.
*****
He said to him [Rabbi Yitzchaq to Rav Nachman]: “Thus said Rabbi Yochanan:
‘Our father Jacob did not die.’”
He [Rav Nachman] said to him: “But was it for naught that the eulogizers
eulogized him and the embalmers embalmed him and the buriers buried him?!”
He [Rabbi Yitzchaq] said to him: “I am expounding [doresh] scripture, as it
says: ‘But you, do not fear, my servant Jacob, says the Lord, and do not dread,
Israel, for I will deliver you from afar and your descendants from the land of
their captivity’ (Jeremiah 30:10)—[the verse] compares him [Jacob] and his
descendants: just as his descendants live, so he lives.” (bTa’anit 5b)

The Talmud is a universe inhabited by people, practices, beliefs, events,

and ways of life—in short, it is a rich, thick cultural universe, a universe that
is both ours and different from the one in which we live. For Rabbi Yitzchaq,
our ancestor Jacob is not a person who lived in the past or a character in an
ancient story. Jacob is alive—he must be, because we, his descendants, are
alive. Jacob lives in our experience of him as our father, as a real person
whom we know and in whose life we are implicated.
Rabbi Yitzchaq’s statement offers a challenge to the modern learner of
traditional texts: Do we approach these texts as artifacts of an ancient culture,
a culture that lived in the past but is dead to us, or do we experience these
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 51

texts as living worlds, as embodying a universe that is alive for us, a universe
in which we too live—in which the figures of the past and we ourselves live
together (“just as we live, so they live”)?
There are, of course, many methods of studying Talmud. Different meth-
ods not only ask different kinds of questions and use different kinds of tools
in the attempt to arrive at answers; they also construct (and are constructed
by) different kinds of relationships between the learner and the text. While a
modern (or postmodern) learner of traditional texts willy-nilly recognizes the
tremendous cultural differences between herself and the world from which
the text emerged, that recognition does not necessarily dictate approaching
the text as an artifact of a world that was embalmed and buried. Engaging in
Talmud study as a regular practice offers an alternative experience, the invi-
tation to participate in a world in which we get to know not only our father
Jacob but the heros and anti-heros of our rabbinic past, Rabbi Akiva and
Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Meir and Elisha
ben Avuya, Beruria and Ima Shalom, Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Laqish
and Rav Huna and Rav Ada bar Ahava and Raba and Rav Yosef and Abaye
and Rava. For people who study Talmud regularly, the stories and figures
of rabbinic tradition construct a universe of shared memory and meaning, a
world of experience in which we participate, a lived frame of reference that
enriches our own lives and that gives thickness to our identity as Jews.
The characters that fill the pages of rabbinic texts, like those that inhabit
our biblical texts, constitute a mythic world.6 It is just such a world that the
authors of the Zohar entered into and expanded when they chose to follow
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his troupe of disciples into the hills of Galilee
in search of new understandings of ancient texts. Dor dor vedorshav7—every
generation has its seekers, and our search for meaning and for understanding
becomes a shared search across place and time, a search shared with others
whose names we know and whose struggles we share (as well as with oth-
ers whose names have been forgotten but whose struggles were just as real),
when we choose to enter the mythic world of our traditional teachers. Rabbi
Yitzchaq’s derasha brought the biblical Jacob to life; our study brings Jacob
as well as Rabbi Yitzchaq to life. Talmud study challenges us to do this,
and it invites us to participate in the thick mythic universe of those who are
doresh, who bring the past to life, and who continue to live as future genera-
tions choose to join their life journeys with the journeys of those who came
before.

*****
Things that are spoken [shebe’al peh], you may not put into writing.
(bGitin 60b)
Make for yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a companion. (mAvot 1:6)
52 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

Talmud, like other rabbinic texts, is inherently a spoken medium. Although

we read these texts nowadays from a printed book, they were meant to be
studied orally and continued to be studied that way long after they were put
into written form. The oral nature of a text has many implications, and
the insistence that the text be transmitted and encountered in oral form can be
explained in many ways. I want to discuss just one important feature of the
essentially oral nature of the study of rabbinic texts.
As Walter Ong points out in his classic book Orality and Literacy,8 the
act of reading a book is essentially a private act. The reader encounters the
text in isolation from others, construing the meaning of what she reads in a
private meeting between herself and the words that the author has decided
will appear on the printed page. An encounter with an oral text, in contrast,
always involves the mediating presence of another. At the very least, one’s
first encounter with an oral text involves a teacher, a person who has already
committed the text to memory and who recites the text in your presence until
you have assimilated it yourself. The presence of that teacher shatters the pos-
sibility of an initial private encounter between the person and the text. Even if
the teacher says nothing other than the words of the text, the encounter with
the text is always, at one and the same time, an encounter with an other. And
that encounter with the other, the experience of transmission and the experience
of relationship between teacher and learner—an experience that takes place at
a particular time and in a particular setting—constitutes an inseparable part
of the experience of the text. Most likely, and perhaps inevitably, the teacher
will also mediate the meaning of the text, minimally through the tone, into-
nation, and affect that color the recitation, and maximally through explicit
explanations, interpretations, and contextualizations of the text that is being
transmitted. And, commonly, the encounter with an oral text would involve
others besides the individual student and the teacher, most probably a small
or large group of students who together are learning the text from the teacher
who serves to mediate the tradition. Learning an oral text, then, is always
an interpersonal experience; the relationship with the text develops along
with the relationship with others, with a teacher and with companions who
together seek to assimilate and understand what is being learned.9
While we now access the Talmud and other rabbinic texts from printed
books, there are many ways in which these texts retain qualities of an oral
medium. For one thing, the Talmud in particular is so opaque a text, in
language, in the formulaic way in which arguments are structured, and in the
thickness of references to a range of concepts and a network of other texts
and traditions, that it virtually demands a teacher to initiate the beginning
student into its world and the method of its study. And, even when students
no longer need a teacher to help them make beginning sense of the Talmudic
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 53

text, students traditionally (and, increasingly, in less-traditional settings) have

studied Talmud with a chavruta, a learning companion. This practice, one
could argue, is an extension of the mediated nature of rabbinic text study. It
is also continuous with the nature of Talmudic texts themselves, which, it is
often pointed out, are inherently dialogical. Much of the text of the Talmud
is cast as an actual dialogue, as questions are raised and answers are offered,
challenged, and defended and as the opinions of different sages are positioned
in relation to each other and in relation to the positions of those who came
before. The printed form of Talmudic texts extends the dialogue beyond the
words of the Talmud itself and gives visual form to the dialogical nature of
these texts, as it includes on the page the interpretations and discussions of
Rashi and Tosafot and a variety of other commentaries from different places
and times as well as cross-references to other rabbinic texts and to halakhic
codifications of the legal material under discussion. Thus, even the lone
student who no longer studies regularly with a teacher and who does not
study together with a chavruta experiences Talmud study as participation in
a conversation, a conversation that takes place over huge spans of time and
space and that continues to live in the experience of the present, even when
you open your volume of Talmud at home over coffee in the early morning
when it is not yet light out and everyone else is still asleep.
Talmud study as participation in a conversation relates to both of the elements
of Talmud study that I have discussed already: the development of virtues
that are essential for understanding and for commitment to action, and the
joining of one’s own search for meaning and one’s own lived experience as
a Jew in the mythic world of other Jews who have participated in this search.
But I want to focus here on an additional aspect of torah shebe‘al peh as
mediated Torah, as Torah that lives in conversation with a teacher and with
a companion, as Torah that takes the shape of a conversation and that invites
one to join that conversation. The dialogical nature of torah shebe‘al peh
reminds us that Torah is never disembodied; the Talmud’s existence as and in
conversation reminds us that Torah is always the expression of an encounter,
an encounter between me and the text, an encounter between me and others,
an encounter of each person’s reality with the reality of others and with the
words and worlds of the text.
This brings me to another quality of rabbinic texts as unwritten texts—the
idea that torah shebe‘al peh is essentially unbounded by the margins of the
page or the covers of the book. Torah shebe‘al peh reminds us both that
Torah is greater than any one person’s understanding and that Torah is com-
prised of each person’s understanding. As a text mediated in encounter, the
Talmud reminds us that no two moments of talmud torah can ever be the
same, because no two people are the same, and because no two moments
54 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

of life are ever the same. Thus, Torah can live and grow only in encounters
of different people across time and in encounters of the same person across
time with Torah. That is why Torah study must be a regular practice, and
why Talmud study is an essential part of that practice. That is why we seek
to study Talmud with others, and why we recognize that our understanding
of Torah is enriched by our encounters with others, as our encounters with
others are enriched when we study Torah with them. That is why we celebrate
the completion of study of a tractate of Talmud with the words “we will
return to you and you will return to us.” Study of torah shebe‘al peh reminds
us that the trueness of our study of Torah must be measured in relation to the
fullness of our engagement with the reality in which we live and the realities
of the others whom we encounter.
*****
Study is great(er), for study leads to action. (bKidushin 40b)

I am sitting in the library of Hebrew University on the morning after Israel

released arch-murderer Sami Kuntar and other terrorists in return for Eldad
Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, two Israeli reservists who were captured by
Hezbollah two summers ago and whose fate was only known for certain when
images of two black coffins being handed across the border appeared on TV
screens across Israel. I saw these images yesterday morning when I went to buy
a cup of coffee in the cafeteria after giving my last shiur of the year on tractate
Ta‘anit, on the way to continue studying in the beit midrash along with others,
students and faculty, who have been learning this tractate throughout the year
in Havruta, a program of Talmud study for Hebrew University students.
The day before, in a different shiur, I taught the last section of the tractate, a
section that discusses the celebration of Tu be’Av and which lists a number of
events that explain why this day is a happy day, a yom tov. All of the events, I
note along with my students, are not actually happy events in and of themselves;
what they are, rather, is the cessation of something bad that has been going on,
a return to normalcy. One of the things that happened on this day, according
to the Babylonian Talmud, is that the people who were killed at Betar, in the
devastating revolt against the Romans under Bar Kokhba, were allowed to be
buried. It is this same event, says the Talmud, that generated the final blessing
that we say in birkat hamazon, the blessing hatov vehametiv—“who is good
and who does good.”10 We couldn’t help but take note of the resonance of
this teaching, of the event that it discusses and of the human experience that it
reflects, with the events that were unfolding at that very moment.
The image on the TV screen the next morning shifted from the two coffins to
a rabbi who had just emerged from the house of one of the bereaved families.
Reporters crowded around to ask for reflections on what the families were
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 55

experiencing, on the meaning of the events for the mourners and for the
nation as a whole. Searching for a way to express the complex tangle of raw
emotions, the rabbi quoted the Talmudic teaching: “on the day that the people
killed at Betar were allowed to be buried, they enacted in Yavneh ‘who is
good and does good.’”
The agreement that Israel made for the return of Regev and Goldwasser,
or Eldad and Udi, as they are called here, in a country where every soldier is
still everyone’s son, was tremendously controversial and has been and will
probably continue to be hotly debated. Some think that it represents Israel
at its best—we take care of our sons, even if the most that that can mean is
bringing them home for burial. Others think that it is a disastrous capitulation
to enemies who will use it to build up their capacity for terror and who will
be increasingly motivated to kidnap Israelis and to raise their “price” for the
return of captives, whether they are alive or dead.
Let me say upfront that, while I have my own strongly held opinions
about this matter, I do not think that classical Jewish sources generally
have unequivocal answers to difficult and complex questions such as this.
Nor do I want to suggest that someone who is steeped in Jewish learning
is necessarily better able to resolve such a question than anyone else.
Nevertheless, I do think that the practice of Talmud study has a potential
contribution to make to the development of the kind of person who I think
might best be entrusted with the difficult task of making hard decisions
such as this one.
I learned the passage about the enactment of the blessing hatov vehametiv
as a young child. It puzzled me then, as it still does now, and things that
puzzle have the tendency to remain in one’s consciousness, as the mind is
drawn to dissonance and to engagement in the attempt to resolve it. But there
is another passage that I learned as a child, and it too puzzled me then, not
because I couldn’t understand it, but because it made all too much sense from
one perspective while it seemed quite impossible from a different perspective.
The Mishna says that, if a Jew is taken captive and the captors demand an
exorbitant ransom, it is forbidded to ransom that person—this is one of the
rulings that was enacted for the sake of tikun olam.11 The gemara and com-
mentaries discuss the policy issues that are at stake here, primary among them
the concern that ransoming the captive in such a case will motivate further
acts of kidnapping. The Mishna’s teaching makes perfect sense from a policy
perspective, but it is a very different thing to imagine putting this teaching
into practice in the case of an actual person, with a name and a face and a
family, whose fate is in your hands. And, not surprisingly, this difficulty
surfaces in the gemara and commentaries, which immediately bring into
discussion situations in which individuals did ransom family members or others
at exorbitantly high prices. Did they do the right thing or did they not, and is it
56 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

different if it is a family member who is acting as a private person rather than

the community that is being called upon to act? The student of Talmud is used
to deliberating on such questions and bringing to bear a range of important
variables that might affect the decision in any given case, though of course
deliberation on questions that appear in texts, no matter how complex those
questions are, is worlds apart from deliberating on a real-life situation such
as the one that confronted Israel in the past weeks.
Much Talmud study, especially as it has traditionally focused on the
legal discussions that make up most of the Talmud, obscures the face of
the individual person in favor of complex discussion of general principles
of law and their application to particular hypothetical situations. This can
be terribly problematic if it characterizes the totality of one’s practice, but
I want to suggest that, as one element of a practice, it can be a very useful
thing. What this element of Talmud study does is make deliberation on
action a religious act. It is a religious practice to think about, deliberate on,
and argue about how one must act in a variety of complex circumstances.
And, ideally, the habit of deliberation gives one practice in thinking hard
and clearly about complex circumstances that will arise not in the pages of
a book but in real life.
As part of a practice, learning to reason with cold facts and general principles
can make a crucial contribution to one’s ability to make good decisions in
bad situations and to act on those decisions, no matter how difficult that
might be. This ability to reason, I want to emphasize, must be shaped and
mediated by the elements of the practice of Talmud study that I have dis-
cussed already. The process of deliberation must be guided by the virtues of
humility and generosity along with integrity and courage—allowing oneself
to be fully confronted by the point of view of the other and demanding of
oneself to follow what, in the end, seems most reasonable and most right. In
addition, deliberation cannot ignore the lived experience of the people who
will be affected by the decision that one will make and the action that one
will take; participation in the conversation of torah shebe‘al peh reminds
us that Torah only can live if it speaks to the particular experience of our
reality and the reality of the individuals around us. And our deliberation
and, importantly, the way in which we give meaning to our experiences and
to the reality to which our deliberations are addressed, is shaped as well by
our participation in a mythic world, a world in which our current situation
is a unique instance of an ongoing lived experience, in which the still-living
events of Betar and Yavneh give depth and resonance to the particularity of
our own situation. None of these elements of Talmud study, to be sure, tells
us what to decide, but it is possible that the interplay of these elements of
a rich, regular practice of Talmud study might help us become people who
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 57

know how to decide. And one crucial element of Talmud study is the regular
habit of deliberation on action, and the experience of such deliberation as
itself a religious practice.
Of course, thankfully, we are not confronted with decisions such as the
one concerning the kidnapped soldiers every day. But we are confronted
with much more mundane kinds of decisions about the way we live our lives
every single day. It is not that Talmudic (or later halakhic) sources offer
clear-cut answers to most of the questions that everday choices present to us,
though they may offer valuable guidance. But I do think that the deliberation
on action that is a part of Talmud study can help us be the kind of people
who are disposed to reflect on the choices that we make and take note of the
consequences of what we do. Deliberation on action as a religious practice,
the habit of noticing and of thinking about choices and the implications of
different courses of action, just might help us become more disciplined, more
thoughtful, and more deliberate in the way we approach even the most
mundane choices that confront us in our daily lives.

*****
It was taught—Rabbi Akiva said: One time, I followed Rabbi Yehoshua into the
bathroom, and I learned from him three things. . . . Ben Azai said to him: You were
this brazen with your master?! He said to him: It is Torah, and I need to learn.
It was taught—Ben Azai said: One time, I followed Rabbi Akiva into the bath-
room, and I learned from him three things. . . . Rabbi Yehuda said: You were this
brazen with your master?! He said to him: It is Torah, and I need to learn.
Rav Kahana went and lay down under the bed of Rav. . . . He said to him:
Kahana, are you here?! Go away, for this is not proper. He said to him: It is
Torah, and I need to learn. (bBerakhot 62a)

The conception of Torah that is reflected in this passage is a broad one

indeed. It is a Torah that encompasses all of life—even how one goes to the
bathroom and how one sleeps with one’s spouse. It is a Torah that one learns
from people, not only from texts, and it is a Torah that is learned not only
from what people say but from what people do, what they do in the course of
the day-to-day living of their lives.
Rabbi Akiva and Rav Kahana insist that Torah relates to all aspects of life,
and this insistence is reflected in the very nature of the Talmud. The Talmud
is an encyclopedic repository of law, interpretation, argument, stories,
teachings, and folk beliefs. Its very comprehensiveness reminds us that we
should adopt a broad conception of Torah, that no part of life is excluded
from Torah—that Torah must speak to all aspects of life, and that all aspects
of a life lived well constitute Torah.
58 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

Rav Huna said to his son Raba: “Why aren’t you regularly in the presence of
Rav Chisda, whose teachings are sharp?”
He [Raba] said to him: “Why should I go to him? For when I go to him, he
teaches me mundane things. He says to me: ‘A person who goes to the bathroom
shouldn’t sit down forcefully and shouldn’t strain himself too much, for the
rectum rests on three “teeth,” lest the “teeth” of the rectum become dislodged
and the person become endangered.’”
He [Rav Huna] said to him: “He engages with the lives of human beings, and
you say with ‘mundane things’?! Certainly, then, you should go to him!”12

Rav Huna criticizes his son for not recognizing the importance of Rav
Chisda’s teachings about life. For Raba, these are mundane things, they are not
Torah, and they are certainly not sharp teachings, the kind of brilliant insights
that might lead one to choose to align oneself with a particular teacher. For
Rav Huna, Raba has completely missed the point; if he thinks that teachings
that sustain life are mere mundane matters, then he does not understand Torah
at all. Raba must become a disciple of Rav Chisda to learn this very thing—not
only to learn the specific teachings that Rav Chisda has to offer but to learn
that teachings that sustain life are the Torah that he should be seeking.
Engagement in Talmud study, in its very comprehensiveness and with its
variety of topics and genres, is an experience of searching for knowledge and
understanding. As a practice of talmud torah, it makes the point that the search
for knowledge, knowledge of all kinds and knowledge of all kinds of things, is
a religious act. Curiosity and the desire to understand are religious dispositions,
as the desire to learn how to act well is a religious aspiration. To learners who
live in a time and culture far removed from the culture(s) that generated the
Talmud, much of the content of the Talmud cannot satisfy our quest to under-
stand—we don’t really believe in demons and spells or in the folk remedies that
Abaye learned from his foster mother or the dream interpretations collected in
the final chapter of tractate Berakhot. But the fact that our teachers sought to
understand the forces that threatened them, the illnesses that befell them, and the
dreams that haunted them, and the fact that their understandings are included as
part and parcel of Talmudic texts, speaks powerfully to what it means to learn
Torah and to the religious nature of the act of seeking to understand.
But beyond expressing and cultivating the value of the search for knowledge
and understanding, I think that there is additional benefit in encountering the
sometimes strange and often distant or unfamiliar content of Talmudic texts.
Encountering a world different from my own challenges me in several ways.
First, if I am to seek to understand, which, as I discussed earlier, is a moral
and intellectual challenge that I feel is central to the practice of Talmud study,
then I have to work hard on developing ways of looking at things that can
help make the strange familiar and the distant close. A corollary of this is the
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 59

very useful exercise of seeking to make the familiar strange—that is, looking
at my own beliefs and ways of life, at the givens of my own culture, and asking
in what ways they are embedded in beliefs that might be just as irrational as
the beliefs of distant cultures seem to me. All cultures, as anthropologists are
quick to remind us, have ways of structuring experience to keep dangers at
bay and to impose order and give meaning to the chaos that is our lives. Our
own practices of handwashing after contact with certain things but not with
others, our sense of which bodily fluids are contaminating and which are not,
our choices of where and when we feel safe and what places we avoid at what
times, the “five-second rule” and its many variations—all of these may have
some basis in science or in fact but they are largely shaped and sustained
by a set of beliefs that we might imagine are scientific and rational but that
in actuality are ways of trying to convince ourselves that we are safe in an
unsafe world. Confronting a culture with different beliefs and practices helps
us be able to take a step back from our own cultural beliefs and practices and
recognize the contingent nature of many taken-for-granted aspects of our
own way of life—including, perhaps, some of our deeply held contemporary
values. What Peter Berger says about “religious faith” is perhaps even truer
about immersion in the thick culture of rabbinic texts: it “is one powerful
help in maintaining a reasonable distance from the ever-changing intellectual
fashions of elite culture.”13
At the same time, this making of the familiar strange helps make the
strangeness of the other more familiar, offering us a way to experience an
affinity with the search for understanding, meaning, and order that shapes
the lives of others—and that infuses rabbinic texts—as well as our own lives.
The practice of Talmud study demands an intellectual leap of the imagination.
I need to be able to imagine a world in which priests wading ankle-deep in
sacrificial blood is a praiseworthy thing.14 What different ways of seeing
the world and of experiencing the world am I missing, and how can I try to
access these other modes of experience and meaning-making? The attempt to
do this puts me in empathic communion with Jews who came before, even as I
recognize that the life that I lead and the meaning structure that I inhabit are
not the same as theirs. It forces me into a place of humility about the ultimate
validity or value of my way of life, and it asks me to reflect on and imagine
with generosity the value of alternative ways of life, ways of life that still
live in the mythic universe of the Talmud, a universe that still lives for me.
And it asks me, as well, to reflect on and to imagine what is missing from my
own way of being in the world. To quote Peter Berger again, “Our ancestors
didn’t know about particle physics, but they spoke with angels.”15 We do
know about particle physics, but it is important to remember that we know
less than we think we know about the things that we do know about, and it
60 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

is also important to remember that, like Berger’s angels, there are things that
we know nothing about and that learning Talmud asks us to imagine and
experience.

*****

On that day Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hurqanos taught (darash): It was out of love
that Job served the Blessed Holy One, as it says: “Though he slay me, in him
(lo16) I trust.” (Job 13:15) But the meaning is ambiguous—I do look to him, or I
do not look to him? Another verse clarifies this: “Until I expire, I will not cast off
my integrity from myself” (Job 27:5)—this teaches that he acted out of love.
Rabbi Yehoshua [ben Chanania] said: Who will remove the dust from your
eyes, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai! For you taught (doresh) all of your days that
it was out of fear that Job served the Omnipresent, as it says: “A man of integrity
and upright, fearing God and keeping from evil.” (Job 1:8) And behold Yehoshua
the student of your student has taught that he acted out of love! (mSotah 5:5)

The Talmud is the central text of what David Hartman calls Judaism’s
“interpretive tradition.” This is so not only because the Talmud is full of inter-
pretations, interpretations of biblical verses as well as of rabbinic teachings,
but because the Talmud is a celebration of interpretation and an invitation
for ongoing interpretation. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanania, an important and
beloved sage who is the student of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, the mythic
founder of post-destruction rabbinic scholasticism, and the teacher of Rabbi
Akiva, the paradigmatic rabbinic hero and master of interpretive creativity,
delights in the new teaching of the more junior sage, Rabbi Yehoshua ben
Hurqenos. But more, he is convinced that his own teacher, the great Rabban
Yochanan ben Zakai, would himself be delighted to hear the teaching of Rabbi
Yehoshua—and this despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Rabban
Yochanan ben Zakai taught the very opposite interpretation of the biblical
story of Job. If only Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai could come to life now, his
understanding would be enriched by the new insight of this young scholar—
and, moreover, he would see that the tradition of interpretation that he sought
to establish and nurture in the wake of the destruction continues to flourish.
Earlier, I discussed the dialogical nature of torah shebe‘al peh in relation to
the notion of encounter, of learning Torah as mediated by the presence of the
other and as responsible to the reality of the other and of oneself. I want now
to focus on the nature of torah shebe‘al peh as a web of interconnected texts
and traditions—a masekhet or “weaving,” as a tractate of Talmud is called—a
web that continues to invite us to weave it through our own understandings
and interpretations. For Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanania, the younger Rabbi
Yehoshua’s new interpretation is not a violation of the honor or authority of
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 61

the master teacher Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai. On the contrary, it is the
greatest tribute to the life and work of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai. Rabbi
Yehoshua ben Hurqenos has continued to search the depths of the texts
to whose understanding Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai devoted himself.
He has applied exegetical strategies to try to resolve difficult questions of
interpretation. And he has come up with a new understanding that, Rabbi
Yehoshua ben Chanania is certain, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai would
surely want to know.
There is a tremendous continuity here, but it is a continuity that is grounded in
individuality, in difference, and in change. And it is a continuity in which each
person has a crucial role to play, because each person who engages in Torah
study has the capacity to grow Torah, to enter into and add to the web of inter-
pretation and understanding that constitutes torah shebe‘al peh. My obligation to
learn Torah, then, is not complete if I only learn the insights and interpretations
of those who came before. Torah shebe‘al peh demands that I actively participate
in the growth of Torah, that I enact my commitment to Torah and to my teachers,
present and past, by doing exactly what they have taught me to do—to interpret
as they have interpreted, to seek to understand and, in so doing, to help offer new
understandings that themselves become a part of the infinity of Torah.
And, it is important to note, studying Talmud reminds us that our tradition
is an interpretive one that has been shaped and continues to be shaped by the
new insights and understandings of different people in different situations.
Talmud study brings to our awareness the dynamic nature of our tradition, the
ways in which practices and understandings develop and change over time as
individuals and communities engage in complex interactions with the texts
and traditions of the past.

*****
A certain heretic saw Rava engrossed in study, and he had put his fingers under
his leg, and he was crushing them, and his fingers were bleeding.
He [the heretic] said to him: “You rash people who put your mouth before
your ears17—you still persist in your rashness! First, you should listen—if you
are able to, accept it, and if not, do not accept it.”
He [Rava] said to him: “We who walk in wholeness, of us it is written: ‘The in-
tegrity of the upright shall guide them’ (Proverbs 11:3).” (bShabbat 88a–88b)

The final dimension of the practice of regular Talmud study that I would like
to discuss might appear to stand in tension with the point that I have just made
about the nature of the practice as active participation in the interpretive tradition,
though I believe that both elements of the practice live together in the experience
of those who make Talmud study a regular part of their religious practice.
62 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

The practice of regular Talmud study—and in particular a practice such as

daf yomi or any regular study of a continuous Talmudic text—is a little like a
marriage. I commit myself to being with this person, and I commit myself out
of love, but there might be mornings when I would prefer to wake up alone or
moments when things about my spouse bother me and when I would prefer
not to have to deal with the totality of my spouse’s presence in my life. But
marriage is a covenant, a commitment born of love and sustained by love, and
that commitment means that I have to confront and live with the whole of the
person whom I love—I don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the person
make me feel good and ignore the parts with which I struggle.
Rava is struggling with the passage that he is learning. We don’t know whether
he is struggling because it is a particularly difficult text or whether he is strug-
gling because he finds the teaching impossible to accept at face value. We only
know that his struggle is so intense that he does not feel the physical pain of his
fingers being crushed—or, perhaps, that his very body experiences the pressure
and the pain of his attempt to understand the Torah that he is learning—Rava’s
practice of talmud torah makes him bleed! Why bother, asks the gentile. Why
not reject Torah if it includes things that you cannot accept? Or, perhaps, why
not choose in advance what you can accept and reject what you can’t? But, says
Rava, that is impossible, because we walk in wholeness. Rashi explains: “We
walk with him in wholeness of heart, as one does out of love . . .”
One can, of course, study Talmud by picking and choosing (or having
someone else pick and choose for you) the parts that are meaningful, inter-
esting, relevant, and accessible. But a regular practice of Talmud study—in
particular, a practice such as daf yomi, in which you commit to completing
the study of every single page of the Talmud over the course of seven years
of continuous study—puts you face-to-face with parts of the Talmud that,
sometimes, you would rather not have seen. There are, as I already men-
tioned, passages that reflect folk beliefs that we simply do not accept, such as
how to protect yourself from the demons that roam outside on certain nights
of the week. There is, also, a huge amount of material about things to which
we might find it difficult to relate, such as the details of the laws of sacrifices
and the rules of purity. And, of course, there are passages and entire tractates
that reflect values and viewpoints that we might find antithetical to our core
beliefs, such as much of the Talmud’s discussion of women or of marriage
and divorce. Moreover, apart from the content, parts of the Talmud are just
plain extremely difficult to understand—why should we bother?
As the earlier sections of this essay show, I think that there are many reasons
we should bother. But here I want to focus on what it means to bother, on
what it means, as a religious practice, to wake up each morning ready to hear
what the Talmud has to say, without prejudging whether we can accept it and
without prechoosing what we are ready to hear.
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 63

Regular Talmud study is an expression of—or, better, an enactment of—a

relationship. The relationship with Torah is a covenantal relationship; like a
marriage, it too is a commitment born of love and sustained by love. And, as
in a marriage, in my relationship with Torah I must open myself to what is
there; I must be ready to encounter the presence of the other, the totality of the
other as it presents itself to me each day. I cannot choose what face the other
will show me; I cannot choose the parts of Torah that I will find meaningful
or interesting or with which I will resonate. Sometimes I will encounter things
that trouble or upset me, sometimes things that I cannot affirm, but I am
nevertheless in relationship with the whole, and the relationship is expressed
in my openness to encountering the whole.
The experience of struggle—Rava’s sitting on his fingers until they
bleed—the very experience of making an effort, of taking the time and trouble
to try to understand, and sometimes the experience of pain—is an integral
part of the construction and maintenance of the relationship with Torah. This
is not to say that there aren’t moments of joy, of discovery, of engagement,
even of revelation, but a full relationship means relating to the whole, being
open to the whole, and it is in the openness to whatever I might find and the
effort that I put into trying to understand that I enact and experience the depth
of my commitment to and love of Torah.
The practice of regular study is, in a way, similar to the practice of regular
prayer. In both, I set time aside for an encounter and for the expression of a
commitment. But study is different from prayer—or at least from the ways
in which most of us experience prayer—in that in study I must open myself
to the voice of the other. The aspect of study of which I am speaking here is
also different from the dimension of study of which I spoke in the preceding
section—a study characterized by chidush, by adding one’s own voice to the
interpretive tradition, by challenging what came before, by joining in the
conversation of Torah. These modes of study, or experiences of study, com-
plement each other. I join my voice to the ongoing conversation of Torah, and
I also open myself to the voice that Torah presents to me. I am doresh Torah,
and I am meqabel Torah. It is in both the listening and the speaking that my
relationship to Torah and to the learners of Torah is realized and sustained.

*****
“As in water face to face, so the heart of a person to a person.” (Proverbs
27:19)
Rashi: Like water, at which a person gazes and sees in it a face like his face—if
he is smiling, it is smiling, and if he is frowning, it is frowning—so the heart of a
person to another person—if he loves the other, he too loves him. . . .
64 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

Rabbi Yehuda [says]: That is written concerning Torah study. (bYevamot

117a)
As I noted in the introduction to this essay, the list of dimensions of Talmud
study that I discuss here is, no doubt, highly personal. It reflects my own
values, my own concerns, my own understanding of Judaism, and my own
orientation toward learning. But it also emerges from deep and long-standing
reflection on the question of why study Talmud and, in particular, on what
dispositions a practice of Talmud study might nurture in its students.
I am all too aware that Talmud study can nurture very different dispositions,
and that it often does. Learning how to argue every side of an issue, how to
defend every point of view, can teach one to suspend one’s good judgment, to
argue based on logical possibility rather than on plausibility and good sense.
Or it can lead one to the laissez-faire conclusion that any result is all right as
long as you’ve played by the rules of the game. We can learn to be wise-guys
rather than wise and good people.
Engagement in the mythic universe of the Talmud can lead one to confuse
that world with the world in which we live, to obliterate the differences in
culture and values between those two worlds, rather than challenge ourselves
to struggle with what those differences mean for our choices and for our
religious consciousness. Or, as I’ve already noted, awareness of the differences
can lead us to declare that other world dead and buried, an interesting artifact
of a historic past rather than a living universe that we inhabit along with our
own. We can continue to see the distant as strange, or even conclude that it
is stranger than we ever imagined it to be, and complacently affirm our own
intellectual and moral superiority over those who came before.
We can so fully enter into the conversation on the Talmudic page that we
forget that conversation is an encounter and that Talmudic conversation must
include the encounter with others around us and with the reality in which
we live. Or we can so fully engage with the reality in which we live that we
confuse that reality as constituting the whole of the truth of Torah and miss
the opportunity to be instructed and challenged by our conversation partners
of long ago.
We can get so used to debating hypothetical situations and general principles
of law that we become overconfident of our ability to address complex and
difficult real-world situations. We can imagine that, somehow, the person
who is expert in Talmud is expert in life.
We can become so enchanted with the notion of our own participation
in the interpretive tradition that we neglect to ground our thinking and our
decisions in the voices of the past. And we can become so willing to open
ourselves to the voices of the past that we forget that we are obligated to add
our own voices to the conversation of Torah.
 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice 65

So my discussion of the dimensions of a practice of Talmud study is really

a reflection on what Talmud study can mean for those who adopt it as part of
their religious practice, not on what it necessarily does mean or has meant.
Of course, much of this depends on one’s values and dispositions and on
those of one’s teachers and study companions. How one approaches the act
of study, what one looks for and what one hopes to find, is a matter of choice.
The discussion that I have offered here is a window into some of the choices
that I have made, into the values and dispositions that shape my own life, that
sustain and are sustained by my own practice of study. It is one way of think-
ing about how one might approach the practice of study and how a practice of
Talmud study might contribute to the shaping of a religious life and to one’s
aspirations as a Jew.

ENDNOTES

1. I have offered here a simplified version of this quotation. Here is a fuller version
of the Ramban’s statement: This is not the way of the Talmud [—to construe a teach-
ing in a way that leads to its rejection]—for they subtract from and add to amoraic
statements [in order to make them plausible] and they declare tannaitic sources to
be missing [material that renders the meaning of the statement different] or to be
faulty [so that it no longer serves as a refutation of the amoraic sage’s position] and
they put themselves in pledge to resolve the statements of their teachers.
2. An amora is a sage of the Talmudic, post-mishnaic period.
3. A tanna is a sage of the mishnaic period.
4. See, for example, the Ramban’s commentary on Maimonides’ Sefer Hamitzvot,
in which he defends the traditions of the geonim, his Sefer Milchamot, in which he
defends the rulings of the Rif against the attacks of R. Zerachia Halevi, and his
commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he frequently attempts to show how a rab-
binic interpretation can be sustained in light of the plain meaning of the biblical text
(for one example, see the commentary on Exodus 22:6).
5. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London and New York: Continuum,
2004), 292.
6. By “mythic,” I mean relating to foundational stories, events, or experiences that
transcend time, that tell of the distant past but that continue to live in the present, and
that resonate with meanings that accrue over time as individuals and communities
identify with the reality of the story.
7. bSanhedrin 38b.
8. Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London
and New York: Routledge, 2002), 128; see also pp. 100–102.
9. For a striking description and insightful discussion of an example of contem-
porary oral transmission of texts, in a culture that is not characterized by what Ong
66 Talmud Study as a Religious Practice

calls “primary orality” and in which the texts have long been available in written
form, see Georges B. J. Dreyfus, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education
of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: The University of
California Press, 2003), especially pp. 85–87, 150–152, 154–157, and 160–163.
Martin S. Jaffee discusses the relationship between torah shebe‘al peh and disciple-
ship in Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism,
200 BCE–400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
10. bTaanit 31a, bBerakhot 48b.
11. mGitin 4:6.
12. bShabbat 82a.
13. Peter Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (New
York: Anchor, 1993), 66.
14. bZevachim 35a.
15. A Far Glory, 13.
16. This word, depending on the spelling, can mean “to/for him” or “not”; the
two possible meanings of the phrase, depending on how this word is read, will be
explicated in a moment.
17. I.e., who commit to action before hearing what is being demanded, an inter-
pretation of the Israelite’s declaration at Mount Sinai “We will do and we will hear”
(Exodus 24:7).
 An Opened Book: Talmud Study
by Women in the 21st Century
Devorah Zlochower

When I was a little girl, I had two secret wishes. The first was to play
in the Major Leagues and the second was to study Gemara. We called it
Gemara and not Talmud and it was definitely the Major Leagues. Boys in
my community began studying Gemara in the 6th grade, and it was the only
subject they studied in high school. Men learned Gemara as well. There was
a kollel in town that ran a daf yomi shiur where the men of the community
could study a page of Gemara everyday. The goal of intellectually gifted and
religiously minded males in my community was to devote themselves to the
study of Gemara.
Girls did not study Gemara and did not play baseball. At recess we played
dodgeball and kickball, and in our Jewish studies we learned Chumash
(Bible) and Navi (Prophets). When I asked my teachers why we did not study
Gemara they usually responded that men’s and women’s brains were different
and men’s were more suitable for Gemara study. When pressed, my rebbeim
would say that women were gifted with bina (practical knowledge) and not
hokhma (analytical knowledge) and were thus unable to plumb the depths of
a sugya (Talmudic discussion). Being brighter than many of my male peers, I
thought that explanation untenable but I did not stand up in protest.
And so I became a secret student of Talmud. When my father purchased a
set of mishnayot with the highly accessible commentary by Pinchas Kehati,
I began studying the order of Nezikin on my own. But it was much harder to
sneak a Gemara. They were large, heavy tomes often hidden in plain view
behind glass doors. I did a project on women in the Talmud during my junior
year of high school and glanced at a few pages, getting permission to remove
some volumes. And I convinced my father to study the beginning of Bava
Metzia with me. But for the most part, the Gemara remained a closed book.

67
68 An Opened Book: Talmud Study by Women in the 21st Century

When I began my university studies, I redirected my intellectual curiosity

to the study of political science, and because of some wonderful mentors in
university I began to pursue graduate studies in political science. I discovered
that there were arenas in which my intellectual curiosity was respected.
I remained a religiously observant Jew but my intellectual passions were
ignited by the secular world; Torah moved to the back burner and I did little
other than review the weekly Torah portion.
While political science was intellectually satisfying it did not provide the
spiritual sustenance I needed. I could not decouple intellect from religious
passion; I had been trained too well in my yeshiva days. I longed for “learning,”
not just studying. After three and a half years of graduate school, I took a
leave of absence and entered the Fellowship Program at Drisha Institute.
At Drisha I began to immerse myself in the study of Gemara. We learned
Gemara every morning for three and a half hours. My seat in the beit midrash
(study hall) was right in front of the tall bookcase holding the volumes of
Gemara and there were no glass doors. These volumes were meant to be
studied; some had broken bindings, some had penciled in translations, and all
were light enough to be lifted but still retained a satisfying heft. If not yet the
Majors, I was at least on the playing field. It was thoroughly satisfying and,
to date, I still have not left the beit midrash.
What was it that I was seeking? What did Gemara study mean to me? I had
always been a serious student not particularly prone to rebelliousness, and I
took to heart the maxims I had been taught lauding study of Torah. If talmud
Torah is indeed the pinnacle of Jewish religious life, then as a religiously
minded person with intellectual drive and abilities it seemed fairly obvious
that Torah study would be my avodat Hashem, my Divine service.
What I missed was that those messages had not been intended for me. I was
supposed to understand, intuitively somehow, that I was not to be a Torah
scholar. That role was reserved for my brothers. I was to value Torah, to put
a premium on high achievement in Gemara learning, but only in a spouse.
I was not to dream those dreams for myself. This was the paradox I faced. I
wanted to learn Gemara as a religious act, a fulfillment of God’s will, but I
couldn’t learn Gemara without committing an act of rebellion and breaking
a religious taboo.
When I became a student of Talmud at age 25, the paradox faded into the
background for a time. I had so many years of catch-up to do and I was too busy
drinking of the living waters of Torah. But there were moments, glimpses, that
brought me back to this inescapable dilemma. One day, as my havruta (study
partner) and I were studying, our teacher, a man a few years older than me,
rushed into the beit midrash declaring excitedly, “Today we are going to look
at the sources justifying why you are allowed to learn Gemara.” I looked up at
 An Opened Book: Talmud Study by Women in the 21st Century 69

him and without thinking said, “I don’t care what the sources say; I have to learn
Gemara.” Could this be Torah lishma? Was I enaged in avodat Hashem?
This challenge has been posed to outsiders seeking membership in the
inner circles, and it is a challenge that can only be answered satisfactorily
by questioning its very premise. Here finally is where feminism came in for
me. Feminism gave me the tools and language to understand that as a woman
seeking entry into the men’s, only beit midrash, I would never be able to
be religiously devout without being rebellious. I would never be able to
read the texts of my tradition unimpeded by questions of authority. I would
never be able to forget that I was not a student of Gemara but a woman
learning Gemara. I would not succeed in entering the conversations of Rava
and Abaye, Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, and lose myself completely; I would
always be watching, watching myself and watching the texts, and waiting
for those moments when I would be revealed as an intruder. I was to be a
simultaneous insider and outsider, longing for the center and never able to
fully leave the periphery.
At Drisha we spent one year learning parts of the tractate of Gittin, which
details the laws of divorce. I invariably found myself saying when analyzing
the various cases and points of law, “So let’s say I want to divorce my wife.”
There is no way to make this statement make sense for me since as a woman,
I cannot divorce a man in Jewish law. I cannot say, “I want to divorce my
husband” without being false to the halakha and I cannot say, “I want to
divorce my wife” without being false to myself.
But this goes beyond a question of the limits of Talmudic language. Unless
I talk about Reuven (the Talmudic John Doe) divorcing Leah (Jane Doe), I
cannot learn Gittin, but if I allow Reuven to divorce Leah without noting that
Leah cannot reciprocally divorce Reuven, I am allowing that inequity to be
expressed unchallenged. If the Talmud is to speak to me, a woman of the
21st century who seeks religious meaning in these texts, I cannot allow that
moment to pass without marking the agony of the modern day aguna, the
woman who is chained to a dead marriage by a husband unwilling to grant
her a divorce.
Examples abound. There are the texts in which women are ignored, texts
in which women and their bodies are the objects of study and, in some senses
most problematic for me, texts in which women are given space but a space
defined by and controlled by men. Here is an illustration of the last phenome-
non. When an individual brought a sacrifice to the Temple, one of the required
acts was semikha, the laying of the hands on the head of an animal sacrifice.
Three types of sacrifices were brought by the individual specifically for the
pilgrimage festival. In Tractate Hagiga 16a, the mishna discusses the permis-
sibility of performing the ritual act of semikha on these pilgrimage sacrifices.
70 An Opened Book: Talmud Study by Women in the 21st Century

Yosi son of Yoezer says one should not perform semikha while Yosef son of
Yohanan says that it may be performed. Yehoshua son of Perahia says one
should not perform semikha while Nittai the Arbelite says it may be performed.
Yehuda son of Tabai says one should not perform semikha while Shimon son
of Shetah says it may be performed. Shemaya says one should perform semi-
kha while Avtalyon says it may not be performed. Hillel and Menahem did not
disagree. Menahem went forth and Shammai entered. Shammai says one should
not perform semikha while Hillel says it may be performed. The first ones were
patriarchs and the latter were heads of the court.

The gemara then proceeds to comment on this multigenerational dispute

noting that the longevity of this dispute and specifically the resilience of the
position forbidding semikha indicates the seriousness of violating the Rabbinic
prohibition of shevut, activities seen as inappropriate to the Sabbath or festival.
In the course of accounting for the details of the debate, the gemara goes on
to discuss the definition of the act of semikha. Is semikha a light resting of the
hands or is it a full press of the hands on the head of the animal? We are
introduced to the words of Rami son of Hama who insists that a full press is
required for only then would there be a problem of shevut; the light resting
of the hands not qualifying as shevut and therefore would not occasion the
debate in the mishna. The gemara proceeds:

An objection was raised. It is written: Speak to the sons of Israel . . . and he shall
lay his hands. (Leviticus 1: 2, 4) The sons of Israel lay hands but the daughters of
Israel do not lay hands. Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Shimon say: The daughters of Israel
may opt to lay hands. Rabbi Yosi said: Abba Elazar told me, “Once we had a calf
which was a peace offering and we brought it to the Women’s Court and women
laid their hands on it; not that semikha must be done by women, but in order to
grant nahat ruah, (gratification) to women.” Now if you thought that we require
semikha to be performed with all one’s strength, for the sake of gratification of
women would we permit work to be done with sacrificial animals! Infer from this
that we do not require all one’s strength. But no, say (rather) that we do require all
one’s strength, but he told the women to rest their hands lightly. If so it is not the
case that women may perform semikha, rather infer that it was no semikha at all!
R. Ammi said: He said one and then another; it was no semikha at all and it (the
light resting of the hands) was done in order to create nahat ruah for women.

Let’s first clarify the argument. Rami son of Hama maintains that semi-
kha requires the full pressing of the hands. The gemara then cites a beraita
in objection to his claim. The beraita delineates a debate regarding the
permissibility of a woman performing semikha on her sacrificial offering.
The first anonymous opinion is that women may not perform this ritual.
The second opinion, attributed to Rabbis Yosi and Shimon, states that while
 An Opened Book: Talmud Study by Women in the 21st Century 71

a woman bringing a sacrifice is not required to perform semikha, she may

perform semikha. Note that in both opinions women are not held to the
same ritual obligations here as men. How does the beraita serve as a chal-
lenge to the position of Rami son of Hama? The gemara asserts that the
women must not have been leaning full strength on the sacrificial animal.
Why must this be the case? One is prohibited to do any labor with an animal
that has been designated as a sacrifice. Leaning on the animal and caus-
ing the animal to bear one’s weight is labor, thus, unless the semikha was
mandated it would be forbidden to perform this act. Since women are not
required to perform semikha, they may not perform semikha. The gemara
initially concludes that any semikha, even a mandated semikha, is only a
light resting of the hands and does not cause the animal to bear any addi-
tional burden. This challenges the statement of Rami son of Hama. In order
to defend Rami son of Hama’s position, the gemara ends by suggesting that
it was only the women who did not perform an actual act of semikha but
instead did a pseudo-semikha.
Turning our attention to the participation of women as described in this
discussion, we see some significant limitations. We have seen that women
are not obligated to perform semikha when bringing a sacrifice unlike men
who are obligated. We have seen one view in which women are actually for-
bidden to perform semikha based on a reading of the verse in Leviticus 1:2
in which the phase bnei yisrael is understood as Israelite males and not the
entire Israelite population. But it is the view of Rabbis Yosi and Shimon that
I wish to examine in greater detail. This view affords a greater ritual role for
women in the sacrificial order. Generally, the role a non-kohen may play in
the bringing of the sacrifice is quite circumscribed; one may only participate
by slaughtering the animal and performing semikha. Rabbis Yosi and Shimon
permit women to perform semikha and cite case study to buttress their posi-
tion. According to Abba Elazar women did perform semikha in the Temple.
However, this is not because women are required to perform semikha but to
afford them nahat ruah. What is nahat ruah and what is its message? The
term is somewhat ambiguous but, minimally it would seem to indicate that
women felt good when they were allowed to participate. This gratification or
satisfaction is seen as legitimate by Abba Elazar and a sufficient reason to
allow women to perform semikha.
This notion of nahat ruah li’nashim, allowing women’s ritual participation
when it is not required is used by later authorities to recite the accompanying
blessings to mitzvot from which women are exempted and thereby endow
those acts with full religious significance. Thus, some medieval commen-
tators ruled that women may, for example, sit in the sukka and recite the
blessings without concern that the berakha which states that God commanded
72 An Opened Book: Talmud Study by Women in the 21st Century

us to dwell in the sukka is a brakha li’vatala, a blessing recited in vain. The

notion of nahat ruah li’nashim has been a powerful means of creating greater
ritual roles for women, however, it is not an unadulterated good. It is, first of
all, an act of benevolent paternalism. It is benevolent in that it gives women
something good, the opportunity to do mitzvot, and paternalistic because it is
men granting and circumscribing these possibilities. Nahat ruah li’nashim is
unsatisfactory for it is contingent on the good will and power of men and it
covers up systemic inequities.
But the gemara does not end here with a semikha born of a desire to give
women a role where none is mandated. In order to resolve the problem of
avoda bi’kodshim, performing labor with a sacrificial animal, the gemara
suggests that the women of Abba Elazar’s story were actually not perform-
ing semikha. Perhaps the women were not aware that their “semikha” was not
a legitimate semikha for how else could they experience nahat ruah if they
were aware that their actions were religiously meaningless.
And there lies my problem. I love these texts; I still find myself shocked
that I have actually become a student of the Talmud. But Talmud study for
me is a mixed blessing as I find myself engaged in an impossible dance
between delight in the tradition and its foundational texts and discomfort
with its limitations and exclusions. It is essential for me to understand the
texts of our tradition but I cannot do this without wrestling with the tradi-
tion simultaneously. My Torah lishma has become, by desire and necessity,
a form of reverent critique. Reverence for the beauty and staying power of
these texts for which I still thirst, and critique because I cannot study them
divorced from the context in which they were born and the assumptions of
the men who wrote them.
Every morning as I wake again to another day of Torah study, I make the
blessing la’asok bi’divrei Torah, to busy myself, to fully engage in the words
of Torah. I am so blessed to be able to study Torah; Torah is fully alive for
me with its pleasures and its pains, its power to infuriate and inspire. Blessed
is the Giver of the Torah.
 Part II

TEACHING TALMUD
 The Dialectics of the Divine
Commanding Voice: Values,
Meaning, and Culture in the Talmud
Tsvi Blanchard

When I began studying Talmud I didn’t know very much about it. As a
traditional Jew, I did so because, as most of the committed Jews I knew, I
believed that studying Talmud along with the study of Chumash [the Bible]
and its traditional commentaries was an indispensable part of the mitzvah
of talmud torah, the study of Torah that is “equal to all the mitzvoth.”
In addition, I recognized that if I wanted to be a well-educated, practicing
Jew—and I did—I had to study the Talmud.
In my late teens, a good friend, overhearing me as I limped my way through
a Talmudic passage, pointed out to me that I was really only kidding myself,
imitating people studying Talmud and not actually studying it. Painfully, I
admitted to myself that he was correct and went to a traditional yeshiva to
“learn.” There was no helpful ArtScroll edition; we were forbidden to use the
Soncino translation. There was only a teacher (a “rebbe”), the dialogue with
study partners (a hevruta), the Jastrow dictionary, and the intense, daylong
immersion in the world of the Talmud text and its commentaries. And all this
successfully worked its magic. Somehow, by osmosis perhaps, I “learned
how to learn”; I came to be at home in and even love that Talmudic world. I
am very grateful for all that because, to be fully honest, as I study the Talmud
today I experience it as Torah, that is, as revealing to me the commanding
Divine voice.1
There is, however, more to the story. Over the more than forty years that I
have made Talmud study a regular part of my life, I have increasingly come
to understand its depth and power. The Talmud is truly an essential part of
one of the great human wisdom traditions. In my own life, studying Talmud
serves as a vehicle for exploring many basic human issues, especially the

75
76 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

meaning-making questions involved in understanding and even constructing

culture, that is, in “living culturally.” Talmud study is one of the ways that
I discover and explore the moral, psychological, and symbolic complexities
of human life. For me, the Talmud has become a spiritual document that,
properly understood, uncovers a hidden depth in human experience. It also
shows us the wisdom available in the details of what is probably the activ-
ity that most defines what it is to be human—creating meaningful culture.
In large measure, this essay is meant both to say and also to show why and
how this is so.2
In this essay, I want to share what it is about Talmud study and its world
that makes it so attractive to me. This is hard to do without actually studying
Talmudic passages. For those without a background in Talmud, this is not
easily done. The Talmud is not a document that lends itself to easy decoding.
Nevertheless, actually considering particular passages is the only way that
I can point toward the features of Talmud study that interest me the most. I
realize that, for some, this will ensure that my explanations are incomplete.
The reader is invited to fill in what I must perforce omit.
I first discuss three brief examples of Talmudic discussions that raise
questions about values, meaning, and culture. Then, I provide an extended
discussion taken from a set of narrative passages that exemplifies the subtle
literary quality of many Talmudic considerations of existential human
issues. Finally, I consider the dialogical character of the Talmud and Tal-
mud study and the appreciation for ambiguity that they display. Since in
the world of the Talmud, as in Judaism in general, holiness is most often
expressed in law and lawfulness,3 I provide several examples that involve
issues of law.

THREE BRIEF EXAMPLES OF TALMUDIC DISCUSSIONS

THAT RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT VALUES, MEANING,
AND CULTURE

Why Do We Cook Food?

In rabbinic Judaism, the Sabbath is in large part defined by 39 categories of
culturally creative work,4 one of which is cooking and another of which is
kindling a fire. Therefore, it is forbidden to put uncooked food on a fire on
the Sabbath since this will necessarily cook the food. Also, one cannot stoke
a fire that is burning low since this is the same as kindling a fire.
The Talmud (beginning with T.B. Shabbat 36b) directly and indirectly
discusses these questions: May one leave food on a fire over the Sabbath?
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 77

If one has removed it from a fire, may that food be put back on the fire on
the Sabbath5 in order to have hot food to eat? Responding to these ques-
tions, the Talmud takes account of the fact that the rabbis had enacted a
decree prohibiting6 leaving or returning food to a fire on the Sabbath out of
a concern that “perhaps one will come to stoke the fire.” The worry was that
some people who had put food on a fire before the Sabbath would become
concerned that their food wasn’t cooking properly and would stoke the fire
to speed up the cooking process (a violation of kindling).
Clearly, if someone put raw food on a fire just before the Sabbath
there was a serious possibility that he or she might worry that it wasn’t
cooking fast enough and come to stoke the fire. But what about cases
where the food was not actually raw? We find a disagreement in such
cases about how well cooked the food must be in order to calm rabbinic
fears that there will be a temptation to stoke the fire in order to speed
up the cooking process. One view insists only already fully cooked
food (kol tzorcho) can be returned (or placed) on a fire, while the other
requires only that the food be partially, minimally cooked (that is, one-
third cooked).
The argument, it seems to me, turns on our answer to another culturally
significant question: Why do we cook food? If cooking is primarily to make
one’s food edible, then one-third is a reasonable standard. Why? Because,
since the food is indeed already minimally edible, there should be no worry
that people will become concerned about how well cooked it is and thus
come to stoke the fire. If, on the other hand, we cook food to make it taste
good, then, one should be allowed to leave only already fully cooked food
on a fire. If improving the taste is the point of cooking, then leaving food
that is only partially cooked on a fire might very well lead people who were
worrying about its not tasting good to unthinkingly stoke the fire to hasten
the cooking process.
At the heart of what appears to be a technical disagreement about leaving
(or returning) food to a fire on the Sabbath is a difference about the cultural
meaning of one of the basic activities that define the emergence of civilization:
cooking food.7 Unsurprisingly, this dispute remains essentially unresolved
over the course of Jewish discussions. To me, this is due to the fact that there
was no way to universally decide once and for all why we cook food.

How Our Values are Reflected in How We Dress

Another Sabbath prohibition is “moving an object four amot [about six to
eight feet] through a public domain.”8 As one might guess, this does not
78 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

automatically apply to wearing clothes or other items, (for example, jewelry,

glasses, a prosthesis). Some of these are deemed part of one’s self, not a
separate object to be carried. In the Talmudic discussion, “self” means one’s
social self, and hence that self is appropriately gendered and even related to
one’s species.
In T.B. Shabbat 63a, the question of wearing weapons on the Sabbath (with-
out needing them for self defense) is raised. Might some weapons be permit-
ted because they are like jewelry, that is “beautiful,” or perhaps all weapons
are prohibited because to wear them is shameful? Given that Shabbat is a day
that means to represent an ideal, “messianic” society, might it not be the case
that such a “compromised” form of dress isn’t really appropriate? The Tal-
mudic discussion is complex involving a dispute between “maximalist” and
“minimalist” definitions of a messianic society. The passage also includes the
roles of beauty and function in such a society.
The discussion in part engages fundamental cultural questions about the
messages we send by how we dress. It also provokes us to think about the
relationship between our most ideal values and the culture we create.9
Independent of the more technical issues of the Jewish laws of Sabbath
observance, one could ask: What would we leave home on our “ideal” Sabbath
just to send the cultural message that, “when the messiah comes,” these things
will disappear?10 Having myself used this Talmudic passage to ask people
this question, I can tell you that cell phones and day diaries lead the list. Many
people want more relaxed, unstructured time that belongs just to them and to
their families. One reason I find studying Talmud so valuable is that it raises
questions like these.

Narrative and Obligations: Sexual Urges, Duty, and Inclination

Let us reflect upon a basic human experience: We are committed to doing
what is right, what we are supposed to do, but we don’t really feel like it. As
Kant famously presented it, we have duties, positive and negative, but our
inclinations often seek to take us in other directions. Our inclinations come
from many places—habit, training, desire, impulse, imagination, fear, and
anxiety to name just a few. Although we know that “wrong” means “don’t do
that!” where sexuality is involved, the push of imagination and desire can be
very persistent, throwing up fantasies and beckoning us to seek gratification.
But there are also costs to simply refusing the demands of these “inclinations”
by exercising self-control. The intensity of the urge may increase; its nature
may shift into something even worse.
As I read them, the rabbis in the Talmud honored human sexuality when
it found proper expression. However, they also saw it as very dangerous.
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 79

The rabbis thought so especially when they suspected that it was a manifes-
tation of a self-centered ego unconcerned with the costs to others of its own
gratification. They saw this as z’nut (sexual immorality). But it was because
of their sense of the power of sexual impulse that they understood how
difficult exercising sexual self-control usually is. They deliberately built
protective fences around human behavior, designing a system that limited
the opportunities for men and women to “fraternize” both openly and, more
importantly, in private. Nonetheless, they realized that some would find
their lives significantly disrupted by the urges and fantasies that occur as
“duty” became unceasingly confronted with unbearable “inclinations.”
The question now becomes: What are we supposed to do when “just say
no” is in fact interfering with living a good life? In B.T. Hagigah 16a, (and
also B. T. Kiddushin 40a) the Talmud discusses the case of a man who can
not control his sexual urges. It says “R. Elai the elder said: If a man sees
that his [evil] inclination is prevailing upon him, let him go to a place where
he is not known, and put on black garments and wrap himself up in black
garments, and let him do what his heart desires but let him not profane the
Name of Heaven publicly!
The text seems to be saying that, given a passionate inclination beyond
one’s control, one should at least commit the sin in secret and not dishonor
the Divine publicly.11 Of course, this brief passage is not a sophisticated essay
on the relationship of duty and inclination. Nevertheless, my studying this
Talmudic passage triggered just such a discussion of duty and inclination. It
also helped me to see that a Talmudic legal system tolerates a certain degree
of ambiguity. The system prohibits such sexual activity, branding it as evil,
and at the same time allows for it, (perhaps even requires it) thus in some
sense making it “legitimate,” if only as the lesser of two evils.

AN EXTENDED EXAMPLE TAKEN FROM

A NARRATIVE PASSAGE

Illness, Healing, and Human Vulnerability

Berachot 5b is a classic Jewish healing text. The text—an edited version
of inherited material—involves telling the same core story three times with
important additions in the second and third tellings. Even without a thorough
analysis of this text, you will easily imagine how powerful an interpretive
conversation about it could be. My comments reflect only a part of the results
of my having studied this emotionally and spiritually poignant passage on
many occasions.
80 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

The core story is:

R. Chiyya b. Abba fell ill and R. Yochanan went in to visit him. He said to him:
Are your sufferings welcome to you? He replied: Neither they nor their reward.
He said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and he raised him.

Who determines the meaning of an illness? Is it the healer? Is it the patient?

Given Rabbi Yochanan’s strange initial question, we must conclude that he
believes that it is primarily the patient who will decide if there is something
meaningful in his suffering. Apparently, despite a strong Jewish aversion to
romanticizing human pain, suffering can nonetheless be welcome, that is,
meaningful—if the patient endows it with meaning.12
Another question: Is the patient “passive,” that is, an object of the healer’s
techniques? Or, is the patient actively engaged in his or her own cure? Most
students of this passage read it as the latter, since the one who is ill is asked to
give his hand to the healer. One of my study partners was a neurologist who
found in this text a perfect metaphor for most of his practice. He said “My
practice mostly involves building an alliance with folks who are still holding
out for the impossible full return of their faculties. I see now that I spend three
quarters of my time convincing patients to “give me their hands.”13
The core story is then retold with an addition:

R. Yochanan once fell ill and R. Chanina went in to visit him. He said to him:
Are your sufferings welcome to you? He replied: Neither they nor their reward.
He said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and he raised him.
Why could not R. Yochanan raise himself?— They replied: The prisoner cannot
free himself from jail.

In the original story, it was R. Yochanan who was the healer. The student
immediately notices that it is now the healer himself who is ill. What do we
learn from this, I ask? Answer: Human vulnerability is universal. Why can’t
healers heal themselves? Surely they can heal themselves in cases where it
is merely necessary to apply a technique and take a medication. Healers can
take the same medications they have given their patients. If so, we are left
with the question: What kind of healing must this passage be considering?
Answer: The model of healing here is based on the concept that “healing is
in the relationship.” This is indeed something that cannot be done alone,
however charismatic the healer. This text is offering us a profound model
of healing, one that is an alternative to the models available in magical
approaches to illness or in modern medical theories.14
Finally, the core story is retold with an insertion.
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 81

R. Eleazar fell ill and R. Yochanan went in to visit him. He noticed that he was
lying in a dark room, and he bared his arm and light radiated from it. There-
upon he noticed that R. Eleazar was weeping, and he said to him: Why do you
weep? Is it because you did not study enough Torah? Surely we learnt: The
one who sacrifices much and the one who sacrifices little have the same merit,
provided that the heart is directed to heaven. Is it perhaps lack of sustenance?
Not everybody has the privilege to enjoy two tables. Is it perhaps because of
[the lack of] children? This is the bone of my tenth son!—He replied to him: I
am weeping on account of this beauty that is going to rot in the earth. He said
to him: On that account you surely have a reason to weep; and they both wept.
In the meanwhile he said to him: Are your sufferings welcome to you?—He
replied: Neither they nor their reward. He said to him: Give me your hand, and
he gave him his hand and he raised him.

How do you comfort a man who is so poor that he doesn’t even have
a candle? Or is his darkness a way of referring to how he feels about his
situation? R. Yochanan seems to be thinking: perhaps, despite his greatness,
as R. Eleazar now faces death he is troubled. Is he now confused about the
meaning of his own life? Is he somehow disappointed?
And what is the meaning of R. Yochanan’s luminous arm? To me, it seems
more a metaphor for enlightenment than a literal description of his arm as a
light bulb. Will R. Yochanan “enlighten” R. Eleazar—will he illuminate his
situation for him? And if he does so, will that bring R. Eleazar to feel more
at peace?
R. Yochanan now seems to go against, at least in part, his earlier view
that the patient creates the meaning of the illness. He first tries to console
R. Eleazar by reminding him that it is the purity of our intentions, far more
than the scope of our accomplishments, that ultimately determines the reli-
gious and moral quality of our lives. And what are we to make of the macabre
bone of his tenth son—something he regularly takes with him to a house of
mourning? It might be meant to say “compared to me how little you have
suffered by not having children.” But that is not the most interesting reading,
nor the most charitable. Perhaps R. Yochanan means to say—“You are truly
suffering. But I am telling you that you can get through this pain. We are in
this together. See that I too have suffered, and I have somehow gone through
it to the other side. You can too.”
In the end, we discover that R. Yochanan’s efforts to console R. Eleazar
are misplaced. R. Eleazar weeps because even a profoundly beautiful spiritual
giant like R. Yochanan, a man whose flesh itself is spiritually transformed—a
body of light—even this man will die, be buried, and rot in the earth. And
that loss, the “defeat” that reveals to us the existential reality of human
mortality, is indeed worth crying over. I imagine them there embracing and
82 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

crying. Ultimately, being there for and with each other is the most that we
mortals can do in the face of the inevitability of death.
I find this text brilliant and subtle in the way it approaches our deepest
narcissistic fantasies. Ostensibly about wondrous cures—seeming to give a
slap in the face to death—in fact, this Talmudic passage ends by reminding
us that we are all mortal. It softens that blow only by finishing with a miracu-
lous healing. But the subtext is: For all of us, no matter how good we are,
one day healing will not be there. And even the fantasy that great healers
escape death is just a self-delusion. All of us are vulnerable to death. And
what are we to do? In the face of this truth, we can only hold each other,
support each other, and strive to create whatever deep meaning we can.
Studying this kind of Talmudic narrative has had a profound effect on me
and those I study with. It provides another reason to study Talmud in the
twenty-first century.

TALMUDIC SPACE: THE WORLD OF DIALOGICAL

REASONING AND THE APPRECIATION OF AMBIGUITY

I study Talmud because I find it a remarkable exercise in the type of human

thought that allows for a profound, even intense connection to what transcends
an entirely self-contained human reasoning process. To those not comfortable
with talk of transcendent realities, I might say that Talmud study takes us to
the edge of “calculating reason”;15 it opens up a pluralist, polyvalent world
of meaning-making, the appreciation of which requires, or develops, one’s
tolerance for ambiguity. Its flow of thought is very often dialogical; it is
interpretive, especially of earlier sources, and, because much of its thinking
is associative, the Talmud exhibits a kind of “interstitial reason.”16 Let us
explore these ideas further.
The heart of Talmud study is conversation. It belongs first and foremost
in a beit midrash—a noisy study hall filled with people in pairs (hevrutot)
mostly talking out loud. They debate and argue, break for a moment, consult
sources and then start again. They are not always talking, but even when they
are writing and not speaking, they are writing to someone. Their commen-
taries on the Talmudic passages that they are studying await the inevitable
super commentary. And this same process is, in many ways, happening in the
Talmudic text itself. Whatever text you are studying, you cannot understand it
without also understanding its discussions, its debates, and the “solutions” it
negotiates when it is forced to draw final conclusions. The Talmudic page is
surrounded by exegesis and questions, often going on between generations in
the same family and always followed by seemingly endless further questions
and commentary.
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 83

Conversations, we should note, must have more than one participant—

even when you study Talmud by yourself you act as if you are having a
conversation. In much of the Talmud, the flow of dialogue and discussion
presents and evaluates alternative positions and claims. Just as there are
different participants, there are, indeed there must be, differences of opinion
and belief. Hence, the process of Talmud study presents the kind interpretive
process that is, in the Platonic sense, dialectical. While all discussions have
some a priori assumptions about both substance and procedure—after all,
one cannot argue about everything at once—the Talmud does not start with
premises understood to be self-evidently true. Talmud study begins with
particular texts, specific claims and arguments, all requiring and expecting
interpretation, grounding, and response.
Every volume of the Talmud begins on page 2. In the Talmudic world, the
world of oral Torah, we always enter in the middle of something; we typically
find ourselves in medias res. This is not accidental. Traditionally, the Talmud
and its study were seen as part of the ongoing “conversation,” an unceasing
interpretation of an inheritance, at once Jewish and “human.” As with any
dialectical process, the dialogue and conversations that form Talmud study
always start somewhere with inherited texts of all sorts, given assumptions—
theoretical, moral esthetic—and even rules for correct exegesis, some explic-
itly articulated and others only implicitly embraced in the flow of discussion.
Consider the opening of the Talmud as we have it—Brachot 2a. The Mishna
discusses the question of the earliest time that kriyat Sh’ma may be said in
the evening. Clearly, we are in the middle of something. The language and
structure of the Sh’ma already exists; its recitation already exists; it seems as
if the obligation to recite it—in the morning and in the evening—also exists.
The Gemara—with which we begin the Talmud as a document separate from
the Mishna presented alone—reaches out for the context.
Where is this Mishna with its ritual obligations and timing, coming from?
On the one hand, perhaps it finds its roots in Deuteronomy 6:7, a verse that
is itself clearly already a part of what is called “the Sh’ma.”17 In it Moses
instructs the people that they should recite or teach18 “them”19 “when you lie
down and when you rise up.” On the other hand, our Mishna might be rooted
in the part of the Genesis creation narrative that tells of the cycle of evening
and morning—and it was evening and it was morning, one day 20 (Genesis
1:8). Might it come from both these sources?
While I could never definitively demonstrate it, I have always thought
that behind this conversation was a deeper question. In the Talmud, the unity
of G’d is reflected in the unity of the world that G’d created and also in the
unity of the “legal” order established by the commandments. The Sh’ma
serves to express and enhance our awareness of this unity. Are the details of
84 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

its practice grounded first in the legal, social, and cultural order of the Torah,
that is, in the “lying down and rising up” that is part of the words that create
the commandment itself? Or should we seek the origin of the ritual details
in contemplating the divinely given structure of our natural universe as pre-
sented in the creation story? Or do we need both?21
I am not at all sure that this important question can be answered, if only
because there are important truths associated with both approaches. My own
life experience has confirmed for me both the value of the question and the
wisdom of not answering it once and for all. Studying this Talmudic text
reminds me that my own life is always in the middle of something. It reminds
me that all my experience lives within an already existing, culturally meaning-
ful reality and at the same time exists as part of nature, that is, I live in an
ongoing natural environment. In short, I study Talmud in part because simply
to enter “Talmudic space” is to enter a world that begins on page 2. I did not
create it; instead, I inherit it. I will not finish it; instead I will become part of
it. In this sense, Talmudic space is a concentrated representation of the world
of my most intense and most profound experience.
I have always loved the dialectical nature of Talmudic deliberation, not in the
least because, at its heart, it generates an important paradox. On the one hand,
both the Talmudic arguments themselves as well as the debates of Talmud study
must be inherently pluralistic.22 This is to say that they fundamentally depend
upon the legitimacy of the different positions taken and argued for. With the
exception of interpersonal power plays masquerading as Talmud study, each
speaker has a right, often a duty, to speak, be challenged, and respond.
On the other hand, when one conversation partner challenges the other, it
seems that a claim is being made that what the other is saying is false, wrong,
or invalid. Granted, Talmud study is sometimes a search for mutual under-
standing; granted that in practical contexts Talmud study is also at times an
exploration of the possibility of common action or a good-faith mediation of
conflicting interests. But it is just as often, and in important disputed questions
very often, a debate. This debate creates this paradox—I say to you: (a) what
you say must be in itself taken seriously—implying some legitimacy—but (b)
it is false, that is, I deny its truth, and in some way therefore, its legitimacy.

TWO EXTENDED LEGAL EXAMPLES

Partial Resolution: Vengeance, Equality of Physical Situation

and Social Position, and Monetary Compensation
Both privately and publicly, we cannot escape doing damage to others and
suffering damage from them. We cannot even escape intentionally hurting
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 85

others, even those we love. We work to have the mindfulness, good character,
and self-control required to avoid hurting others. But, when damage has been
inflicted, what are we to do?
We begin with our experience. When someone else has hurt us, what do we
often feel? We feel angry. By injuring us this person has caused us physical
pain; he has demonstrated power over us, thus diminishing the dignity that
comes from our being a free, self-determining agent. We ask: Is he going to
get away with this? If nothing is done, it is made clear to us that our attacker
“matters” more than we do; he is more important than we are. We are not
social equals.
Perhaps we think: Vengeance and retribution make us equal again. You
caused me pain; I will cause you pain. You will hurt exactly as I did. You
exercised wrongful power over me; I will do so over you. But, to avoid an
unending feud, both your pain and loss of power will be proportionate to mine.
My attacker and I will finish as equals; things are back where they belong.
I begin my Talmud study with the Mishna, Bava Kamma 83b.

MISHNA: ONE WHO INJURES ANOTHER BECOMES LIABLE FOR FIVE

ITEMS: FOR DEPRECIATION, FOR PAIN, FOR HEALING, FOR LOSS OF
TIME AND FOR DEGRADATION.

What?! “Liable” here seems to mean only monetary compensation. Is this

really enough? To be sure, the loss is indemnified, but will this monetary pay-
ment actually make us equals again? I would never have taken this monetary
compensation in advance as a payment allowing you to damage me as you
did. Why am I being made to take it now? It seems to me that while you did
not get away with it completely, you did in fact get away with it.
I want to know: What is the basis for my having to accept monetary
compensation?
My study takes me into the Gemara.

GEMARA. Why [pay compensation]?—my question exactly. And this is not my

own voice alone speaking. Does the Divine Law not say “Eye for eye”? Why not
take this literally to mean [putting out] the eye [of the offender]?23

But this is not accepted. Let this not enter your mind, since—I now find
myself reading a braitha24—it has been taught: You might think that where
he put out his eye, the offender’s eye should be put out, or where he cut off
his arm, the offender’s arm should be cut off, or again where he broke his
leg, the offender’s leg should be broken—when I was angry that was indeed
my desire—But this is a mistaken interpretation, I should consider that it is
laid down, “He that smites any man.” “And he that smites a beast: Just as in
86 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

the case of smiting a beast compensation is to be paid, so also in the case of

smiting a man compensation is to be paid.”
Is this merely a case of the language of the text? No. The source of an
obligation to compensate runs deeper. To what case of “smiting” does it
refer?25 . . . The quotation was [therefore] made from this text: “And he that
smites a beast mortally shall make it good: life for life” which comes next
to “and if a man maim his neighbor, as he has done so shall it be done to
him.” But is [the term] “smiting” mentioned in the latter text? We speak of
the “hakaah-beating” [Soncino renders it: the effect of smiting] implied in
this text and of the “hakaah-beating” [effect of smiting] implied in the other
text: just as smiting mentioned in the case of beast refers to the payment of
compensation, so also does smiting in the case of man refer to the payment
of compensation.26
This seems to say that careful attention to the language of the Torah
suggests that, except for intentional unlawful killing,27 the obligation of mon-
etary compensation comes first from the action (smiting), that is, damages
flow from the wrongful nature of the deed. You were not allowed to strike
me and you did. This payment is almost as a kind of punishment or even
atonement.28
The compensation—punishment—will of course be proportionate but it
will in part be different in kind from the damage that I suffered; it will be
monetary, not physical. No matter what you pay me, I will be walking on only
one leg and you are still on two.
But the braitha offers a second reason: And should this [reason] not
satisfy you, note that it is stated, “Moreover ye shall take no ransom for
the life of a murderer that is guilty of death,” implying that it is only for the
life of a murderer that you may not take “satisfaction” whereas you may
take “satisfaction” [even] for the principal limbs, though these cannot be
restored.
It is analyzed later as follows: But what is meant by the statement, “if this
reason does not satisfy you”? [Why should it not satisfy you?]—The difficulty
which further occurred to the Tanna was as follows: What is your reason for
deriving the law of man injuring man from the law of smiting a beast and not
from the law governing the case of killing a man [where Retaliation is the
rule]? I would answer: It is proper to derive [the law of] injury from [the
law governing another case of] injury, and not to derive [the law of] injury
from [the law governing the case of] murder. It could, however, be argued
to the contrary; [that it is proper] to derive [the law of injury inflicted upon]
man from [another case of] man but not to derive [the law of injury inflicted
upon] man from [the case of] beast. This was the point of the statement “If,
however, this reason does not satisfy you.” [The answer is as follows:] “It
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 87

is stated: Moreover ye shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer that is
guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death, implying that it was only
‘for the life of a murderer’ that you may not take ransom whereas you may
take ransom [even] for principal limbs though these cannot be restored.”29
What paradigm am I to adopt in thinking about what has happened to me?
I have been treating it as “harm done to persons.” Murder is the worst harm
and deliberate infliction of injury is a “lesser form” of murder. A murderer
kills and is in return killed; my attacker is wounded and should in turn be
wounded. The logic is the logic of criminal law: the punishment must fit
the crime.
Now the Talmudic text has offered a different conception: damages. And the
paradigm case is therefore different—damage done to property (my animal).
We have moved from criminal to civil law—proportionate damages.30 We are
being asked to think of the loss of an arm just as we would think about the
loss of a cow and its fetus. The relevant Hebrew term here is n’zikin, a term
not found in the Bible but used in the Mishna. If we believe that it is morally
or spiritually better to eliminate vengeance and retribution from our response
to intentionally being done bodily harm, then we will view the separating
out of these cases as the category “damages” [torts] as an important rabbinic
legal “advance.” To the extent that “monetary damages” fail to truly satisfy
us, such a shift in usage is either unrealistic or utopian. We would then
expect that many people, if they have the power to do so, will make “private
arrangements,” that is, find a ways of inflicting additional “punishments” on
the one who hurt them.
For me, the tension between these two orientations should not be immedi-
ately and permanently resolved. Instead, it should be preserved and contained
within our universe of discourse. In these areas, the realities of human life are
ambiguous. We have all seen the picture that seems to be of an old woman
and then, with a small adjustment of perspectives, suddenly looks like a
young woman.31 It never seems to be both at once. Well, we might mistak-
enly ask “Which is it really, a picture of an old woman or a picture of young
woman? The correct answer is: It is a picture that can be seen as a young
woman and also as an old woman, but not both at once and also not a picture
of a rabbit or a dog.
I think that often our “legal reality” must be understood in much the same
way. In the case of one person wounding another, there is a reasonable
perspective, the “punishment perspective” from which a law or a court deci-
sion seems just and fair only if “retribution” (or even vengeances”) is done.
Otherwise someone guilty of wronging me has not been punished for it. He
“got away with it.” However, looked at from a different perspective, call it
the “compensation perspective,” monetary compensation will be seen as just
88 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

only if we create another legal category called “damages” for which monetary
compensation is sufficient.32 Despite the final decision in Jewish civil law in
favor of damages and monetary compensation,33 the Talmud preserves this
tension and also the struggle of feelings that goes with it. This gives Talmud
study the depth that I seek.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE: DOUBTS, JUST JUDGMENTS,

AND SOCIAL HARMONY

Here is another interesting text: Baba Kamma 46a, about compensation for
damages caused by one’s own property to another person’s property.

MISHNA IF AN OX HAS GORED A COW AND ITS [NEWLY-BORN] CALF IS

FOUND [DEAD] NEAR BY, AND IT IS UNKNOWN WHETHER THE BIRTH
OF THE CALF PRECEDED THE GORING OR FOLLOWED THE GORING,
HALF DAMAGES WILL BE PAID FOR [THE INJURIES INFLICTED UPON]
THE COW BUT [ONLY] QUARTER DAMAGES WILL BE PAID FOR [THE
LOSS OF] THE CALF.
GEMARA. Rab Judah on behalf of Samuel said: This ruling is the view of
Symmachus who held that money, the ownership of which cannot be decided has
to be shared [by the parties]. The Sages, however, say that it is a fundamental
principle in law that the burden of proof falls on the claimant.
Why was it necessary to state “this is a fundamental principle in law”—It was
necessary to imply that even where the plaintiff is positive and the defendant
dubious it is still the plaintiff on whom falls burden of proof. 34

We have here several ambiguities. First, there must have been witnesses
that the ox gored the cow and that it killed it. But we cannot have witnesses
who can clarify whether the fetus died before or after the goring for if that
were the case the decision would be the same for the fetus as for the cow.
While in principle, this objective doubt about the facts might be resolved,
we understand our case as one where this doubt cannot be. We see the dead
cow, we see the dead fetus but our view of any reality larger than that is
limited.
We also have a doubt about the law in such cases—Symmachus rules that
we must equally divide the part of the compensation that is in dispute as a
result of our factual ambiguity. The Sages, however, insist on liability for
payment only if proof can be provided that in some measure “fairly” resolves
the ambiguity of the situation.
The ambiguity of fact is preserved. Our situation—looked at from the view
of the “certain owner of the ox,” provides no basis for an obligation to pay
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 89

compensation for the fetus. But, as one opinion in the Gemara suggests, the
court should not look at our situation in this way. It should question the ox
owner’s certainty because he knows that he can assert it without being subject
to contradiction by the uncertain owner of the cow. We should not rely on
the ox owner’s certainty to resolve either the factual or the legal ambiguity
of this case.
Nonetheless, the ambiguity of law looks to be resolved in the Talmud.
Given the way that the Gemara presents our legal disagreement, and given
that the Talmud generally asserts that the view of the majority (the Sages)
prevails, it seems clear and unambiguous that the court cannot deprive
anyone (here the owner of the ox) of his property without proof. The burden
of resolving the ambiguity, that is, the burden of providing that proof, lies
with the one who wants the money—the owner of the fetus.
Is there indeed a way to continue to look at this legal situation as Symmachus
does? My reading of the Talmud is that indeed there is such a way. What
arguments might we today advance for the view of Symmachus? In discussing
the situation, my study partners and I could easily see that equally dividing
the money insures that at least the owner of the fetus is not left with nothing
at all. He has already been required to absorb half the loss on the cow. He
may feel that this is “fair” since the owner of the ox had no reason to expect
it to gore and hence could not be expected to take extraordinary measures in
securing it. However, he might feel angry about his having to foot the entire
bill for the loss of a fetus that he probably expected to add to the size of his
herd. As a result, he might develop a negative view of the court and perhaps
even the legal system as a whole. Symmachus’s ruling avoids this.
In addition, the owner of the fetus may resent the owner of the ox whom
he sees as having “gotten away with something.” Their ongoing relationship
may very well sour. Hence, Symmachus’s seeing to it that the owner of the
fetus gets something preserves social peace and harmony, something that
is highly valued in the Talmud. In fact, in the Talmudic discussion in B.T.
Sanhedrin 6b, two of the three views presented about making peshara,
compromises (that is “settling”), in legal cases are positive. One sees it as an
obligation to seek compromise rather than a strict black letter law ruling and
the other treats it as a serious and desirable possibility. Hence, we are not
surprised when later Jewish law rules that judges should endeavor to create
compromised settlements in cases of disputed monetary obligations, peshara
preserves both social peace and the legal system itself.
Once again, however, a certain ambiguity is preserved. On the one hand,
litigants have the right to insist on strict justice—no money will be taken from
them without proof. On the other hand, efforts will be made to bring about
a compromise settlement that advances social harmony and the interests of
90 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

the legal system. From the point of view that seeks only justice, the owner of
the ox does not pay for the fetus unless and until it can be proven that his ox
caused its death. From a more “covenantal” point of view that seeks primarily
social peace, the owners of the ox and the cow should share the loss of the
fetus. Well, which is it? In this Talmudic legal system it is a “legal reality”
that can be seen both ways.35
I hope that I have been able to convey what I find motivating and meaning-
ful in Talmud study. In part I have focused on the ways in which the dialogi-
cal Talmudic text addresses important human values and questions present in
the realities of “living culturally.” I have also suggested that the multivalent
nature of the Talmud text not only facilitates the dialectical consideration of
fundamental human life issues, but also works to preserve the ambiguity often
found in both empirical and legal domains. I love studying Talmud because
it immerses me in what I take as existence in its deepest sense. In the end, I
love the Talmud because I love life—with all its pains and provocations, with
all its messy options and possibilities, and, to be sure, with its subtle delights
and profound insights as well.

ENDNOTES

1. While I personally have faith in the Talmud as Torah and thus understand
Talmud study as a, if not the, primary religious duty [mitzvah], I also recognize that
very few Jews and non-Jews, whatever their respect for the text, share this theological
conviction. Thus this essay is not built on my own personal religious faith. It seems
to me more helpful to discuss the constructive features of Talmud study that can be
experienced without giving assent to the Orthodox religious beliefs that are so much
a part of my own life. On the other hand, to have omitted any discussion of how
my religious faith informs my study of Talmud would have eliminated an important
dimension of what is “personal” in this essay.
2. While I am interested in the work of historians and literary critics, I must admit
that I do not study Talmud as an historical or even literary source. With few exceptions,
while we twenty-first century people have an historical consciousness, we are not first
and foremost historians. As we make important ethical choices, debate social policy,
or think through our personal “philosophy,” we tend to draw on novels, biographical
narratives, even television and the movies. In more traditionally Jewish terms, I would
say that, for the most part, it is not historians who are writing “our midrash.” In this
way, we are quite happily, for lack of a better term, “post-modern.” When we are in the
“life-philosophy” or “personal meaning-making” business, we contemporary Westerners
prefer an approach typically informed by social science, most often by psychology but
sometimes by anthropology or sociology. In any case, since this is a personal essay I can
say that it is most useful for me to talk about Talmud study in these terms and not as an
historian.
 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice 91

3. In the third century, when Christianity offered a founding document that rejected
law, rabbinic Judaism offered what is primarily a law code, the Mishna, as a found-
ing document.
4. G’d rests from creating “nature” and humans rest from “creating culture.” The
paradigm for this is the Tabernacle and its associated types of “labor.”
5. Whether the text speaks of leaving or of returning is a disputed issue in the
Gemara.
6. It is defined here in relation to the materials being burned.
7. Cf. The Raw and the Cooked, Claude Levi-Strauss, University of Chicago,
1983.
8. Biblical law knows of only two legally disparate domains: a public domain and
a private domain. Rabbinic law adds two others.
9. Again, although the matter will seem resolved, it was in fact not really put to
rest, as was obvious when the emergence of a valued Jewish army complicated the
meaning of wearing military symbols on the Sabbath.
10. As weapons will, at least on the maximalist view.
11. A medieval interpreter—R. Hananel—will find it hard to believe that the
Talmud permits sin in such circumstances and will understand our text as saying that
surely exile and dark garments will be help one to conquer the evil inclination, and as
a result one will be able to do what he truly desires, that is, serve G’d.
12. For example, a life-threatening illness might serve as a “wake-up call.”
13. Imagine how rich an analysis of the metaphor “healing-as-raising-up” could be!
14. To further enrich your sense of what this text offers, think about the depth
and breadth of a discussion that might result from asking how and why illness is like
imprisonment.
15. See Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno,
Stanford University Press, 2007.
16. See Legal Traditions of the World, H. Patrick Glenn, Oxford University Press,
2000, pp. 99−101.
17. The Sh’ma begins with Deuteronomy 6:4 and is named by its first word.
18. The word literally means “repeat.”
19. In the Talmud the suffix for “them” is taken to refer either to words of Torah
or to the specific passages that comprise the Sh’ma or to both.
20. Some later commentators will understand this verse as cited only with respect
to the Gemara’s question about why the evening obligation is discussed first, others
will suggest that it also responds to the query about where the Mishna is coming from,
presumably understanding the word “one” as connecting the verse to the recitation of
the Sh’ma which is first and foremost an affirmation of the oneness of G’d.
21. This question is related to but not identical with the question of whether the
unity of G’d is best demonstrated by the order and unity of the Torah, oral and writ-
ten, or by the order and unity of nature.
22. The pluralism I am discussing is not the equivalent of relativism. It does not
believe that any position is valid. There are falsehoods and mistakes. But there is
often not one unique correct answer to the issues being debated.
92 The Dialects of the Divine Commanding Voice

23. The shitah mekubetset and to my mind the mechilta both support the inter-
pretation that this question can be read as meant seriously.
24. A baraitha is a source dated to the time of the Mishna but which was not
included in the Mishna.
25. The text continues: “And he that killed a beast, shall make it good: and he that
killed a man, shall be put to death,” does not this verse refer to murder?
26. The Talmud will further analyze this but in the end it will stand.
27. Implied by the second reason offered in the braitha.
28. Cf. Maimonides Mishne Torah, the Laws of Wounding and Damages, 1:3.
29. The further discussion of the Talmud does not, I think, significantly alter my
analysis here.
30. Of course, the striking is also a violation of a criminal statute, but the
Talmudic focus here is on compensation not punishment.
31. Another well-known example is a picture that sometimes seems to be of two
faces looking at each other and at other times to be a picture of two vases.
32. In any case, in the Talmud, it is not a reality that can allow either a
disproportionate response or no response at all. Both of these are seen as unjust.
33. Of course, there is also a penal law that punishes those who strike others,
a fact that salves the feelings of the wounded party. For most of Jewish history
however, such penal law was not enforced and the injured party had to make due with
compensation and perhaps an apology.
34. The Gemara offers a second reason for using this expression but is not of
concern to us here.
35. But not seen as a legal reality that requires the ox’s owner to pay the entire
value of the fetus.
 Why Study Talmud in the
Twenty-First Century?
Pinchas Zuriel Hayman

Before discussion of the importance, value, and benefit of Talmud study for
the nation of Israel, it is necessary to consider the title of this volume. The
question “Why Learn Talmud in the Twenty-First Century?” is inappropri-
ate. It implies that something as arcane as Talmud could not possibly have
a place in so advanced a period as the present century! Such an implication
reflects Jewish cultural depravity, assimilation, and self-denial. Why should
the indescribable depth, beauty, and challenge of authentic Jewish literature
require apologetic essays? The eternal and inherent legitimacy, value, and
role of Torat Yisrael cannot be measured by the culture of the twenty-first or
any other Christian century, especially in light of what European Christian
society created in the twentieth. In the realm of personal identity, the Rebbe
of Kotsk said: if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I,
then I am not I and you are not you, but if I am I because I am I, and you are
you because you are you, then I am I and you are you. This approach is no
less applicable to national identities.
Why learn Torah at all, irrespective of the century? Torah is not just
another discipline—it is simply not comparable to the study of geography,
philosophy, or quantum physics. As explained by Rav Kuk in the first
chapters of Orot HaKodesh, all human disciplines have value in their specific
contributions to the understanding of the world, but Torah is the world itself.
Green, yellow, and blue are beautiful colors, but light contains them all. Other
disciplines teach knowledge, Torah teaches existence. Other disciplines help
us know or do, Torah helps us be. One may occasionally need other disciplines
to understand Torah, but one needs Torah to understand why there are dis-
ciplines in the first place, and in what cultural, intellectual, and even legal
context they are to be placed. For Jews living in western civilizations, which

93
94 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

define themselves by empiricism, utilitarianism, materialism, and hedonism,

it should be obvious what a spiritual civilization has to offer.
Let us focus a bit more: Torah subdivides into written and oral compo-
nents. Written tradition consists of the twenty-four books of the Hebrew
Bible. Oral tradition, which is the source of the vast majority of customs,
ceremonies, beliefs, and attitudes known today as Judaism, consists of legal
and nonlegal material housed in the Mishnah, the parallel tannaitic teachings,1
the Talmudim and the Midreshei Aggadah. According to Jewish tradition,
oral tradition preexisted the written. Most students of Judaism assume that
the written tradition came first, and the oral tradition as an interpretive after-
thought. This approach is in error. Not only does the written tradition itself
give witness to the fact that much law and lore was given before Sinai,2
the terseness and paucity of detail in the written tradition indicates that the
written tradition relies for its comprehension by the reader on a coexistent (or
preexistent) oral tradition.3 Why, then, is the question before us: “Why Learn
Talmud?” and not “Why Learn Torah?” Apparently, the question expresses
some deeply seeded doubt regarding the value of the oral tradition specifi-
cally. What might that be?
In a fascinating research entitled Migreset HaZehuyot4 (“The Identity
Grinder”), Shachar Peled studies the separation of the modern Jew from
Jewish Oral Tradition. He claims that modern western Jewish civilization
built its identity on the foundations of the Protestant Reformation and,
specifically, on the rejection of Catholic traditional authority over Biblical
interpretation. Peled argues that when Luther began his movement, his battle
cry of “sola scriptura”—Scripture alone—asserted the right of every person
to face the text of the Bible independently, freed from the shackles of Catholic
interpretive tradition. All individuals have equal right and ability to interpret
Biblical text—and the will of God—without the mediation of any traditional
authority. As a corollary, one’s own conscience becomes the measure of the
moral and upright, and the dictates of the Pope’s Apparatus are external and
irrelevant. If both of us are reading and acting upon our understanding of the
Bible, then I’m o.k.–you’re o.k., because no one has the absolute right to say
what is o.k. according to the Bible. Protestant culture rejected Catholic oral
tradition and created an uncompromisingly individualistic spirituality which,
in turn, led to a fiercely unspiritual individualism.
For the Jew leaving the ghetto and making his emancipated way in Protestant
Western Europe, the adoption of European culture meant the conscious
adoption or the unconscious absorption of “sola scriptura.” The rejection of
Jewish oral tradition, and the rejection of the halachic tradition which springs
from it, were the obvious result. Protestant Judaism was born, and just like
Protestant Christianity, led to an individualistic Judaism which spawned
 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century? 95

Jews without need for Judaism at all. According to Peled, the kulturkampf
in the Jewish community of this century is between a traditionally Jewish
Judaism and a Protestant-nurtured, non-Jewish Judaism, the prime symptom
of which is the attitude toward Jewish observance, toward Jewish Studies in
general, and toward Talmud in specific. In light of Peled’s analysis, it would
appear reasonable to suggest that the question: “Why Learn Talmud in
the Twenty-First Century?” may be rewritten: “Considering the Ultimately
Protestant Christian, Sola Scriptura Nature of Western Jewish Identity, Why
Continue to Learn Oral Tradition?”
The answer to such a toxic question is a paraphrase of “I think, therefore
I am”—I learn Talmud, therefore I am a Jew. The traditional, authentic Jew
believes that God speaks to him or her specifically through the Oral Tradition,
believed to be divinely revealed literature at its root and, in its continuity,
human literature which is an ongoing revelation of the divine. As R. Yohanan
b. Napaha was quoted to say: “the covenant between God and Israel was only
for the sake of Oral Tradition.”5 Only through the revealed interpretive and
legislative principles of the Oral Tradition can the original divine revelation
be understood in changing circumstances. Oral Tradition is process, not only
product, combining awareness of precedents, consideration of circumstances,
and the judgment of the posek to obtain the appropriate halachic position in
each generation. To the Jewish mind, divine revelation means not only the
imposition of divine will on the human condition, but empowerment of the
human condition to filter, apply, and reinvigorate divine will. The study of
Talmud is the quest for the understanding of this Oral Tradition process,
and through it, the essence of revelation in the Jewish mind. I learn Talmud,
therefore I am a Jew.
“Why Learn Talmud Today?” Creeping disillusionment with western
society, feelings of emptiness and vanity engendered by “Villa and Volvo,”
and the incessant, insane pursuit of more and more capital, drive the
thinking and feeling Jew to seek a safer and more authentic haven—k’yonim
l’aruboteihem.6 In Talmud, maybe I can rediscover why my people survived
murder, torture, oppression, and exile! In Talmud, maybe I can understand
why my small and numerically insignificant people serve continually as
the fulcrum to move the universe, capturing an inexplicable and entirely
disproportionate share of human advance and accomplishment! In Talmud,
maybe I can understand the divine spark which makes my nation of Israel
indestructible, indefatigable, unsinkable, and downright incomprehensible!
This visceral, instinctual, intuitive return to Talmud reflects the innermost
awareness of a generation that it is time to break with Protestant civilization
and come home. If I learn Talmud, maybe I too can once again be an authen-
tic Jew! This is the answer to the emphasis: “Why Learn Talmud Today?”
96 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

The searching Jew of today senses that all cultural and spiritual options pale
in comparison to Talmud.
The proliferation of Talmudic learning today is astonishing. Yet, mass
realization of the centrality of Talmud to Jewish knowledge and spirituality
may itself lead to complications. Talmud is not fast food. Prerequisites for
Talmud include familiarity with Biblical, Tannaitic, and Amoraic literature,
knowledge of two Hebrew and two Aramaic dialects, awareness of the
major trends, personalities, and events of ancient and classic history, train-
ing in the use of reference works such as concordances, dictionaries, and
research literature and, most importantly, training in legal, comparative,
and abstract thinking. Translations, notes, and crib texts, no matter how
sophisticated, complete, and well-designed, cannot replace the spiritual joy
and intellectual fulfillment that result from study of the original Talmudic
text after systematic and careful preparation. The discipline of disciplines
demands discipline.
Even for those not ascribing to the spiritual and national values espoused
above, Talmud learning provides rich rewards for its devotees. Elsewhere, I
have treated the “how” of Talmud learning.7 Here, I would like to focus on
the cognitive effects and benefits of Talmud learning which flow from its
correct study.
The Talmud is unlike any text in western civilization. It is not a text at all.
A western text is generally the work of a given author, from a given place
and time, presenting a given story, thesis, or experience. Talmud is the work
of hundreds of authors, from multiple places and times, presenting laws,
stories, theses, and experiences in variegated languages (dialects of Hebrew
and Aramaic, with a liberal sprinkling of terms in Greek, Latin, Babylonian,
Elamite, etc.) and literary styles and conventions (poetry, narration, legisla-
tion, folklore, oratory, and lecture). This overwhelming variety of content
components (Tannaitic and Amoraic literature from approximately 200 BCE
until 500 CE)8 is then presented in and by a later discussant format which
combines, abstracts, conceptualizes, and generalizes the specific content
units in various ways from multiple perspectives (Stama D’Gemara = Shakla
v’Tarya).9 The resultant apparatus is akin to an archeological mound consisting
of approximately two dozen strata wrapped together in a later layer which
attempts to justify all the strata with each other in alternative directions!
In order to properly appreciate the complexity and richness of Talmud, the
student must be able to “deconstruct” the apparatus into its various strata,
appreciate each stratum in its own historical, legal, and cultural context, and
then “reconstruct” the apparatus into an overall conceptualized whole, while
holding in his or her mind widely variant alternatives for the reconstruction.
Minds trained to think in this manner are faster, sharper, more sophisticated,
 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century? 97

and more flexible than others. The combined erudition of Milton, poetry of
Shakespeare, complexity of Joyce, brilliance of Kant, and entertainment of
Rowling withers in comparison to Talmud.

WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC COGNITIVE PROCESSES

OF ACCURATE TALMUD LEARNING?

Concrete versus Abstract Thinking

The content components in Talmud hail from the Tannaitic and Amoraic
periods, totaling almost two dozen generations in Israel and Babylonia.10
The overwhelming majority of these components consist of halachic deci-
sions and disputes which deal with specific, concrete situations, much like
case law. The decisions flowed from the legislative authority of the Rabbis
ordained or authorized by the Sanhedrin, and were intended for those specific
contexts. They did not attempt to present an integrated halachic field theory.
However, the shakla v’tarya of the stama d’talmuda11 is designed to treat
these specific decisions by abstracting, conceptualizing, and generalizing
them into statutory legal principles applicable in all times and places. This
speculative process demands of itself not only plausible accuracy in each
case, but consistency in all cases in the Talmud! Thus, the learner is trained
in comparison and contrast of concrete and abstract thinking in each case,
and in the integration of hundreds of conceptualizations into an overarching
abstract system. I know of no literature or legal system as complex as this.

Product versus Process Thinking

The Talmud contains thousands of case law decisions from over two dozen
generations. Each decision is an individual, stand-alone product of its time,
place, and circumstances, reflecting the judgment of the scholar involved.
Therefore, as one moves from one stratum to the other, from one decision
to the other, one is induced to connect product to product and ask about the
motivations of the changes in the individual decisions, much akin to the
intuition of a picture by connecting the dots. What circumstances or judg-
ment changed to induce a different legal decision? This turns the learning
from product thinking into process thinking. This type of thinking is trans-
ferable to many disciplines ranging from history to the exact sciences.

Topical versus Associative Thinking

Western thinking and writing is generally topical. The reader expects the
author to restrict himself to the chosen subject. This attitude is the result of a
98 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

philosophical predisposition which sees each topic, item, or investigation on

its own merits, disconnected from all other fields of topics of investigation. It
may be that this approach is the natural result of polytheistic thinking which
perceives the world as a collection of multiple forces.12 Talmudic thinking is
associative, moving from topic to topic and field to field without restriction.
Content components can be joined by topic, but can also be joined by noth-
ing other than the name of the scholar who said them, the place or instance
in which they were said, common key words, numbers, or the like. This
approach to editing flows out of an oral context, but also from a conception of
the integration of all knowledge. This approach may ultimately be a reflection
of a monotheistic view of the world – all knowledge is one since all creation
is one, the work of the One.

Literal versus Figurative, Symbolic Thinking

The Talmud intertwines legal and aggadic material, even though the two
are radically different. Halachic material is to be understood literally, while
aggadic material is to be understood figuratively, symbolically, poetically.
For instance, an halachic remark that a given deed is permitted or forbidden
intends exactly what it says, but an aggadic context would present a discussion
between scholars living centuries apart, or variant ages of a given personality
at a given event in his life. The dates offered would not be chronological, but
typological.13 The reader must spontaneously adjust his thought as he moves
through the Talmudic discussion, sorting sources by their type, and by the
methodologies required to learn them.

Source Criticism and Evaluation

The Talmudic discussion involves comparison of the Mishnah of Rabbi
Yehudah HaNasi with its parallel sources—Tosefta, Beraitot, and Midreshei
Halachah. The Talmud must decide in each case whether all the sources
quoted are reliable or corrupt, limiting the resulting discussion to those
sources deemed authentic. Often, it is unclear why Tannaitic sources dis-
agree, and speculative interpretation must be employed to uncover the root
of the problem. Has a single Tanna authored both sources, but retracted
his opinion between the teaching of one source and the other? Has a single
Tanna authored both sources, but in two different situations requiring dif-
ferent legislation? Are the two sources representative of two different
Tannaim, and thus not in contradiction of each other at all? When this
process involves three or more sources, the process becomes significantly
 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century? 99

more complex, and the mental capabilities required for resolution of the
conflict multiply.

The sum of these cognitive processes is a learning experience which is

for the mind what marathon running and personal training is for the body.
Recent research in Israel has demonstrated that Talmud students untrained
in mathematics compare favorably when pitted in mathematics against
students of mathematics untrained in Talmud.14 It is therefore odd, if not
shameful, that a recent publication of the Israeli Ministry of Education,
delineating the skills learned in each discipline that are transferable to
other disciplines, listed “none” for Talmud! Someone should remind the
educators of the Jewish State that the Tannaim taught about Torah learn-
ing: “hafoch bah v’hafoch bah d’kulei vah,”15 and this is fulfilled most
completely in Talmud.
Beyond the cognitive processes associated with Talmud study, the tradi-
tional modality of learning carries further benefits. Western study patterns
are either lecture formats associated with frontal instruction, in vogue until
recently in primary and secondary schools and universities, or individual
research in libraries which maintain a tomb-like silence. As Western educators
realize the efficacy of decentralization and differentiation in the classroom,
frontal instruction has given way to the superior pedagogy of collaborative
work, generally conducted in small groups of students. However, even group
work cannot hold a candle to the traditional chevruta learning of the Talmudic
Bet Midrash.16 Imagine a room lined on all sides with books, floor to ceiling,
filled with tables at which pairs of students learn together aloud. The room
is filled with the buzz of study, including the roaming conversations of the
chevrutot, their (often very heated) arguments, and their consultations with
their Rebbeim (teachers) who are themselves engaged in study of Talmudic
text. This sort of environment has multiple advantages over the modalities of
modern Western classrooms:

(a) Learning is active, not passive: no one will spoon-feed the student, he
must initiate learning with his friend, or no learning will take place at all.
The responsibility for study is on the student. Even exams are the initia-
tion of the student wishing to move to a higher level learning group!
(b) The teacher is “the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage:” there is
no “us-them” conflict between students and teacher, because they contact
with the teacher in a consultative capacity initiated by them.
(c) Concentration skills are developed: learning in an environment in which
one is surrounded by conversation, even argumentation, demands of one
to learn to ignore the environment and concentrate.
100 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

Beyond all of the above, there are several basic human values carried
by Talmud learning, actualized by the very participation of the student in
the process. First of all, and possibly most importantly, learning of Talmud
implies that new is not necessarily improved, and old not necessarily irrel-
evant. In a recent popular television commercial featuring heroes of various
sports, they put over the message regarding their accomplishments: “I never
think about yesterday—the only thing that matters is today.” Despite the
good intention of teaching the value of constant effort to improve, the sub-
liminal message is a negation of the past as a basis for the present and future.
For the Talmud Jew, one only thinks about the present because of the past
which is, by definition, to be revered as more authentic, more authoritative,
and more value-ridden. Secondly, the study of Talmud puts across the mes-
sage that the source of knowledge is one’s parents and teachers—not books,
not media, not external heroes. The unit of family and masorah17 comes first,
and all outside experience is judged according to the extent of its consistency
with the sources of authority and values. This approach lends stability to a
society, meaning to family life, and a sense of belonging to systems greater
than oneself.
“Why Learn Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?” At this point, I think
the more relevant question would be: “Who Needs the Twenty-first Century
if One Learns Talmud?” In my opinion, this question would be far more dif-
ficult to answer.

ENDNOTES

1. Tosefta, beraitot, midreshei halachah. All extant material from the period of the
Tannaim totals over ten times the material contained in the Mishnah of Rabbi Yehu-
dah HaNasi, and the extant material is only a percentage of what existed originally.
2. The commandments given in Egypt, and the reference of the Torah that in
Marah, soon after the exodus, laws and judgements were given, are two examples of
this genre.
3. The famous example in Devarim 12: *** (“You shall sacrifice from your herds
and flocks... as I have commanded you.”—though no previous command is to be
found) suffices here.
4. Pelled, Shakhar, The Identity Grinder (Hebrew: Migreset HaZehuyot), Pardes
Publishing, Israel, 2007. See the summary monograph of the same name by Rabbi Y.
Kalner, Jerusalem, 2007 (unpublished), which presents the case more concisely and
more cogently.
5. Babli Gitin 60b
6. “Like doves to the openings of their nests.” (Yeshayahu 60:5).
 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century? 101

7. See: “On the Teaching of Talmud: Toward a Methodological Basis for the
Teaching of Oral Tradition Studies,” Religious Education, Volume 92, Number 1,
Winter, 1997, pp. 61–76; “Implications of Academic Approaches to the Study of
the Babylonian Talmud for Student Beliefs and Religious Attitudes,” in Abiding
Challenges, Research Perspectives on Jewish Education, edited by Profs. Yisrael
Rich and Michael Rosenak, Freund Publishing House and Bar Ilan University, 1999,
pp. 375–399; “Methodology and Method in the Teaching of Tannaitic Literature,”
Studies in Jewish Education, Melton Center for Jewish Education, Hebrew Univer-
sity in Jerusalem, September, 2000.
8. Although the date of 425 CE is generally given for the editing of the Babli,
based on the date of death of Rav Ashi of the sixth generation, it is clear from the
Igeret of Rav Sherira Gaon that the editing of the Amoraic material was done in the
eighth generation by Rav Asi (Yosi) and Ravina bar Rav Huna.
9. The two strata, the Amoraic and the Shakla V’Tarya, are distinguished by
language and form. Amoraic material is generally in Hebrew, and named, while Shakla
V’Tarya is in Aramaic, and anonymous. The failure to distinguish these two strata,
and to recognize and implement the tremendous implications of the difference be-
tween them, plagues the world of Yeshivot in our day.
10. Seven generations before the Tannaim, six generations of Tannaim, and eight
of Amoraim.
11. “Stama d’Talmuda” refers to the anonymous, Aramaic language layer of
the Talmudic text which comments on and analyzes the statements of the Tannaim
and Amoraim. It is likely from the very end of the Amoraic period and the Saboraic
period, circa 475–640 CE. “Shakla v’Tarya” means “give and take,” and refers
to the conversational style of the Stama d’Talmuda, in which anonymous discus-
sants appear to deal with the Tannaitic and Amoraic statements as if in a roundtable
colloquim.
12. The departmentalization, categorization and isolation of academic fields, so
characteristic of the western academic enterprise, is the direct heir of ancient western,
polytheistic systems of thought in this regard. The integration of various fields is only
valuable to one who sees ultimate unity in all knowledge, due to the ultimate unity
of all existence.
13. Due to the unfortunate ignorance related to the symbolic nature of aggadic
sources, it is worth devoting a note to another example of this type of thinking. It is
well known that the midrashim present Rivka (Rebecca) as three years of age at the
time of her marriage to Yitzchak (Isaac). This is due to the proximity of the relation
of her birth to the binding of Yitzchak which is said to have occurred when he was
37 years of age. In any event, many individuals, and teachers, accept this midrash
literally, and do not stop to think about the implications of such literalism. Naturally,
the term “three years of age” is not literal, as other midrashim say that Rivka was
twelve, or even twenty years of age. All of these numbers are typological, meaning:
“Three-like,” “Twelve-like,” etc. Therefore, the student of Talmud must always ask
himself whether he is reading halachic or aggadic material, in order to utilize the cor-
rect thinking skills for comprehension.
102 Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

14. See: Dembo, Y., Levin, I., & Siegler, R. S., “Schooling and Training Ef-
fects on a Geometric Misconception: A Comparison of Ultra-Orthodox and Mainstream
Students,” Developmental Psychology, 33, 92–103. Dembo, Y., Levin, I., & Siegler,
R. S., “Ultra-Orthodox and Mainstreamers: The Effects of Different Schooling Sys-
tems on Problem Solving,” Megamot, 38, 469–503. (Hebrew)
15. Pirkei Avot 5:22-”Turn it (Torah) over and over for all is in it.”
16. The Talmudic learning context is called “Bet Midrash”-”Study House” with
emphasis on hermeneutical study of Scripture and analogical study of Tannaitic and
Amoraic teachings. In the Bet Midrash, students sit in pairs (“chevrutot”) and learn
out loud (including disagreements, arguments, even vocal disputations), alternately
reading and commenting on the material in question. The atmosphere of dozens, if not
hundreds, of students sitting in pairs and learning out loud is unique, even amazing.
17. “Masorah” refers to the living tradition of how to learn Torah, as well as many
content components, which are handed down from generation to generation.
 Part III

ACADEMICS RESPOND
 The Meaning and Purpose of
Contemporary Talmud Study
Michael Chernick

The antiquity of the Talmud and of the myriad works that developed around it
was certainly at the intellectual center of Jewish life until the late 19th century.
The centrality of the study of the Talmud was not, however, the legacy of
every Jew. Those who studied the Talmud in depth represented an elite.
Nevertheless, most Jews would have said that Talmud study was the goal for
which every Jewish male should strive. Jewish parents of the past hoped that
their sons—the age of daughters’ equality not having arrived—would become
talmidei hakhamim, Talmudic scholars. Those who did not achieve this goal
still usually had some knowledge of this great treasury of Jewish knowledge.
Under any circumstance, the Talmud greatly influenced the Jewish penchant
for intellectual success.
What changed the status of the Talmud and its place in Jewish life was
the Emancipation of European Jewry and the granting of citizenship to them.
These events ultimately meant more interaction with non-Jews and their
languages and cultures. Jews transferred the intellectual energies they had
poured into Talmudic learning into more varied intellectual fields in which
more Jews with different interests than the Talmud could hope to succeed.
Under these circumstances, the Talmud was studied either by those who in
the name of traditional Jewish life fought the new conditions of Emancipation
and modernity or by those who eventually turned Talmudic learning into a
respectable university discipline.
All of these factors provide the reasons why Talmud study is not as wide-
spread today as it once was. Yet the Talmud remains a part of the curricula
of denominational Jewish seminaries and among the offerings of the best,
most well-rounded Jewish studies programs here and abroad. Which leads to

105
106 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

question, “What does Talmud study have to offer its contemporary students
and those who teach them?”
The easy answer is that anyone interested in Judaism and its world of
ideas has to have at least some background in the study of the Talmud. This
is because Talmudic literature is at the root of most significant Jewish ideas
that are products of rabbinic Judaism, the “proto-Judaism” that generated
the Jewish movements of our time. Whether the matter is one of Jewish
law, lore, philosophy, practice, or custom, the Talmud is usually the starting
point for it. Hence, it would be poor academic practice to study or research
any of these abovementioned issues without starting at the beginning. But,
as I said, that is the easy answer and one applicable only to a limited circle
of academic students and their teachers. In this essay, I would like to take
on the harder question of why Jews particularly, and others more generally,
might find the Talmud, or at least parts of it, a relevant document for our
time.

THE MEDIUM AS THE MESSAGE

1. The Talmud’s Development and its Message

Several contemporary scholars of rabbinic literature, most notably Jacob
Neusner, have taken the position that the literary formulation of various early
rabbinic works expressed the ideology of their creators.1 Taking their lead,
I would suggest that knowing something of the Talmud’s literary structure
provides insight into the more global messages that the Talmud’s particular
way of “speaking” generates. Hence, a description of the literary style of the
Talmud is a good place to start. The Talmudic argument or form of discus-
sion has been described as “labyrinthine.” That means that the Talmud is
not a Western text that moves along in linear fashion. Rather, it is made up
of a “skeleton” of early teachings in Hebrew that originally may have been
a simple list. Connective material in Aramaic reshapes the early teachings
into a series of questions and answers, thereby producing the typical form
of Talmudic discourse (in Aram., sugya, i.e., “a meandering walk”). This
revamping of the early teachings very likely changed their meaning, yet given
other phenomena too manifold to describe here, it is not likely that the redac-
tors did this consciously. Rather, it seems they were simply trying to make
sense of the relationship of one teaching to another in the proto-Talmud’s
lists of traditions.
If the medium is the message, then the message coming from the
Talmud’s development is that history is significant. Its significance for
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 107

those who look back on it may, however, be different from the meaning it
held for those who participated in the original events. But as the Talmud’s
development shows, historians may collect historical data, however what
they do with that data represents post factum reasonable and possible
reconstructions of the past. Nevertheless, the attempt at historical restora-
tion, remains inevitably tentative. The same may be said for the redac-
tors who created the Talmudic discussion out of the early traditions they
inherited.
The redactor’s reconstructions, as we noted, often alter the meaning of
original traditions. Then, we may ask, which counts: the early tradition as we
may best try to recover its original intent or the redactor’s reshaping of it in
the Talmudic dialectic? In other words, is it history or myth that really counts
in the creation of the present?
I would suggest that both are components in the making of today’s moment.
Unfortunately, however, history as a subject is lately ignored and often dis-
paraged. In a world focused on “now,” to look into an “old fashioned” past
seems to many to be a waste of time. But lack of historical memory condemns
people to refashioning the wheel over and over again. More historical per-
spective would add purpose to the lives of many people who have no clue
about the direction into their future because they have cut themselves off or
been cut off from their roots in the past.
The idea of myth also suffers from the common definition of myth as
a form of fiction. But myths represent accumulated wisdom organized
in an easily understood form. This wisdom helps to create principles
that also provide human life with meaning. Thus, history, which keeps
us in contact with fact to the degree that that is possible, and myth and
its particular form of wisdom join hands to enhance human experience.
These are some of the significant things we can learn from the Talmud’s
developmental history, to the extent that we can presently reconstruct
that history.

2. The Talmudic Argument Form and Its Messages:

The Joy of Study and the Search for Truth
David Kraemer in his The Mind of the Talmud, following his teacher,
David Weiss-Halivni, in Mirdash, Mishnah, and Gemara, sees the redac-
tional level of the Talmud as one in which there was more interest in
discussion of received traditions than in creation of new ones.2 These
discussions treated diametrically opposed points of view as valid subjects
108 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

for analysis and inspection. Hence, Kraemer’s conclusion is that those

who created the last strata of the Talmud shared two values: (1) learning
for learning’s sake; and (2) recognition that human beings could possess
at best only partial truths.3 Only by respecting, validating, and challenging
various viewpoints could a more complete sense of truth emerge, but even
then, the final word on truth was with God. In a basically religious docu-
ment, such a conclusion is by no means odd, though it may jar contempo-
rary secular sensibilities.
Yet, these messages, whether directed to religious individuals or to those
for whom religion holds little value, have significance. To hold that the
use of the mind is only for practical purposes is to put an end to the enjoy-
ment of the mind as a vehicle for the full appreciation of everything from
a good joke to a great work of art. In short, learning for learning’s sake
and making use of the mind for the pleasure of that use were important
values to the Talmud’s creators. The joy of Talmudic study was often the
sustaining force for a people whose life conditions were frequently, though
not always, tragic.4
The second principle implied in the present form of the Talmudic argument
is that no human being can possess a full grasp of the truth. The Talmudic
argument fosters respectful regard for all opinions, even ones that will
eventually be dismissed on logical or practical grounds. Those who redacted
the Talmud appear to have held that even those views that do not emerge
as “normative” still have something to teach. Failure to listen to each side
inevitably leads to the loss of valuable information that may be of theoretical or
practical importance at another time under different circumstances. Lack of
investigation of all views also renders impossible the discovery of a shared
middle ground that brings all sides closer to as much truth as human beings
can reach.
This search for truth and the realization that it cannot be found in all
its fullness in human discourse does not mean that the Talmud valorized
relativism. Rather, the Talmud’s borders are the boundaries that rabbinic
Judaism set for itself from the outset. Those boundaries depended on the
content of the Torah, understood as a canon of twenty-four books, strictly
or loosely interpreted. This was the framework for the subject matter of
rabbinic interests and discussions about them. Even when rabbinic Judaism
gave new meaning to the Torah’s words or extended its legislation into
areas not explicitly mentioned therein, it did so through a process called
midrash—intensive interpretation and manipulation of the Torah’s ancient
and fixed text. Thus, the thought of any particular rabbinic Sage had at least
to avoid conflict with the Torah, or, optimally, it had to be closely related
to its words.
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 109

HALAKHAH AND AGGADAH

Up until now I have tried to discuss the relevance of Talmud study on the
basis of its being a starting point for understanding the development of
virtually all things Jewish. I have also claimed that to know something of
the Talmud’s redactional history and form of discourse is to become aware
of it values. Other disciplines and works may do the same, but the Talmud
contains more than I have described until now. Its content and not just its
form have important lessons to teach. Therefore, I will move away from
describing the Talmud’s external features to dealing with some examples of
its content.
The Talmud contains halakhah, legal dicta, and aggadah, lore. Its halakhic
content covers a tremendous range of human activities, which it seeks to
regulate. Its aggadic content deals with the realms of Jewish belief and
Jewish insights into the human experience. The combination of the two, often
intertwined on a single Talmudic page, attempts to encompass the totality
of what it is to be human, and especially human in a particularly Jewish
way. Admittedly, there are aspects of the Talmud that are antiquarian, which
contain ideas that many people, Jews and non-Jews alike, would find passé
or even offensive in our time. I will deal first with some Talmudic halakhic
cases that are eminently acceptable and relevant. In order to represent the
Talmud’s halakhic content fairly, I will also deal with its “hard cases,” that
is, ones that moderns would find problematic if not unpalatable. After this, I
will have a word to say about aggadah.

THE LAW OF SELF-INCRIMINATION

In an halakhic rule stated by the Mishnah (the earliest compendium of rabbinic

law redacted c. 185–220 CE) we read:

The following are invalid as witnesses . . . one who lends (ha-malveh) on

interest. . . . (as prohibited in Lev. 25:36–37 and Deut. 20–21) [Mishnah,
Sanhedrin, ch. 3, mishnah 3, henceforth in this form: mSanhedrin 3:3]

The section of the Talmud called gemara, a commentary on the Mishnah

and other early sources, discusses this mishnaic passage as follows:

Mishnah text: “One who lends on interest (is an invalid witness)”:

(a) Gemara discussion of the Mishnah: Rava (amoraic teacher, c. 350) said,
“One who borrows on interest is disqualified as a witness.”
110 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

(b) But doesn’t the Mishnah teach, “(only) one who lends on interest (is
disqualified)?”
(c) (Malveh, meaning a lender, should be revocalized and read as milvah,
i.e., a loan. Therefore, the mishnah’s rule should be understood as) a
loan that is made on interest (causes all those who are involved in it to be
invalid witnesses).
(d) (A case related to invalidation of witnesses who are lenders and borrowers
on interest): Two witnesses testified against a man named Bar Binitos.
One said, “He loaned on interest in my presence.” The other (who was a
borrower) said, “He lent to me on interest.”

Rava disqualified Bar Binitos as a witness.

(e) But is it not Rava who says that even one who borrows on interest is an
invalid witness?! (Therefore, Rava should have invalidated the borrower
as a witness because) that person, i.e., the borrower, is considered evil
because (he violated the Torah’s rule), and the Torah says, “Do not join
hands with an evil person to become a witness” (Ex 23:1).
(f) (Regarding Rava’s ruling,) Rava followed his own view. As Rava had
said, “A person is considered a relative in regard to himself, and therefore
no one can declare himself an evil person.” (I.e., we do not accept a
person’s testimony against himself just as we do not accept the testimony
of relatives in a case.) [bSanhedrin 25a]

This Talmudic passage is one of the classical sources for the accepted prin-
ciple that Jewish law disallows self-incrimination. This was true from at least
the period of Rava, which was almost 1,710 years ago. The right of witnesses to
refuse to testify lest they incriminate themselves as ensconced in the U.S. Con-
stitution is less than 300 years old. Notice, however, that Talmudic law goes fur-
ther than the American Constitution. In American law, one can “take the Fifth”
in order not to incriminate oneself, but the impression that is left is that the party
has something incriminating to hide. In Jewish law, even if someone confessed
to a criminal act, his or her testimony would not be accepted.5
This regulation covers all criminal cases known to Jewish law. It is important
to consider what this Jewish legislation, which is considered normative, accom-
plishes. First, it maintains a larger pool of acceptable witnesses who may sign
documents and testify in court. More importantly, however, this rule eliminates
the usefulness of torture as a means of coercing a confession. Since confessions
against oneself have no legal standing, torture in order to get such a confession
accomplishes nothing beyond satisfying the sadism of the torturer.
Torture as a legally acceptable practice for the extraction of confessions
or other information relevant to a trial or other matters has a long history.
Therefore, Jewish law’s invalidation of all self-incriminatory speech sets it apart
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 111

from the behaviors of almost every society from antiquity to the present day.
The Talmud provides an important precedent which human rights advocates
can use in arguing for an end to torture as a means of extracting information
and incriminating confessions. To the extent that Jews see themselves bound
to the best aspects of the Talmudic tradition, this rule about self-incrimination
obligates them to act to eradicate torture worldwide. First, however, one would
have to know that such a tradition exists, and only by knowing something of the
Talmud’s contents can one know about this Jewish value and obligation.

THE OBLIGATION TO RESCUE

The first documentation of an obligation to rescue someone who is in danger

in Jewish law appears in the Torah itself. There the Torah teaches, “do not
stand by while your brother bleeds” (Lev. 19:16). Though this verse clearly
demands an action when someone is in danger, it is not clear how broad or
limited the scope of this rule is. For example, must the rescuer endanger his
or her life for the one being rescued? What happens if the rescuer damages
the one being rescued or damages the property of others as he or she rescues
another person? As usual the Talmud defines the more general imperative of
the Torah and provides clearer guidelines regarding rescue.
First the Talmud takes up the issue of how much violence one may use to
stop a crime that threatens a person’s life. Then the Talmud turns to cases in
which an individual may have to get more directly involved:

(a) Our Rabbis taught: Whence do we know that we are permitted to save a
party being pursued by one who seeks to kill him even at the cost of the
pursuer’s life? Because the Torah says, “do not stand by as your brother
bleeds” (Lev. 19:16).
(b) But does that verse really teach the law of the pursuer? Rather this verse
is needed to teach the following: “Whence do we know that one who sees
his fellow drowning in a river, or a wild beast dragging him, or robbers
attacking him, is obliged to save him?” The Torah says, “do not stand by
as your brother bleeds.”
(c) But is the verse cited from Leviticus really the source from which we
derive the abovementioned law? Rather isn’t it derived from (an in-
terpretation regarding the return of losses mentioned in Deut. 22:1–2)
[From those verses we know that one must return another person’s lost
animals, but] whence do we know that one must return his self to him?
The Torah says, “and you shall return it to him” (lit., “you shall return
him to him”].
(d) If we learned the obligation to rescue from that verse, we would only
know that one had to rescue the victim if one could. (But if one could
112 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

not save the individual by oneself,) then the potential rescuer might
think that he did not even have to go to excessive trouble or hire people
to help. Therefore, the verse that says, “do not stand by as your brother
bleeds” teaches us that one must (do everything in one’s power to save
the victim).

It is clear that Talmudic law requires intervention to save someone whose

life is in danger. These acts are not a matter of voluntarism but of obligation.
Essentially, the Talmud is describing contemporary “Good Samaritan” laws.
At present there are several countries and one province that require people who
witness a life-threatening situation to take action in order to limit harm or death
to a victim or victims. These are Italy, Japan, France, Andorra, Spain, Germany,
and the province of Quebec in Canada. In these places failure to aid in life-
threatening situations may render a person criminally liable, unless it is clear that
the potential rescuer would have thereby endangered his or her own life.
In other countries, these laws’ scope is much more limited. They are not pro-
active. Rather, they exist to protect rescuers from being sued for any damages
they may cause as a side effect of their lifesaving efforts. In most instances the
exemption from suit is limited to medically trained individuals who give their
services or advice gratis, or to civil servants whose job it is to save people in
critical or catastrophic situations. Most of the time, these laws do not usually
require anyone but civil servants actually to “get involved.” The Talmud clearly
goes further. According to its rules, even if rescuers do damage, including fatal
damage, they are not liable as long as there was no negligence on their part.6
Again, I point this out in order to show how advanced Talmudic legal and
moral thought was and how the two matters—legality and ethics—are often
joined in Jewish law. The Talmudic obligation to rescue urges us to consider
such questions as “Should we be held legally responsible for failing to call
911 when we see someone in danger or a crime being committed?” “Should
we be urged or even forced by law to feel a sense of obligation to use our
capabilities to help someone in extreme physical or possibly mortal danger as
long as we need not reasonably fear for our own lives?” In environments in
which the average person knows little about “Good Samaritan” laws, Talmud
study would be a vehicle for opening a conversation about them and whether
they go far enough in obliging bystanders to rescue those in danger.

IS ALL OF THE TALMUD THIS GOOD?

Is all of the Talmud this good? The obvious and immediate answer is, “No.”
That answer, however, is reductive as well. Just as I brought two textual wit-
nesses for the Talmud’s positive values, I now wish to present two witnesses
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 113

to problematic views in the Talmud. We may find that even when we are
taken aback by one Talmudic Sage’s view, another’s voice will often provide
a more nuanced position. We also need to keep in mind that the TaNaKh
(i.e., the Torah, Prophetic Books, and Holy Writings that make up the bibli-
cal canon) and its values influence the Rabbis. Thus, for example, the Rabbis
accept slavery as a legal institution.7 The cultures that surround the Talmudic
rabbis also influence them. They reject some aspects of those cultures, but
they accept others. We who live in the 21st century might find what they
accept or reject quite problematic if not objectionable.

Some Talmudic Legislation Affecting Women

One area that is a matter of serious concern for those who continue to regard
the Talmud and the vast literature it generated as either binding or significant
is the issue of the status of women. The popular conception of the ancient rab-
bis’ views of women is that they were uniformly misogynistic. Deeper study
reveals a “mixed bag” of Talmudic law and lore about women, but it would
be disingenuous to say that the preponderance of that “mixed bag” favored
women. In some instances Talmudic legislation concerning women may have
been influenced by laws that already appeared in the Bible, which the rabbis
did not feel authorized to change. In other cases, the laws may have been the
product of ingrained cultural models of the relationships of men and women
in Jewish and surrounding non-Jewish societies.8
I cannot say whether women were satisfied with their position or not. Patri-
archal societies do not tend to preserve women’s thoughts and concerns more
than they must. I will only say that for many women who live today some of
the Talmud’s legislation is not consonant with their self-perception or with
the modern ethical principal of equal treatment and opportunity.

Asymmetry in Marriage and Divorce

The basic laws of marriage and divorce assign an active role in these events
to men and a passive one to women. To cite the Mishnah in Kiddushin
(Marriage Laws) 2:1:

A man (actively) contracts a marriage by himself or through an agent. A woman

may be taken in marriage by herself or through her agent.

The many examples that mKiddushin, chapter 2, provides of how marriage

may be contracted always indicate that the man gives the woman something in
order to make her exclusively his. Should she take an active role by giving some-
thing to him, the marriage would be invalid as we find in bKiddushin 8b:
114 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

Our Rabbis taught: How does one contract a marriage using money? He (the
groom) gives her (the bride) a sum of money or its equivalent in goods. If he
says to her, “You are sanctified to me” or “You are my betrothed” or “Behold,
you are my wife”—she is married (if she agrees). But if she gave the money and
said, “I am sanctified to you” or “I am betrothed to you” or “Behold, I am your
wife”—she is not married.

The same is true when a marriage is dissolved by divorce. Generally speak-

ing, the Talmud rules that the husband initiates the divorce and the wife must
accept it even against her will as this mishnah in Tractate Yebamot teaches:

The man who divorces (his wife) is not similar to the wife who is divorced. For
a woman is divorced in accordance with her will or against her will, but the man
who divorces (his wife) does so only according to his will (mYebamot 14:1).

While these examples of Talmudic law about marriage and divorce indeed
raise the question of the meaning and purpose of studying Talmud in our
times, I would suggest that there are some important insights provided even
by these “hard cases.” And this statement should not be considered a preamble
to a defense of these rabbinic rules.
The most benign thing we learn from the sources on marriage is where the
custom of using a ring came from. Indeed, this was a great improvement over
marriage via a document that was only worth the paper on which it was writ-
ten, or by intercourse, which violated the privacy and dignity of the couple.
But this is a small lesson.
More importantly the Talmud’s rules governing marriage and divorce
provide starting points for understanding the different decisions that Jewish
denominations have made regarding these regulations. This helps a modern
Jew and those seeking to understand contemporary religious Jewish move-
ments to comprehend some of the guiding principles of these movements.
Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have rejected the nonegalitarian
aspects of Talmudic law in the areas of marriage and divorce. These move-
ments have created new rituals for marriage and divorce. The rituals use some
material drawn from the Talmudic wedding liturgy or divorce procedure, but
they are thoroughly egalitarian. This points to what standing these move-
ments allot to Talmudic law as it appears on the pages of the Talmud itself.
In the 19th century the Reform movement declared its freedom from bibli-
cal and rabbinic law whose content was not consistent with the regnant ethic of
the period and the “spirit of the age.” It did not take long for thoughtful adher-
ents of early Reform to recognize that acting on these principles emptied Juda-
ism of some of its special cultural features and its specific set of values. Hence,
a slow but steady return to the idea that Judaism was a unique tradition based
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 115

on a long social and literary history reentered Reform Judaism. Nevertheless,

Reform Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism after it, insisted that as ethical
understanding grew, Jewish religious culture would have to respond.
To a great extent both Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism maintained
a good deal of the marriage service reworked into an egalitarian format.
Reconstructionism, however, took the lead in creating new forms of Jewish
observances regarding divorce to replace what it considered problematic if
not offensive to a contemporary sensibility. This was consonant with its view
that Judaism was a civilization that reconstructed itself over and over as it
confronted new situations and values. As a result, Reconstructionist Judaism
created an egalitarian divorce document and procedure.
In its early days Reform Judaism accepted civil divorce as sufficient to
end a Jewish marriage. In a recent reconsideration of this position, Reform
Judaism has taken the position that individuals who entered into marriage via
a religious ceremony should leave it via a religious ceremony. Therefore the
Reform movement has recently offered its rabbinate and members an egali-
tarian tekes peredah, a ceremony of separation. This includes a document
that declares the couple divorced and, therefore, free to marry again. I would
suggest that had there been no Bible or Talmud, formulas and procedures
which produced legal marriages and divorces would have never been part of
our tradition. The existence of these traditions has forced Jewish religious
denominations to define themselves as either submissive to tradition or chal-
lengers and renovators of it. In liberal Judaism’s wrestling with the biblical
and Talmudic traditions, its adherents have clarified for themselves that the
“bottom line” that God demands of them is ethical behavior as most present
day individuals understand it. This has not prevented them from taking the
Talmud’s need for specificity of formal behavior and imbuing it with the kind
of ethical content that reflects the values of liberal Judaism.
One, however, should not dismiss traditionalists as relics of a past age
because they hew more closely to the Talmud’s laws and practices. There exists
a modern and enlightened Orthodoxy, which is far from weak and which has
considerable influence in the contemporary Jewish community. Certainly the
most “conservative” elements in the Conservative movement are part of this
spectrum as well, though the broad spectrum of Orthodoxy might disagree.
In these traditionalist movements, there is a struggle to understand and inter-
pret the Talmudic heritage in a way that may inform contemporary society.
Their adherents also wish to allow certain aspects of Western and other cultures
to inform and impact them. Rather than deviate from biblical and Talmudic
legislation, contemporary traditionalists who live in an open society struggle
with the issue of the place of women in Jewish life. In the realm of marriage,
there have been arrangements that give the bride a voice during the wedding
116 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

ceremony, though her statement is not an halakhic one betrothing her husband.
In some of the traditional circles I have been describing, women sometimes
read the ketubah (the traditional marriage contract) or recite some of the Talmu-
dically prescribed Seven Wedding Benedictions after the wedding meal.
In the realm of divorce, the one-sided nature of it in Talmudic law was sup-
planted by a 10th century enactment that prohibited a man from divorcing his
wife against her will. This has not solved the problem of men and women in
countries where church and state are separated by law from becoming trapped
in intolerable marriages in which one of the spouses refuses to give or accept
a get. Yet, thinking about how this situation can be avoided has occupied cen-
ter stage in the modern traditional community for at least twenty years now.
Some sectors of modern traditionalist communities have reduced this problem
through the use of prenuptial agreements (Orthodox solution) or by means of
a Talmudic mechanism called hafqa’at kiddushin, the annulment of a marriage
(Conservative solution). In Israel, where the rabbinic courts have the power
of coercion that they may apply to a recalcitrant spouse, the inequities of
recalcitrance could be easily alleviated. If there is a complaint raised in Israel
about the number of couples entrapped in defunct marriages due to a spouse’s
recalcitrance, the complaint is not with the Talmud. Rather, it is with those who
fail to make use of Talmudic legislation that might alleviate the problem. Nev-
ertheless, it cannot be said with honesty that absolute loyalty to Talmudic law
will, for example, ever produce a female cantor, though interestingly enough, it
might allow for women acting as halakhic decisors, which is essentially a rab-
binic role in the traditional community. In fact, in Israel and America the Ortho-
dox community has created a position called yo’ezet halakhah, female halakhic
advisers. These women are trained to answer halakhic questions that arise in
areas that have usually been the exclusive bailiwick of Orthodox rabbis.
In sum, an honest look at the Talmud’s views regarding women will not
produce a place for women consonant with the prevalent ethos of “advanced”
societies. This contemporaneously problematic Talmudic stance may not
even coincide with the biblical idea that each individual is of equal worth
because each was created in God’s image.9 So, then, why study the Talmud if
it contains material that is either anachronistic or ethically problematic? The
answer lies in the matter of how the Talmud’s form and content have been
used over the centuries.

FORM AND CONTENT

At this juncture it is important to consider how the Talmud has historically

been used in the shaping of Jewish life. Have the rabbinic sages of each
generation only made use of its content? Out of that content, have they only
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 117

used what emerged as “normative”? Beyond the Talmud’s content, have they
ever made use of its form of argumentation and thought without a high degree
of reliance on any of its precedents?
It would be fair to say that Jewish legal practitioners have used all three
approaches in their application of Talmudic law.

Application of the Content of Talmudic Law

In early responses to questions posed to authorities on Jewish law, the Talmud’s
content served as the basis for what are called responsa. For example, Rav Natro-
nai Gaon10 received a question as to whether a menstruant might say the grace
after meals or pray, or was she exempt as if she were sick? If she was required
to pray and recite grace, should she pray in a language other than Hebrew, the
holy tongue, since prayers and blessings are allowed in any language?
Rav Natronai cites a Talmudic statement by Ravina (bBekhorot 27a) who says
that a menstruant must separate the dough-offering (hallah) from a batter. When
she does so, she is required to recite the blessing for being commanded to do this
act (see bBaba Kama 94a). Rav Natronai reasons on this basis that menstruants
are required to pray and recite the grace after meals as the Talmud requires. As
he notes, “What is the difference between the blessing for a commandment and
any other form of blessing?” Hence, Jewish women who are menstruating may
recite blessings and prayers and attend the synagogue to do so.
Rav Natronai’s ruling is based on the application of the content of the
Talmud and the implications one might draw from it. It should be noted that
the Ravina’s ruling is not declared “normative” law in the Bekhorot nor in
an authoritative legal code like the Shulhan ‘Arukh. Rav Natronai Gaon’s
view is far-reaching since the Muslim world surrounding the Jewish com-
munity restricted the prayer practices and mosque attendance of menstruating
women. Rav Natronai’s decision remains Jewish practice until this day.

The Use of Normative Law in the Shaping of Jewish Practice

As we have noted, the Talmud does not usually decide the law in favor of one
disputant over another. This, however, does not mean that the Talmud never
makes such decisions. Thus, for example, we have several decisions regarding
what is to be considered normative halakhah in Tractate Mo’ed Katan 26b.
There Rabbi Meir’s view that the rent one is required to make in his or her
garment as a sign of mourning for a relative must be at least a handbreadth in
length is regarded as normative law (see also Shulhan ‘Arukh, 340:3). This
practice obtains today in traditional Jewish communities. Two other rules
regarding the rending of a garment in mourning receive normative status
in Mo’ed Katan 26b, namely, if another relative other than one’s parents
118 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

dies, one may add to the original tear. However, one need not add more that
a minute amount. Jewish law codes also accept these mourning practices as
normative law, and the traditional community or those who choose to follow
traditional mourning regulations follow these practices, which have left a
lasting imprint on Jewish mourning customs.

The Use of the Form of Talmudic Reasoning

in Shaping Jewish Practice
There are examples of the development of Jewish law that impacted Jewish
practice which had no Talmudic precedent. These developments were
frequently the result of use of the Talmudic interpretational methodol-
ogy of midrash, interpretation of the Torah’s text itself. While this kind
of interpretation was a commonplace for the earliest rabbis, the tannaim
(c. 40 BCE–220 CE), its use continuously waned in the subsequent amoraic
period (c. 220–520 CE). From the fourth amoraic generation on, midrash
existed solely to support the views of earlier authorities. Thus, the reappear-
ance of midrash as a force for the creation of Jewish law is an interesting and
surprising development. In Talmud-like fashion, once a sage formulated a
rule, later sages tended to enlarge its scope. In the example below, a famous
view of Maimonides, which he based on a midrash of his own, became the
source for yet further legislation.
In Talmudic law the rules governing the transfer of property are some-
what “primitive.” One could only transfer ownership of goods, for example,
if one was their present owner and either had them in one’s possession or
had nearly immediate access to them. From the Talmud’s point of view,
dedication of goods or property for sanctified purposes (Heb., heqdesh)
was another form of transfer of one’s property to another owner. How-
ever, normal transfer differed from sanctification of property. In the first
case, the owner had to hand over the property to the new owner or have
new owner take it into his possession. This could be accomplished either
by physically removing it, or if it was real estate, by using it in some way.
In the case of sanctification, transfer could be affected by verbal declara-
tion. In his code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, Maimonides accepts these
rules as normative law.11 However, he goes on to state that if one took a
vow to make a donation to a sacred cause or institution rather than making
a verbal transfer of property to heqdesh, then whether or not he owned and
possessed the property he was dedicating by vow, his act of sanctification
was valid and binding.
Maimonides justified this new ruling by referring to Jacob’s vow
described in Gen. 28:22. The essence of that vow was: If God would watch
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 119

over him during his sojourn in Padan-Aram, and provide him with his basic
needs, then the place at which he dreamed of angels ascending and descend-
ing a ladder would be made into a house of God, and Jacob would give God
a tenth of all his possessions. But at the moment of his vow, Jacob had no
more than the clothes on his back. When he returned to Canaan, however,
he was wealthy. Thus, Maimonides claimed the Torah itself supported his
ruling. He closes his creation of a new Jewish law with the statement “and
thus it is fit to rule” when one takes a vow of sanctification rather than
making a donation to heqdesh by a verbal statement of transfer.12 Point-
edly, Maimonides notes that his rule bore no analogy to secular business
transactions.13
As time went on, however, other halakhists extended the basic idea behind
Maimonides’s view to business transactions in which there were transferences
of property ownership. Thus, if sellers obligated themselves to transfer own-
ership of a certain product, they had to “deliver the goods.” Essentially, the
legal theory behind this rule existed in potentio in Maimonides’s ruling. Later
authorities simply viewed self-obligation as a form of vow that had to be kept.
The fact that a seller did not have access to the product he or she was selling
because it did not exist or was unavailable to him or her was irrelevant. The
seller existed, and the obligation of transferring ownership of the product s/he
offered rested on him or her.14 Once the product became available, he or she
had to turn it over to the party to whom he or she was obliged.
The new rules regarding transfer of ownership via self-obligation allowed
for a wider range of business transactions than the Talmud had imagined.
Dealing in futures became legal, and in autonomous Jewish societies from
the middle ages until contemporary Israel, such transactions have the sanction
of Jewish law. Indeed, wittingly or not, any Jew anywhere who writes out a
contract in which he or she uses the language of self-obligation has created a
legally binding agreement from the standpoint of Jewish law.
The fact that some Jewish legal authorities used the Talmud’s form of legal
reasoning and not only its content to create new legislation is an important
factor in considering why the study of the Talmud and the mastery of its
thought processes are significant in the 21st century. Understanding how
to reason in this way has the potential to help the Jewish people develop
meaningful Jewish responses to emerging contemporary religious and secular
concerns. These responses have the benefit of squarely facing the present and
future concerns while still being organically connected to the precedents of
the Jewish past. To be able to use the Talmud’s form of legal reasoning in
order to use it in the here and now requires a knowledge that one can attain
only by study of the document from which it comes—the Talmud and its
ancillary sources.
120 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

A WORD ABOUT TALMUDIC LORE

Until now I have concentrated exclusively on Talmudic law because that is

what traditional Talmud teachers and students have emphasized. Nevertheless,
the halakhic content of the Babylonian Talmud makes up only about a third of
its entirety. Thus, two-thirds of the Talmud is lore. If one only looks at the hal-
akhic aspect of the Talmud, one sees its mind but not its heart, and the heart is
a singularly vital organ. Though the Palestinian Talmud declares that Talmudic
lore, or aggadah, cannot yield any legal results, this “rule” was occasionally
observed in the breach or circumvented.15 Perhaps some Sages’ reluctance to
use aggadah as source of law was based on their sense that Talmudic lore lacked
objective criteria for judging the “logic” of its ideas about theology, beliefs, and
values. Nevertheless, when halakhah and aggadah become intertwined, often
the aggadah sheds light on what spiritual or ethical goals the halakha seeks to
accomplish. Skepticism, however, about the aggadah’s capability of yielding
firm norms is the result of the fact that some pieces of Jewish lore on a single
subject contradict one another.16 Also, as is the case with halakhah, there are wide
divergences of opinion within the aggadah. One can make a decision about how
logical, practical, or generally accepted a law is and thereby declare it normative.
But how is one to judge whether a theological theory, belief, or ethical percep-
tion of one rabbinic thinker has more validity than that of another if that view
does not violate the boundaries set by the basic source of authority for the rabbis,
the TaNaKh? Thus, for example, if a rabbi said there was more than one God,
obviously his rabbinic colleagues would reject his theological view. If, however,
one rabbi held that God revealed the Pentateuch in a single act of revelation and
another held that God revealed the Torah piece by piece, since the Torah itself
makes no firm declaration on this issue, either view is acceptable. These exam-
ples of acceptable and unacceptable beliefs nevertheless point to a framework of
belief that transcends fine points. All the ancient rabbis would agree that Judaism
is strictly monotheistic and that the Torah is God’s revelation to Israel.
All of the ancient rabbis would also agree that there were proper and
improper modes of conduct, but the measure for this in aggadic sources might
not find an echo in halakhic ones. Talmudic law might allow a behavior that
a 21st century individual with a reasonably good moral compass would find
unacceptable or even reprehensible. Hence, the reason that Talmudic lore
is especially important, whether it is legally normative or not, is because it
addresses the conscience urging it to go beyond the letter of the law. There
are cases in which we can at least posit that an aggadic critique influenced the
final outcome of the law. This may have influenced the tendency for Jewish
law and Jewish ethics to catch up to one another over time, though this may
be a tendency present in most legal systems and not only in Judaism’s.17
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 121

The following examples should prove illustrative. There is an aggadic

story about Simeon ben Shetah who purchased a donkey from a gentile. His
students found a precious stone hanging from the donkey’s neck. According
to Jewish law he had no obligation to return the gem to the gentile because the
Jewish law of return of lost objects applies only to fellow Jews according to
Talmudic law. Nevertheless, Simeon ben Shetah said, “I purchased a donkey,
and I did not purchase a gem.” He returned the gem to its original owner, who
declared, “Blessed is the Eternal, the God of Simeon ben Shetah.” Ultimately
Talmudic law holds that if failure to return the lost object of a gentile leads
to the desecration of God’s name, a Jew must return it.18
The Talmud (bKetubot ) entertains an opinion that students of Torah may
leave their wives and children for as long as two to three years to go to study.
They need no permission from their wives despite the fact that they owe them
sexual rights as a matter of their ketubah (i.e., marriage contract) obligations.
The Talmudic source also says that in fact students accepted this as the law
and acted accordingly. Immediately following this statement that leads to a
sense that this ruling is normative there appears a cautionary statement by
Rava, an amoraic sage who lived around 350. He stated that those who did this
did so at the peril of their lives. Following Rava’s warning, an aggadic story
about a rabbi named Rav Rehumi appears to prove that Rava was not kidding.
Rav Rehumi would leave his wife for a year at a time but would return at least
for Yom Kippur and perhaps beyond. One year, however, he got caught up in
study and failed to come home. His wife began to cry because he didn’t arrive
as expected, and he died because of her tears, and, presumably, for remaining
away from her for over a year (not even two or three years).
A careful literary critical study of the Rehumi story would show the reader
a progression from comedy to tragedy, but the obvious message of the story
is clear: Torah study that undermines normal family life and hurts people
may be more transgressive and therefore dangerous than students realize.
The normative law may be that students of Torah may leave their families
for extended periods of study, but that doesn’t mean that it is good for them
to do so. No matter how “normative” the rule about Torah students became
in the major codes of Jewish law,19 the warning from a major figure like
Rava as well as the sad end of Rav Rehumi probably dissuaded more than
a few such students from taking advantage of this law. Several of the later
commentators on the last of these majors codes, the Shulhan ‘Arukh, restrict
the right of contemporary students to leave there families for extended
periods.20
Again, if one seeks to understand where Jewish religious and ethical
thought comes from and what its nature is, the Talmud is a sine qua non. Even
what we would call superstition-filled pieces of aggadah, which the Talmudic
122 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

sages would probably have dubbed “contemporary scientific information,” is

of value to the anthropologist or historian of religion.

CONCLUSION

It is not easy to write an essay that supports the study of an ancient text in our
day. There is a contemporary sense (malady?) that if a text is very old it must be
irrelevant. But is it fair to make that judgment without having engaged that text?
I have found that many people who begin Talmud study, usually out of curiosity
about what it’s all about, become more appreciative of what it has to say to our
world. The proof is in the pudding: I have taught Talmud to a group of Conser-
vative Jewish laypeople for over ten years. The group meets on Sunday morn-
ings and we study for about two hours, sometimes with a traditional preparation
period done with study partners. The core group remains at a steady dozen and
rises depending on the tractate to eighteen or so. It isn’t a crowd, but it is a sign
of how addictive the Talmud can get to be. Further, in my academic career I have
been invited to do more than many (certainly more than 100) speaking engage-
ments where the Talmud and its relevance to contemporary issues was what peo-
ple were looking for, and these were events held mostly but not exclusively, in
Reform Jewish or other non-Orthodox Jewish settings. Anyone who would begin
the study of Talmud today would not be alone. There are hundreds of groups
studying a page of Talmud per day, and though most of them attract Orthodox
Jews, others have joined this program that completes the entire Talmud in seven
years. This phenomenon alone indicates a salutary resurgence of interest in this
classic. The depth of study in these groups may not be optimal, but the breadth
surely gives the student a good sense of the Talmud’s contents He or she can then
judge fairly which aspects of the Talmudic tradition He or she finds relevant. I
sincerely believe that there will be many, even if not every word generates ideas
with contemporary significance.
So, coming full circle, if one wishes to know about how Judaism developed
and what it has to say to us in the present moment, the Talmud is the starting
place. And that is why I believe that one who is interested in such matters
should engage in Talmud study in the 21st century.

ENDNOTES

1. For example, see Jacob Neusner, Uniting the Dual Torah: Sifra and the
Problem of Mishnah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 28–31.
 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study 123

2. David Kraemer, The Mind of the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990), ch. 5; David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 77.
3. Idem., ch. 6.
4. Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1952–1983), p. 297, n. 7, regarding too much emphasis on the
“lachrymose theory of Jewish history.”
5. Shulhan `Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, 34:25. The Shulhan `Arukh is one of the
most authoritative codes of Jewish law. The section called Hoshen Mishpat deals with
torts and criminal law.
6. This may be inferred from Tur, Yoreh De`ah, 336 and from the Bet Yosef ad
loc., s.v. U-mah Shekatav. The Tur is one of the three major codes of Jewish law.
Yoreh De`ah is the second major section of the code. The chapter deals with expert
doctors who harm a patient without intent or negligence who are free from any cul-
pability. This applies only to certified physicians Nevertheless, one may infer that if
a nonprofessional rescuer is the only available person to save an endangered person,
then that rescuer is equivalent to a certified physician at that moment, since no one is
permitted to hesitate when it comes to the saving of a life. See Shulhan `Arukh, ‘Orah
Hayyim, 328:12–13. It is a well-known rule that one may even violate the rigorous
rules of the Sabbath in order to save a life.
7. See, for example, mQiddushin 1:2 and 3 that discuss how Jewish and non-Jew-
ish slaves are acquired .
8. For example, the traditional blessing that traditionally oriented Jewish men re-
cite, which thanks God for not creating them women, was among the three statements
of gratitude attributed by some to Thales, others to Socrates, and yet others to Plato.
See Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-feshutah, Berakhot (New York: Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, reprinted 1992), p. 120. If this is so, this benediction is of
Greek origin. Nevertheless, it appears to have been sufficiently appealing to the Rab-
bis who included it in the daily Jewish liturgy. This blessing is still recited daily and
publicly in many Orthodox congregations, even when women are present.
9. Yalqut Shim`oni, Shofetim, 42, s.v. u-Devorah ‘ishah neviah. The citation
states that whether one is a man or a woman, a slave or a maidservant, according to
one’s sanctified actions does the holy spirit (i.e., the source of prophetic inspiration)
rest upon a person.
10. R. Natronai Gaon was the Gaon of the Babylonian yeshiva in Sura. He served
in this position from 583–858 CE. The gaonate was the major intellectual and legis-
lative body of Babylonian Jewry. It continued the study of the Talmud and began to
use it for the purposes of answering emerging questions regarding Jewish life in the
early middle ages.
11. Mishneh Torah, Laws of Vows of Valuations and of Dedications, 6:26.
12. Ibid., 6:31–33.
13. Op.cit., Laws of Sales, 22:16.
14. Shulhan `Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, 60:6 and Sefer Me’irat `Enayyim, #18. Sefer
Me’irat `Enayyim is a commentary to the Shulhan `Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, which
124 The Meaning and Purpose of Contemporary Talmud Study

deals with judicial procedures and criminal and civil law. Sefer Me’irat `Enayyim was
written by R. Joshua Falk (Poland, 1555–1614).
15. See Yad Malakhi, Kelalei ha-Aleph, #72. Yad Malakhi is a work on phenom-
ena in the Talmud and general principles that derive from it. It was written by R.
Malakhi ben Jacob Ha-kohen in Italy in the 16th century. He notes that generally
speaking one may not derive law from Talmudic lore. This, however, is only the case
if the rule that might be derived from the lore directly opposes a legal statement of the
Talmud. More recent circumventions of this rule can be found in those responses that
cite the story of R. Hananiah ben Teradyon, a 2nd century martyr, who was burned
alive. In order to increase his suffering, the Romans placed wet wool over his heart in
order that the fire not destroy his vital organs, thereby prolonging his agony. A Ro-
man soldier said he would remove the wool if the Rabbi would promise him a place
in the world to come. The Rabbi did so, and according to the story, after the soldier
consigned himself to the fire along with the Rabbi, both were received into the world
to come together. The story has been used to address end of life issues and permis-
sion to removing obstacles to dying, even when there may be hastening of death, in
the face of great suffering. This piece of lore lies on a line. It is clearly aggadic in
a general sense, but the Rabbi is the one who directly allows for the removal of the
wool. Should his agreement be viewed as an halakhic decision?
16. Tosafot, bYebamot 16b.
17. I use the phrase “in most legal systems” because strict legal positivists would
separate law and ethics into two different categories of thought. In a legal system
informed by legal positivism, law would not necessarily have to keep up with ethical
developments, nor would ethics necessarily exert any influence over legislation.
18. bBaba Qamma, 113b; Mishneh Torah, Laws Governing Loss and Robbery,
11:3; Shulhan `Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, 266:1.
19. Shulhan `Arukh,’ Even ha-`Ezer, 76:5.
20. Bet Shemuel, ad loc., #1; Helqat Mehoqeq, ad loc., #10. Both of these are
commentaries to the section of the Shulhan `Arukh dealing with marriage and divorce
laws. The author of Bet Shemuel is R. Samuel ben Uri Shraga Feibush, born in Poland
c. 1640 and died 1698. The author of Helqat Mehoqeq was R. Mosheh b. Yitzchak
Yehudah Lema, one of Poland’s most distinguished rabbinic figures. He was born in
Lithuania in the early 17th century. He died in 1657 at age 52.
 Why Study Talmud?*
Shaye J. D. Cohen

Why study Talmud? This question is actually two questions: Why do I study
Talmud? Why might anyone1 want to consider studying Talmud? The answer
to the first question is easy, the answer to the second is not.
Before I begin, a word of clarification. By “Talmud” I mean primarily the
Babylonian Talmud, the Bavli, the canonical text par excellence of yeshiva
education, but from time to time in this essay I use the term to denote all of
rabbinic literature of antiquity: Mishnah, Tosefta, halakhic midrashim, aggadic
midrashim, the Talmud of the land of Israel (Yerushalmi), as well as the
Babylonian Talmud (Bavli). The numerous historical and stylistic distinctions
among all these works do not much matter for my purposes here.
Why do I study Talmud? First, I like old things, I always have. I studied
Latin in high school and majored in Greek and Latin in college. For a time I
even considered becoming a classicist. I enjoy classical music. I adhere to the
ancient adage “older is better.”2
Second, and what is more important, I was brought up studying Talmud.
I was brought up in a modern Orthodox home. I went to yeshiva from grade
K through grade 16 (my undergraduate degree is from Yeshiva College). If I
recall correctly, we boys were introduced to Mishnah in the fourth grade—or
was it the fifth?—and began studying the Bavli in fifth (sixth?). From those
days long ago until today, Talmud study has been a constant part of my life,
to a greater or lesser degree. I study Talmud because I have always studied
Talmud. I have never not studied Talmud. Studying Talmud is what a (male)
Jew does.3
Third, because I have always studied Talmud, I’m good at it. Hence I study
Talmud because I can—it’s famously difficult and yet I can do it. Many of us
have mastered some skill, or possess some talent, of which we are proud. For

125
126 Why Study Talmud?

some this special skill is playing a musical instrument. For others it might be
woodworking, or cooking, or creative writing, or painting. One of the special
skills that I have, and that inevitably contributes to who and what I am, for
better or worse, is my ability to study Talmud. I enjoy it and I am good at it.
Fourth, I enjoy it because there is much to enjoy. The Talmud is a feast
for the mind. Its technical terms, abstruse subject matter, argumentative
twists and turns, nonlinear logic, and contrapuntal style, make the study of
Talmud difficult, challenging, and fun. I enjoy logic puzzles. I enjoy solv-
ing problems from the Dell Book of Logic Problems and brain teasers of all
kinds. Some passages of the Talmud were written with the intention of being
brain teasers. So, for example, in response to the implied question “can you
construct a situation in which a man violates eight prohibitions of the Torah
simultaneously by plowing a single furrow in a field,” the Talmud answers
as follows:4 he is plowing (1) with an ox and a donkey yoked together,5
(2) the ox being temple property reserved for the altar, and (3) the donkey
being temple property reserved for the upkeep of the temple;6 (4) he is plow-
ing wheat seeds in a vineyard,7 (5) during the seventh year,8 and (6) on a
holiday;9 he is (7) a priest and (8) a nazirite plowing in an area which contain
human remains.10 To say in reply that this case is far fetched misses the point
completely: constructing such cases is a way to sharpen the mind, to explore
the limits of legal principles and to understand the effect of overlapping
categories. The Talmud is full of such intentional brainteasers. For me such
passages are fun.
Even more common, of course, are the unintentional brainteasers,
Talmudic passages in which it is not clear how a question is a question
or an answer is an answer or a proof is a proof. The Talmud is filled with
such passages, from one end to the other. There is hardly a page without at
least several statements that have provoked debate among the great medi-
eval commentators. In attempting to decipher such passages, we struggle
with the Talmud text and also with the interpretive tradition of the past
thousand years or so.
Here is a particularly fun example, one from among thousands; this one
is a brain teaser within a brain teaser. A man without heirs lies on his death
bed and declares that he wishes to bequeath all his property to Toviah (in
English we might say Tobias). Before we can inquire as to the identity of
this Toviah, he dies. Two Toviahs promptly present themselves in court,
each one claiming the legacy. What do we do? All the dying man said was
“My property goes to Toviah.” (Perhaps had he said “rosebud” the Talmudic
rabbis would have found themselves on the next train to Hollywood.) The
Talmud rules as follows. If one of the two Toviahs was a rabbinic sage, and
the other a neighbor, the sage takes the property. Similarly, if one of the
 Why Study Talmud? 127

two Toviahs was a sage and the other a relative, once again the sage takes
the property. (These rabbinic rulings, which appear to be shamefully self-
serving, are predicated on the assumption that a God-fearing Jew would,
everything else being equal, of course prefer to bestow deathbed gifts on
a rabbinic sage rather than upon anyone else, presumably in order to find
favor with God in the hereafter.) But what if neither Toviah is a sage; what
if one Toviah is a relative and the other a neighbor—to whom is the property
to be given? Answer: shuda de dayyanei. The text, etymology, and meaning
of the first of these words are uncertain, and as a result all the medieval
commentators debate how to interpret this phrase. According to Rashi
(1040–1105), the Talmud is saying that in such cases the rabbinic court
attempts to divine the intent of the testator. According to Rashi’s grandson
R. Jacob Tam (known as Rabbenu Tam, 12th century), the Talmud is saying
that the rabbinic court may do whatever it wishes. If one Toviah is more
pious or learned than the other, the court may decide to bestow the property
upon him, not because we assume that this was the testator’s intent, but
because the judges may act as they please. Behind these two different
explanations of a cryptic Talmudic phrase are two different conceptions of
judicial power and the place of the sage in society. What the Talmud really
meant is not clear. So, here we have a Talmudic brainteaser (the case of the
two Toviahs), compounded by an exegetical brain-teaser (what exactly did
the Talmud mean by the mysterious words shuda de dayyanei?). Figuring
all this out is the fun of Talmud study.11
The Talmud, then, first and foremost, is a feast for the mind. Beyond that,
the Talmud is also interesting, fascinating, amazing. It contains wonderful
stories.12 The stories range from the dry reportage of (real or imagined) court
cases to stories about scholars in conversation to folktales to the tall tales told
by sailors and travelers. From the pages of the Talmud we learn about folk
medicine and superstitions, the power of the evil eye and its antidotes, the
culture and values of a society that lived long ago and far away. We get an
insight into the history of Jewish law and practice. We learn that once upon
a time poultry could be served with cheese, because poultry was once con-
sidered more like fish than like cattle. We learn that Jewish men once upon a
time did not routinely keep their heads covered, even when praying, reciting
benedictions, or engaged in religious activity.13 We learn that once upon a
time there was a public ritual by which a family would disinherit or “cut off”
an errant member:

If one of several brothers marries a woman who does not befit him, the members
of the family take a cask filled with fruit and break it in the middle of the town
square and say “Our brothers, the house of Israel, listen! Our brother x has married
128 Why Study Talmud?

a woman who does not befit him. We fear that his seed might mingle with our
seed. Come, take for yourselves an example for the generations, so that his seed
not mingle with our seed.”14
And so on and so on. Examples like this could be easily multiplied.
The downside of this cultural exploration, of course, is that inevitably
we find things in the Talmud that we do not like. The Talmud (and here I
mean the Babylonian Talmud in particular) is famous for logical leaps that
do not land securely, for questions that we have trouble regarding as real
questions, for answers that we have trouble regarding as real answers, for
proofs that we have trouble regarding as real proofs, for inferences that are
far fetched, if not absurd, and for explanations that are unreasonable or highly
contrived. I am not referring to passages which, because of their difficulty
and complexity, strain our intellect; these are a delight (see above). No, I am
referring to passages which strain our credulity. Do they really expect me to
take this seriously? we ask. Recent scholarship tends to attribute the worst
of these excesses to the latest, anonymous layers of the Babylonian Talmud,
exonerating the named authorities who were active in the main period of the
Talmud’s formation, but no matter. These passages, which are found through-
out the Bavli, give the text its rhetorical character and justify its checkered
reputation.
We are not surprised, I suppose, by the Talmud’s ignorance about the natural
world. They believe that the sun revolves around the earth. They believe that
pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) has the value of
three. Their understanding of human physiology was elementary; as a friend
of mine once commented to me long ago, if a woman’s body was actually put
together the way the sages imagined, it would be a miracle if a woman ever got
pregnant. They believe in ghosts, demons, and spirits of all kinds.15 We should
not be surprised by this; the rabbis were men of their time.
We should not be surprised but we can be disappointed. The Talmud is full
of offensive statements about gentiles and about women. The Talmud accepts
the institution of slavery.16 The Talmud accepts the validity of a marriage
between an adult man and a girl of the age of three years and one day; what
they call marriage we would call child abuse. In these and other areas I want
the sages to be better, but I need to accept the fact that they were men of their
time and place.
If I believed that the Talmud was the work of God, or that the Talmudic
sages were somehow speaking the word of God, then these passages would
be yet more troubling. I understand that some of my fellow Jews in fact
attribute to the Talmud authority akin to that of the Torah, as if the divine
element were as prominent in the one as in the other. I recall an article in the
New York Times many years ago (I was in high school at the time, I believe)
 Why Study Talmud? 129

about a daf yomi group that met daily in the rear car of a Long Island Rail
Road commuter train.17 In explaining to the newspaper reporter what they
were doing, one of the participants said (this quotation has stuck in my
mind), “When we pray we talk to God; when we study Talmud God talks
to us.” If this Jew and others like him believe that God speaks to them out
of the pages of the Talmud, I am happy for them, and I hope that they are
happy in their faith. I, however, do not believe this. The Talmud nowhere
claims prophetic authority for itself and indeed seems to reject it in various
places.18 For me the Talmud is the voice of men. Since it is the voice of men,
I am disappointed but not surprised that they say things that I, and other
modern, politically correct, progressive, enlightened Jews, find offensive. If
these offensive statements and rulings came from God, I would have much
more trouble with them.
To return to my theme: A very attractive feature of Talmudic discourse is its
multivocality, the ability to support conflicting positions on a single question.
As is well known, ancient rabbinic literature is filled with disputes, usually
between the proponents of two differing positions, sometimes three, and
sometimes even more. What is more remarkable than the fact that the sages
argue with each other is the fact that the Talmud seldom adjudicates among
these rival positions. In medieval times jurists had to work out a system for
deriving normative law from these fractious texts. Indeed occasionally the
Talmud provides them clues to aid them in their work, but the for the most
part the Talmud treats all sides to a question as equally valid. Even in those
situations when it is clear that the debate has a “winner” (e.g. the House of
Hillel) and a “loser” (e.g. the House of Shammai), the Talmud will treat both
sides with equal respect. It poses questions to both, adduces proofs for both,
and in general subjects both to the same scrutiny. Whether we should call the
Talmudic stance “pluralistic,” is a fair question, the answer turning in a large
part on how we define “pluralism” and whether we believe that the Talmud,
contrary to appearances, in fact was interested in establishing normative law.
In nonlegal matters, the Talmudic arena is even more open and freewheeling.
All sorts of theological positions can be staked out, and all sorts of homilies
and moral instruction can be derived from a single verse. This indeed seems
to be some kind of pluralism; in theology, at least, Talmudic Judaism is multi-
form, and we modern Jews, including me, love to see this stance implicitly
articulated in a foundational Jewish text.
Before I conclude, let us study a little piece of Mishnah to see some of
the good clean fun that awaits the student of ancient rabbinic literature. This
passage is well known to those who pray every morning from a traditional
prayerbook; it is the opening Mishnah of tractate Pe’ah:
130 Why Study Talmud?

These are the things for which no statutory amount is prescribed [in the Torah]:
(a) pe’ah, (b) first-fruits, (c) appearance offering, (d) deeds of loving kindness,
and (e) study of Torah.

Our first challenge is exegetical. First, is the Mishnah speaking here of

minimums, maximums, or both?19 That is, is the Mishnah speaking about
upper limits or lower limits? As we shall see in a moment, the very next
Mishnaic paragraph implies that we are speaking of minimums, and this
seems to be the simple meaning of the text, but perhaps the Mishnah flits
from one to the other.
Second, what is the exact meaning of these five “things”? Three are simple,
but two are ambiguous. (a) Pe’ah is the corner of the field that is left unhar-
vested for the poor. (b) The first fruits are to be brought to the temple and
presented to the priest.20 (e) Study of Torah is, well, study of Torah. These
are (relatively) simple; (c) and (d), however, are ambiguous. The “appearance
offering” clearly refers to the commandment of Deuteronomy 16:16 to appear
before the Lord three times a year, and not to appear empty-handed, but what
is not clear is whether the Mishnah is referring to the first part of the verse
(appearance before the Lord) or the second (not to appear empty-handed). If
the former, and if the Mishnah is referring to upper limits, the Mishnah means
that Israelites may enter the temple as often as they wish during the pilgrimage
festivals, and that each appearance counts as the fulfillment of the command-
ment of the Torah. If the latter, the Mishnah means that the commandment
not to appear empty-handed can be fulfilled by an offering of the smallest
(largest?) possible amount. Since (a) and (b) refer to expenditures of money,
perhaps the latter interpretation of (c) is preferable. (d) is similarly ambigu-
ous, since “deeds of loving kindness” may refer to charity, an expenditure
of money, or to righteous acts on behalf of other people for which the actor
has no expectation of any reward or recompense, an expenditure of time and
energy. Which is intended? Perhaps both (I shall return to this in a moment).
Third, the very next paragraph of Mishnah Pe’ah raises an interesting
problem:

Pe’ah should be not less than [one] out of sixty, although they have said that
pe’ah has no statutory amount.21

This paragraph demonstrates that, at least in connection with pe’ah, the

Mishnah is speaking of minimums, not maximums. The minimum amount
for pe’ah is one sixtieth. But didn’t the Mishnah just say that pe’ah has
no statutory minimum? The Mishnah does not hide the problem, since it
explicitly acknowledges “even though they have said that pe’ah has no statu-
tory amount.” How do we make sense out of this? The usual explanation—I
 Why Study Talmud? 131

have no better—is that paragraph 1 refers to the law of the Torah while para-
graph 2 refers to the law of the sages.22 So, the Torah commands us to leave
a corner of the field unharvested for the poor, but the Torah did not instruct
us how much to leave; the Sages ordained that the proper fulfillment of the
commandment means leaving no less than one sixtieth of the harvest.
This explanation brings us from the exegetical to the historical. The Torah
spells out the precise requirements and statutory amounts for various temple
rituals, but does not otherwise set forth shiurim, statutory minimums for
the satisfaction of an obligation or the violation of a prohibition. The Torah
prohibits us from eating on Yom Kippur,23 but does not tell us exactly how
much must be consumed before the prohibition is violated. The Torah com-
mands us to eat matzah on Passover but does not tell us how much matzah
we must consume in order to fulfill the obligation. The sages elaborate these
minimums, determining precisely when the violation has occurred and when
the obligation has been satisfied. The sages do this not just for Yom Kippur
and Passover but for all kinds of actions that are mandated or prohibited by
the Torah. My friend Aharon Shemesh of Bar-Ilan University has acutely
observed that the Jews of the Qumran sect seem to have anticipated the
rabbinic sages in this activity since they too have some references to statutory
amounts in their scrolls. But what is particularly amazing is that the Qumran
texts posit statutory minimums for at least three items on our rabbinic list
of five! Our Mishnah, which at first glance appears to be an innocent piece
of rabbinic scholasticism, is perhaps really an expression of intersectarian
polemic.24
If one were homiletically inclined, one could construct a lovely little
sermon based on this text. The Mishnah progresses from commandments that
demand money (pe’ah, first fruits, appearance offering), to commandments
that demand money as well as time and energy (first fruits and appearance
offering, which must be presented in person at the temple in Jerusalem), to
a commandment that demands not only money, time, and energy, but also
selfless concern for other people (deeds of loving kindness). But the greatest
of them all, the one that has no minimum and no maximum, which demands
everything and consumes everything—this is the commandment to study
Torah. Or another way to spin this homily: the first three of these five are
contingent. You are not commanded to leave the corner of the field unhar-
vested unless you are a farmer who owns a field. You are not commanded to
bring first fruits to the temple unless you are a farmer who has first fruits. You
are not commanded to bring your first fruits and appearance offering to the
temple unless there is a temple. So these three are entirely contingent. Deeds
of loving kindness are contingent too, but if you live in society, as regular
people normally do, inevitably opportunities will present themselves in which
132 Why Study Talmud?

you can assist or benefit your fellow human being, whether through charity
or some other kind of assistance. But the least contingent of all is the com-
mandment to study Torah. Here is a commandment that is incumbent upon
all,25 at all times in all conditions, to be fulfilled by each according to his or
her ability and attainments.
This brings me to my final point. Why should you study Talmud?
The Talmud is mine, and, if you are Jewish, the Talmud is yours, too.
Hence, whether the study of the Talmud is really more rewarding than, say,
the study of Homer and Aristotle, Vergil and Cicero, Beowulf and the Song
of Roland, feudalism in medieval France, or Renaissance Italian art. I can-
not say, but I can say that unlike Homer and Aristotle, Vergil and Cicero,
Beowulf and the Song of Roland et al., the Talmud is mine. Not only that,
the Talmud makes me—you, us—Jewish, in the sense that all of us Jews,
whether we are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, New
Age Spiritualist, Hassidic, Neo-Hassidic, Secular, Humanistic, Atheistic, or
Socialist, no matter what kind of Jew we are, our Judaism and our Jewishness
have been shaped by the Talmud and Talmudic tradition. Even if we have
rebelled against Judaism, the Judaism against which we have rebelled is the
Judaism shaped by the Talmud and its interpreters. The Talmud is at the base
of our Jewish identity.
A midrash of the early middle ages relates:26

R. Judah b. Shalom said,

Moses asked of God that the Mishnah too, [just like the written Torah], be in
writing. But the Holy One, blessed be He, foresaw that the nations in the future
will translate the Torah and read it in Greek and say “We are Israel.”27 The
Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, “I shall write out for him [Israel] the
larger part of my Torah, [so that ] they [the gentiles] be counted as strangers”
(Hosea 8:12).28 And why all this? Because the Mishnah is the secret password29
of God, and the Holy One, blessed be He, hands over his password only to the
righteous [Israel].

This is one of the few unamibiguously anti-Christian texts in ancient rab-

binic literature. The gentiles, that is, the Christians, will translate the Torah
into Greek, will read the Torah in Greek, and as a result will proclaim
themselves to be Israel. But the Holy One, blessed be He, foresaw that this
would happen and therefore reserved part of the divine revelation for the
Jews, the true Israel. This part is the Oral Torah, represented in this text
by the Mishnah, the first rabbinic book and the foundation of all rabbinic
literature. The Mishnah belongs to the Jews alone; the gentiles do not have
it. The fact that Jews possess the Mishnah (and rabbinic literature) is proof
that the Jews are the true people of God. Christians too study the Bible, but
 Why Study Talmud? 133

only Jews study the Mishnah, because the Mishnah and the Talmud and
all the rest of rabbinic literature make us who we are. And that’s why we
study Talmud.

ENDNOTES

* An edited version of remarks delivered to “Meah” graduates at the Com-

mencement Exercises of Hebrew College on Sunday, June 3, 2007. “Meah” is an
ambitious adult education program run by Hebrew College and funded in part by the
Combined Jewish Philanthropies (Federation) of Boston. Participants in the program
study Jewish texts and Jewish history for a total of one hundred classroom hours over
a period of two years. Many of the participants continue their Jewish studies even
after completing the program. I have taught in the Meah program since moving to
the Boston area in 2001.
1. I am referring to a Jewish anyone; gentiles, too, might want to study Talmud,
but that is the subject of a different essay.
2. Peter Pilhofer, Presbyteron kreitton: der Altersbeweis der jüdischen und
christlichen Apologeten und seine Vorgeschichte (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1990).
3. Within the past twenty years or so Talmud study for girls and women has become
more common. The effects of this revolutionary development have yet to be seen but
they cannot be long in coming. In any case, in my elementary yeshiva, when we boys
studied Mishnah and Talmud the girls were studying Tanakh (if I remember correctly).
This curricular separation was typical for yeshivot then, just as it remains typical today
for yeshivot that are not “modern Orthodox.”
4. M. Makkot 3:9, in Babylonian Talmud Makkot 21b.
5. Prohibited by Deuteronomy 22:10.
6. Consequently he is guilty of trespass against the sacred.
7. Prohibited by Deuteronomy 22:9.
8. When agricultural labor is prohibited (Leviticus 25:4).
9. When agricultural labor is prohibited (Levitcus 23:7).
10. (Male) Priests and nazirites (of either gender) are prohibited from contracting
impurity, consequently they are prohibited from coming into contact with human
remains.
11. Bavli Ketuvot 85b (and parallels); see Rashi and Tosafot on the page.
12. An excellent introduction to Talmudic storytelling is Jeffrey Rubenstein,
Rabbinic Stories.
13. Eric Zimmer, “Men’s Headcovering: The Metamorphosis of the Practice,” in
Reverence, Righteousness, and Rahamanut: Esssays in Memory of Rabbi Dr. Leo
Jung, ed. Jacob J. Schachter (1992) 325–352 = Olam kiMinhago Noheg 17–42.
14. B. Ketuvot 28b; the version in the Yerushalmi explains that children eat
the fruit (and toasted grains) that spill out of the broken cask. In the Yerushalmi the
family disapproval is prompted by a brother who has sold ancestral property.
134 Why Study Talmud?

15. Encyclopaedia Judaica s.v. Astronomy and s.v. Mathematics. The classic
study in English of Talmudic (and medieval) magic is Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish
Magic and Superstition.
16. Following, of course, the Bible.
17. daf yomi means “daily page,” and refers to the program of studying one page
of the Bavli per day; this program was initiated in 1923 by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of
Lublin. After 2,711 days one has completed an entire circuit of the Babylonian
Talmud.
18. Most famously in the story of the oven of Akhnai, B. Bava Metzia 59b, every
pulpit rabbi’s favorite Talmudic story.
19. This question is discussed in the Yerushalmi.
20. Pe’ah: Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22. First fruits: Deuteronomy 26:1–11.
21. The original reads “Pe’ah should be not less than [one] out of sixty; and
although they have said that pe’ah has no statutory amount.” I have deleted “and” and
repunctuated, to make the text smoother.
22. Of course we might wish to argue that the editor has combined different
sources, but we still need to make sense of the text as it stands.
23. At least this is how the rabbis and other ancient Jews understood Levitcus
16:29,31; 23:27,29,32.
24. Aharon Shemesh, “The history of the creation of measurements: between
Qumran and the Mishnah,” in Rabbinic Perspectives; Rabbinic Literature and the
Dead Sea Scrolls; Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion
Center . . . January, 2003. ed. S. D. Fraade, A. Shemesh & R. A. Clements (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), pp. 152–156.
25. More accurately: incumbent upon all male Jews, but nowadays the command-
ment is being embraced by more and more women as well.
26. Midrash Tanhuma (nidpas) Vayera 5 and elsewhere.
27. Or perhaps “We are of Israel.”
28. I have translated the verse as demanded by the midrashic context. The real
meaning of the verse does not concern us here.
29. “Secret password” is my translation of musterion, “mystery.”
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of
Torah and the Individual Soul
Yaakov Elman

Four hundred years ago, or even three hundred, few Jews would have asked
the question that we propose to address. No European Jew would have
doubted the obligatory nature of Talmud study for those capable of it. That it
is now a matter for debate is the consequence of traditional Jewry’s success is
institutionalizing Talmud Torah on a scale unknown in Jewish history.
Currently, however, an important debate has been taking place among those
interested in the future direction of Torah education, in particular, how the
Torah world teaches Torah shebe’al Peh, specifically, Gemara. Why is this?
Because it is clear that there is a problem: Several years ago Rabbi Aharon
Lichtenstein, rosh yeshiva and son-in-law of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,
z.l.—“the Rav”—publicly admitted what many educators have become aware
of in the last decade or more: even among Orthodox yeshiva bahurim, Talmud
as a subject is losing ground to areas of study that are more attractive even
to those in the younger generation who are serious about Talmud Torah.
Many of them gravitate to the subject of Jewish thought rather than Gemara-
study, others emphasize Halakhah, in particular halakhah le-ma’aseh. Rabbi
Lichstenstein’s views are set forth most recently in a booklet published in its
English version in 2007, in which he and Rabbi Yehuda Brandes debate this
very subject, “Talmud Study in Yeshiva High Schools.”1
Rabbi Lichtenstein does not mince words in summing up the problem:
To our grief, many students do not adjust to intensive Gemara study, and some
are unable to do so. . . . Many of our students become acquainted with Gemara
at a level that suffices to give rise to disgust, but fails to expose them to its pro-
fundity, intensity and beauty.2

135
136 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

Actually, the problem is much broader: there is the problem of “at risk
youth,” of “people off the derech,” and a perhaps more common trend, those
who stay within the community, and are even active in it, but have absolutely
no interest in Gemara, despite having a high school yeshiva education, and
perhaps even a taste of the bet midrash. While other elements factor in for
the first two groups, those who are at risk or leave Orthodoxy after having (or
enduring) a yeshiva education are clearly voting with their feet against a cur-
riculum that is top-heavy not only with Talmud study, but a particular form
of it, a form that evidently does not serve many (or at least, some) teenagers
and young adults very well. While there are other factors that are involved in
“turning off” youngsters, an inappropriate curriculum is certainly one of them.
In addition, there is an aspect that has not been considered up till now, and
demonstrates that the problem encompasses more than graduates of Israel’s
National Religious schools; it also involves the “right wing” yeshiva world.
That is, the material rewards of remaining in Kollel, the prestige accorded to
those who do so, and the scorn of those who leave—all these are evidence
of the fact that Talmud Torah as currently understood would not attract even
right-wing young men without such attractions, rewards, and sanctions. Many
of those who stay “in learning” do so only for reasons of family pressure,
material and social rewards, and not for its intrinsic attraction. Why is this
so? I suggest the following reasons:

1. Basically, relatively few people are suited to a life devoted to purely

intellectual pursuits. Moreover, even among such people, not all will be
attracted to legal study. Compare the number of people attending law
schools as compared to the number in higher education in general. Even
if we posit that the distribution of Jews in this regard is different than the
general population, historically, only a small percentage of Jews actu-
ally attained proficiency in Talmud study, still fewer became talmidei
hakhamim, and still fewer became recognized authorities.
2. But even taking all these factors into account, there is yet another, increas-
ingly important factor. Even among those enrolled in law schools, only
a small minority will become law professors; the overwhelming majority
will become lawyers. That is, most people are not interested in the purely
intellectual study of the law; instead, they are drawn to its more practical
applications. Law schools recognize that fact, and do not expect all their
students to become law professors. But Lithuanian kollelim and yeshivot
exist overwhelmingly for Talmud study, and, moreover, a type of Talmud
study that is restricted to basically one text is primarily studied in a few
ways, each of which is a variation on one theme, that is, a theoretical and
abstract approach that has little or no relevance to real life—what is called
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 137

the “Brisker derekh,” and its offshoots. Not only that, but it has relatively
little relevance to halakhah le-ma’aseh.
3. Even in those communities that concentrate on Halakhah in the narrow
sense, that is, halakhah le-ma’aseh, an area in which innovation is dis-
couraged and rote learning encouraged, the opportunities for intellectual
growth are few or narrow. For the intellectually inclined this is the less
attractive possibility, but for many of those people, the abstract approach
of lomdut, or legal theory, also holds less attraction than an emphasis on
study that, devoid of much hiddush, or innovative approaches, is more
relevant to many people’s deepest concerns.
4. Another factor to be considered is that while the Brisker method of Talmud
analysis, to which Rabbi Lichtenstein alludes, has been applied to more
and more of Shas (thanks in part to Rabbi Lichtenstein himself, but also to
the Griz), it was classically limited to certain “yeshivishe” masekhtot, and
within them, to certain issues and sugyot. And even this broadening still
takes Halakhah as its central focus. The turn to “Mahshavah” reflects a
yearning for a wider context, one that engages a religious person’s existen-
tial concerns. Hazal themselves emphasize the central place of Halakhah
in Talmud Torah; in Shabbat 138b they equate devar Hashem—“the word
of G-d” with Halakhah. But one-third of the Davli is aggadic.

Rabbi Lichtenstein, however, has a different analysis of the roots of the problem.
My quote above was very partial; here is the entire sentence from which I
extracted the point above, and Rabbi Lichtenstein’s preceding analysis. After
decrying the “instant gratification” engendered by contemporary culture, its
“liberal and individualistic atmosphere,” Rabbi Lichtenstein goes on to make
the following diagnosis:

Most importantly, a large portion of the student body studying in the National
Religious school system in Israel and its parallels in the Diaspora lack the family
and social background that is saturated with the fear of Heaven, which would
spur them on to cling to the mission of Gemara study by virtue of their recog-
nition of its sanctity. The overall result is that many of our students become
acquainted with Gemara at a level that suffices to give rise to disgust, but fails
to expose them to its profundity, intensity and beauty.3

Somewhat later he goes on to say:

The vigor of and fitness for Torah study have been impaired by liberty and
affluence, with all their expressions and seductions. Shallow mass culture,
perverse media entertainment, weak personal discipline, the flash of modern
technology, the competition of attractive secular realms, a pragmatic and
138 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

utilitarian atmosphere—all these have joined together to undermine the motivation

to study Torah in general and Gemara in particular.4

In other words, the falling interest in Gemara represents a moral failing and
is caused by “shallow mass culture” and “weak personal discipline.” But can
this really be said of those who go on to a serious study of Mahashavah?
In any case, he goes on to suggest—regretfully—that an alternate track
of Mishnah and Rambam be established for such students. In other words,
students who are not attracted to the Brisker method should not study Gemara
at all, or not very much. Nevertheless, he rejects in toto alternatives to the
Brisker method in teaching and studying Gemara. He describes these alternate
approaches in the following terms:

Any attempt to market the study of Gemara in a different wrapping risks

a misinterpretation of the Torah. Gemara is not an aggregation of piquant
sayings. . . . At the same time, one should not get carried away inserting historical
and realia material into the learning. . . . On first contact, such material has the
power— beyond its contribution to the understanding of the Gemara—to draw
the heart; but it can certainly not captivate it. Anyone who does not hold fast to
Bava Kamma through interest in the arba avot nezikin will not show interest in
it as a source for the history of the Jews of Babylonia.5

Rabbi Yehudah Brandes, on the other hand, advocates many of the new
ways that have opened up in recent years that have enhanced our understand-
ing of the way Gemara was composed, and of the historical, linguistic, cul-
tural, and technological background of its composition. But the crux of his
criticism of Rabbi Lichtenstein’s proposal is this:

Even in the present proposal, Rabbi Lichtenstein looks down upon alternative
methods of study that are different than his own. He notes that we must not replace
“the study of Gemara” with an “attempt to market the study of Gemara in a
different wrapping,” and he argues that this involves the risk of misinterpreting
the Torah. The approaches that are different from the method that is desirable in
his eyes he describes with outright caricature: “an aggregation of piquant sayings,”
“auxiliaries of wisdom,” “a source for the history of the Jews of Bavel.” Even “the
request that is sounded from time to time that the Gemara that is chosen for study
should be ‘living Torah,’ connected to the student’s world and experience,” though
he concedes that it is “deserving of an attentive ear,” he qualifies with the following
argument: “The notion that only such material that deals with practical matters is
deserving of study is absolutely erroneous.” Thus, it is understandable that if no
legitimacy is given to any other method of study, Rabbi Lichtenstein is left with
nothing else to offer once one does not become adjusted to the only method of
study that is possible in his eyes, but study of Mishnah and Rambam.6
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 139

This is all well and good, but in a sense it puts the text before the meaning. To
be fair, Rabbi Brandes does proceed to the question of “why learn Gemara?”
He immediately rejects “tradition” as a sufficient reason, comparing it to the
hasidic custom—or tradition—of wearing clothes more suited to the harsh
Polish winters than the hot Israeli summers. It is clear, however, that its over-
whelmingly influential role in shaping Jewish tradition means that anyone
wishing to gain a grasp of that tradition must be familiar with Talmud.
He then lists four reasons to study Talmud: “Jewish discourse—dispute”
(Talmud study trains one “to think in a sophisticated manner and to examine
ideas and issues in a complex way”), “democracy” (“anyone sitting in
the Beit Midrash is entitled to take part in the discussion”), “redeeming
criticism” (“there is little in the Talmud that is not up for debate. . . . [it]
has special importance as an ethical source . . . on maintain[ing] free and
open discussion”), and “variety” (“the Talmud is a storehouse of human
knowledge”).
Though these reasons may speak to Western high school students, unfortu-
nately they range from the misleading to the anachronistic. The society of the
Gemara’s bet midrash was not a democracy, even or especially not within the
ranks of the amoraim. Most of the discussion is carried on by about a dozen
roshei yeshiva scattered over six or seven generations, and it is they who take
positions and have a say (Rav, Shmuel, R. Yehudah, R. Yosef, Abaye, R.
Nahman, Rava, R. Papa, R. Ashi . . . ). And the storehouse of human knowl-
edge of the fourth century does not compel in the way that of the nineteenth
or twentieth or twenty-first does. And, frankly, the very lack of sophistication
personified by at least some products of our esteemed yeshivot hardly serves
to attract potential students.
As an educator, Rabbi Brandes deals with the question: how can we
motivate high school students to find the joy of studying Talmud, or, rather,
more precisely, how can we help them find whatever joy they can. As he
notes, one way is by studying the Talmud’s layers, to disentangle the
contribution of its editors and redactors to the sugya with their (anonymous)
comments that serve as a framework for the whole sugya, in contrast to the
comments and arguments of the amoraim. Another is by studying realia, that
is, the material culture with which the Talmud deals—the utensils, furniture,
floor plan of the houses, and so forth, or with the historical and cultural
backgrounds that lie unexpressed or explained, because it was assumed that
everyone knew them—behind every word of the Hazal lie mysteries of con-
text. Indeed, this is true of every word of every work composed by or for
humans, since communication requires some common ground, and, as time
and distance from the source accumulate, we find it harder and harder to get
into that context. In other words, to understand the Bavli as a whole and in a
140 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

whole sense, one must study it in all these ways, and others besides. More-
over, as both Rabbi Lichtenstein and Rabbi Brandes insist, we cannot neglect
the study of Aggadah as well.
All this only sharpens the question: why go to all this trouble for an
ancient text written in a dead language? As Rabbi Lichtenstein himself
admits, “the language is difficult, the grammar is peculiar, and the structure
is confusing.”

In other areas, everything is laid out in front of him, everything is clear as day,
topics are presented in an orderly fashion, each idea in its appropriate place,
[which is not true of Gemara]. . . . This is the Torah of our Sages, of blessed
memory, and surely they had their reasons; and God forbid that we should think
ill of Ravina and Rav Ashi’s redaction. It is precisely the winding and bifur-
cating structures that provide the Gemara with much of its dynamic vitality that
astounds the eye and captivates the heart. Without a doubt, however, there are
many for whom this creates difficulties that lead to confusion and frustration.7

Still, the question is an educational one, and as an experienced educator

Rabbi Brandes emphasizes the importance of relevance.

A living Torah must speak our language in the here and now. . . . Teachers are
often accustomed by the education they had received in their Yeshivot to study
that is cut off from the real world, where the interest lies in “a priori and ideal”
concepts that do not correspond with the phenomena of the real world. As Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik has said: “When many halakhic concepts do not corre-
spond to the phenomena of the real world, halakhic man’s not at all distressed”
(Halakhic Man, p. 23). Many of our students, however, are very distressed by
this, and quickly, their teacher also begins, in their wake, to be troubled—at
least by the fact that his students do not want to learn his Torah.8

It is not only high school students who are distressed. As noted above,
the truth of the matter is that within human terms there is no text without a
context—even the Divine Word of Torah shebi-Khtav has a context—the Dor
ha-Midbar’s time and place. In a more profound sense, even the Divine Word
is intended as a means of communication to humans, at least on the level of
peshat. It was therefore given in language that was understandable by its
recipients, it was given in a form that they could comprehend—in narrative
form, in poetry, with lists, commands, and so forth. Note that it was not given
on CD or DVD or iPods! Nor was it given in “book form”—a technology that
would not be invented until shortly after Hurban Bayit Sheni. The census list
of Bemidbar were not given in spread sheets. Whatever form the Torah in
Heaven took, that is, black fire on white fire, on Earth it was given in a form
that its receivers could handle.
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 141

The Torah shebe’al Peh, which became embodied in the oral texts of
Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and perhaps reached its classical apogee in
the Bavli, can be understood in a similar manner. It was compiled by human
beings, using human technology—in this case, by means of oral teachings,
standardization, and transmission. And those processes can be studied.
Moreover, studying them can yield insight into the text we have. For example,
the Gemara will often say that a particular form was used in the second part of
a mishnah only because it had already been used in the first, and not to teach
us anything new. Why is this? Because memorization is facilitated by parallel
structures! There is no esoteric secret known only to Rebbi for the Mishnah,
or Rav Ashi for the Bavli.
Or take the formulaic nature of Talmudic argument. Each formula is a
shorthand term that relates to and functions as a link in a chain of argumenta-
tion. For example, mahu deteima/hava amina/ve-eima. . . . qa mashma’ lan
(“[Had this statement not been made,] I would have thought/said [that so-
and-so is the case, but I would have been wrong] . . . [and so] he/it informs
us [that such-and-such is actually the case]”) explain why a text that seems
redundant is really not so. Note how much verbiage is saved by a few stan-
dardized formulas. When we consider that qa mashma’ lan appears some
1,492 times in the Bavli, and that 80 percent of the time it is coupled with one
of the other phrases, we begin to see how necessary the “peculiar” language
of the Bavli is. The Bavli now contains some 1.8 million words; without this
telegraphic stenographic language, it would have been much longer—and
harder to memorize.
Likewise, when the Gemara was finally written down and transmitted in
writing, the means of transmission yielded its share of scribal errors, which the
Rishonim had to deal with. Print brought its own problems, and the Maharshal
and other Aharonim dealt with them. At the moment the Oz Vehadar project,
involving some 500 talmidei hakhamim, is investigating every word of Shas
by checking every manuscript and printed edition available.
In a nutshell, my answer is this: The Bavli presents us with a microcosm
of a Torah society in formation, indeed, the Torah society that gave the
Jewish people the most important single text aside from Tanakh, the text
that served as the encapsulation of Torah shebe’al Peh. Moreover, for us
Jews today, that society holds up a mirror to our own, and we may learn a
tremendous amount from the challenges that its leaders—the amoraim—met
and overcame. In studying them in their cultural and societal context, we will
learn how to overcome our own challenges, and in so doing we will observe
Babylonian Jewish society in all its vivid heterogeneity, its life, its color, its
social and religious tensions, its class structure, its vibrant intellectual life, its
relationship to the surrounding culture, the polemics, religious and cultural,
142 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

the different approaches exemplified by the different yeshivot and roshei

yeshivot—Mahoza, Pumbedita, Sura, Neharde’a and so on.
Once we have a picture of that society, we can place particular amoraim, and
even more important, their shittot, views and approaches, into a framework.
That means that we have to organize the data. Rava’s views on one matter are
related to his views on another, both halakhically and aggadically, and they are
all related to those of his rebbe, R. Nahman, both of them Mahozans. Does it
matter that Rava was born and bred in Mahoza, that he was a disciple of
R. Nahman, who was also a Mahozan? What does it mean to be a Mahozan?
Well, Mahoza was a suburb of the winter capital of the Persian Empire,
Ctesiphon. As Rashi mentions in Shabbat 59b, Mahoza was the home to a large
Jewish community; it is clear from the Gemara there that it was also wealthy,
as we might expect of the Jews who lived in the center of the world-spanning
Persian Empire. As he does not mention, because he could not know, it was
also home to a large Christian community as well. Not only did the resh
galuta, the putative political head of the Babylonian Jewish community, live
there, right across the River Tigris from King Shapur II (the ruins of his huge
audience hall are still visible), but so did the bishop of Ctesiphon! Mahoza
was an upscale, cosmopolitan city, as we might well expect of a suburb of the
capital of an empire that stretched from Armenia to India, that was home to
Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Mandeans, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians of many
sects, and Jews. Does it matter? Of course it does. For example,

In the series of sugyot on the inyan of sheva’ mitzvot Benei Noah (Sanhedrin
56a–60a), only Mahozans take part—Rabbah b. Avuha, R. Nahman, Rava and
R. Papa (Rava’s talmid muvhaq). It is clear from Eruvin 68a that Pumbeditans
did not befriend Persians or non-Jews. As we know from A.Z. 65a, Rava had
a non-Jewish friend, Bar Sheshakh. He also was friendly with Issar the Ger,
who told him about his attitudes toward Jews before his conversion (A.Z.
70a), and whose son, Rav Mari, he befriended. Likewise, since Ctesiphon
was a great commercial center, the fact that Rava is quoted some 28 times in
Perek Hazahav while Abaye is quoted only 8 will not come as a surprise to us.
Indeed, Abaye appears some 78 times in the entire masekhet of Bava Metzi’a,
while Rava appears some 200 times. In contrast, Rava appears some 19 times
in the first chapter of Eiruvin, while Abaye’s name comes up some 26 times;
in Sukkah’s first chapter, Rava’s name appears 18 and Abaye’s 14. Is it then
any wonder that the Halakhah generally follows R. Nahman in matters of
civil law (dinei mamonot)? And, of course, to an even greater degree, this is
true of Rava as against Abaye. Now we can understand why it is precisely
the Mahozans who praise scholars who are dayyanim—judges, who nehat
le-umqa de-dina, “descend to the profundity of the law” (B.Q. 39a, 53a, B.M.
117b, see also Ket 56a).
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 143

In short, if we keep track of Rava and Abaye’s views, their individual natures
also become apparent—just as we might expect.
Is it then irrelevant that Rava tended to be mekil on matters of yen nesekh
(see eight she’elot he was asked on this matter, recorded in A.Z. 69b–70b)? This
does not mean that he did not take the prohibition seriously, but it is significant
that he was knowledgeable about the habits and doings of non-Jews that he did
not automatically prohibit all contact with them.
One of Rava’s particular interests is the issue of tzaddiq ve-ra’ lo—why the
righteous suffer. This was one of the burning issues of the day, of great concern
to Jews, Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Christians, and Buddhists. As the rabbi
of Persia’s capital district, he had to speak out on the issue—and he does (see
Moed Qatan 28a, Hulin 7a, Sotah 21a, Qiddushin 39b).
In the narrative of the confrontation between R. Nahman, a son-in-law of the
resh galuta, the exilarch, and representative of Mahoza’s upscale community,
and R. Yehuda, founder of the Pumbeditan yeshiva, R. Nahman is criticized for
using Persian words, adopting Persian attitudes and social conventions (allowing
the women of his family, even his young daughter, to mingle with men).
In Megillah 14a, Rava and R. Nahman debate the question of why we do not
recite Hallel on Purim. According to R. Nahman, miqra Megillah serves as our
“Hallel,” but Rava objects that “we are still the slaves of Ahasuerus!” Clearly,
this indicates a differing view of the Persian Empire on the part of these two
amoraim, rebbe and talmid. And, indeed, these differing views can be seen all
_ _
through Shas. Note that R. Nahman named his daughter De na g (not Donag,
“wax,” as current editions have it in Qiddushin 70a)—the name of the founding
queen of the reigning Sasanian dynasty, versus Rava’s view regarding Persian
taxes in Nedarim 62a.
In a story about R. Nahman in Gittin 35b, he is depicted as traveling in a
sedan chair, resplendent in a royalesque cape—and R. Nahman b. Yitzhak de-
cides not to greet him, since he took him for one of the boorish “men of the resh
galuta,” while Rava ran to greet him. After Rava’s death, R. Nahman b. Yitzhak
returned to Pumbedita to restart the yeshiva there which had closed down upon
Abaye’s death, when everyone went to study with Rava in Mahoza.
But for one exception, which is actually the exception which proves the rule,
it is only the Mahozan hakhamim who ask the question: “ve-khi asu Hakhamim
hizzuq le-divrehem ke-shel/yoter mi-shel Torah”—did the Sages then make
their enactments as severe as those of the Torah? The question of the strength of
rabbinic enactments was a live one in Mahoza, as the Maharsha already pointed
out in his Hiddushei Aggadah to Makkot 22b. He noticed that that Rava had to
respond to Mahozans who suggested that the Sages really could not do anything
that the Torah did not already lay down. Thus, the household of Dr. Benjamin
challenged Rava: “What good are the rabbis to us? They can never permit a
raven, which the Torah forbad [for consumption], and they can never forbid
a dove, which the Torah allowed” (Sanhedrin 99b–100a). Or note Rava’s
statement: “How foolish many people are who rise [in respect] before a Sefer
144 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

Torah, but not before a talmid hakham, for [after all] the Torah states: “Forty
[stripes] shall you give him” (Deut 25:3), while the rabbis reduced [the number]
by one” (Makkot 22a).

Thus, Rava’s derashah: “My sons, be more careful of the words of the
Soferim than the words of Torah, for the words of the Torah are negative
and positive commandments, while as for the words of the Sages, whoever
transgresses them is worthy of death!” (Eruvin 21b), which is otherwise
paradoxical, can be seen in its proper context. Again, it is clear from Rava’s
statement in Shabbat 23a, that some people in Mahoza did not light Hannuka
menorahs. Why not? After all, Hannuka is a pleasant holiday, not expensive
and not labor intensive. Why not observe it? In the light of the statements
quoted above, we can understand that some people refused to observe Hannuka
because it had no biblical basis—no biblical book mentions it. We can also
understand why the Gemara asks: Esther min ha-Torah minayyin? Where is
Esther mentioned (or hinted at) in the Torah? (Hulin 139b).
Thus, while we can well understand Tosafot’s wonder at the question,
since of course, the Rabbis do indeed have that power, the answer that they
give is somewhat tenuous. While Tosafot—and we—understand that the
Rabbis certainly had that power, it was not obvious to—or accepted by—a
significant segment of Mahoza’s population, and thus had to be dealt with
by Rava, the rabbinic leader of the community. We can also understand why
Rava and R. Nahman refrained from using nidduy (the ban) in Mahoza.9
***
***

Did [the Rabbis] strengthen their words [as stringently as those of] the
Torah?—Even though in several places they [strengthened their words] even
more than [those] of the Torah [and so what is Rava’s question], [the answer is
that they did so only] when it was relevant to fine [a transgressor] in order to
make a fence [around the Torah]. But here [in the case of terumat ma’aser shel
demai, which is a rabbinic enactment listed in the mishnah together with Torah
laws] it was not appropriate to fine [a transgressor] a fifth [of its worth] unless
the Torah said so, and so in the case of Demai such a fine should not have been
made. And here too [in regard to a widow or divorced woman who marries
before the three month waiting period expires] they made [the first offspring of
that union] a mamzer even though it is not [really] logical, but [rather] because
of [the analogy] of a married woman [who commits adultery], the offspring of
[such an adulterous union] being a mamzer.10

Rabbi Lichtenstein’s assumption that historians want to use the Bavli in

order to construct a history of Babylonian Jewry as though to rob it of its value
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 145

as a guide for our time is misplaced. Understanding it in its historical context

will enable its use as a guide to the challenges of modern life! The amoraim
did not live in a ivory tower far from challenges similar to the challenges of
modern life. The Bavli is full of their responses to such challenges—and we
can learn how to meet those challenges from their methods.
Thus, when the Talmud is approached in a way that ignores its strengths
as a fascinating, exciting, stimulating and even captivating work, it seems
irrelevant and worse, boring to some. But seen in context it is anything but.
These strengths include the simple excitement of following the cut and
thrust of its debates, the understanding of the issues at hand in a broader con-
text—legal, but also sociological, economic, and technological. It is not so
much that the exegetical tradition of Talmud study was blind to such issues—
it was not, but for very understandable and cogent reasons these factors were
not emphasized because of the need to formulate the issues in a purely halakhic
manner. In the case of the Rishonim, there were indeed important legal issues
to be hammered out, as for example, to what extent must negligence be taken
into account in cases of torts (damages), where we can see the Tosafists taking
a very different approach than the Ramban.
In time, once the Rishonim had done their work, the Aharonim could con-
centrate on two areas in particular: either the explication of the Talmudic text,
as we find in the Penei Yehoshua, or the more theoretical approach to legal
issues, an approach that gained favor in the religious crises of the nineteenth
century, that of the Ketzot. The latter in particular raised Talmud study to its
intellectual heights—that is, heights of penetration but also abstraction.
In large part the reason for this was that the challenge of modernity encour-
aged that approach to Jewish texts because it was perceived, and probably
rightly, as a response to the challenge that the advances of the physical sciences
in the second half of the nineteenth century posed to the intellectual elite of
European Jewry. However, several addenda to this approach, also stimulated
by those challenges, require several counterfactual, and, indeed, counterintui-
tive assumptions. This approach has its roots in earlier texts, in the Rishonim
and even in Shas, but it never was carried out as consistently and, may I say,
as brutally, as it is now. As a counterpose, I suggest the following basic
principles.

1. There is not “one Talmud,” but approaches that typify individual amoraim,
individual schools, problems, approaches or programs typical and particular
generations, each had its own program (that is, derekh ha-limmud), interests,
challenges (intellectual, sociological, religious), and programs.
2. Thus, the Talmud—and especially the Bavli with its more than 1.8 million
words, contains the records of an exciting intellectual adventure carried
146 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

on by the Babylonian sages, both those we know by name, the amoraim,

and those who remain anonymous.
3. To unravel this exciting drama, we must admit that this is and was indeed
the case, and that each amora’s statements must be analyzed, first of all,
as part of a consistent corpus that reflect the amora’s own approach and
interests, then examine his approach as part of the approach his own bet
midrash, and thus reflecting the view of his teachers. These views and
approaches can often be traced over several generations and examined in
order to discern the way they changed over time.
4. We must thus admit that Talmud Torah is not static, but that its every
aspect has a history of its own, and that the amoraim, no less than their
successors (and predecessors), were alive to the challenges of their time,
and did not ignore what happened outside the bet midrash. We must
openly admit that its concepts, institutions, and role—shudder!—unfolded
or developed over time. And that most definitely includes the stama di-
Gemara, that layer of the Talmud that reflects the views and interests of
its redactors—who themselves were divided into different schools, or
at least melded the approaches of different schools into the sugyot they
created, and with different emphases in different sugyot. Hence we have
sugyot with opposing assumptions, as the Gaonim and Tosafot already
pointed out (sugyot hafukhot, see Tosafot, Yevamot 113b, s.v. yatzetah
zu, Gittin 53a, s.v. ba-rishonah, Menachot 58b. s.v. ika de-amri, Temurah
11a, s.v Rav Hisda).
5. A corollary of this is that the amoraim were human beings, not malakhim.
They were proficient in the Torah of their times, but while Torah may be
timeless when viewed retrospectively, it is revealed step by step. A talmid
hakham’s hiddush is his, and may then be the basis upon which other,
later hakhamim, build. Hazal themselves may have held the doctrine of
nitqattenu ha-dorot, the “devolution of the species,” but they did so in
a way that did not restrict their ability to think. For example, at times
the Talmudic discussion will raise a possibility that will be contradicted
at once—“but we see that it is not so!” To varying degrees, Hazal’s
thought-processes were supple, flexible, and some of them, in their search
for truth, could think “outside the box.” Thus, Rabbah, in his intensive
investigation of the degrees of negligence that affect tort liability (Bava
Qamma 26b–27a), as opposed to the Mishnah’s view of strict liability
(adam mu’ad le-olam—a person is considered as always forewarned
not to do damage), also created an entirely new category of liability,
shogeg qarov le-mezid (inadvertence so negligent that it is considered as
equivalent to intentional;—Bava Qamma 32b), while Rava investigated
the role of intention both in terms of liability (Shab 72b, Sanh 61b, B.M.
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 147

20b,, Sanh 27a) and qiyyum ha-mitzvot (R.H. 28b), and in some cases
came to conclusions that were unsupported by the sources he had (see
Abaye’s analyses in Sanh 61b–62a), or, for that matter, the classic sugya
of ye’ush she-lo’ mi-da’at (eventual despair of getting a lost object back
is considered as retrospective to the time of the loss, even though the loss
has not yet been noticed) in B.M. 20a–22a, where, it is true, the decision
of later generations is against him. Moreover, a fair reading of Shas will
not only bear out these contentions, but will also confirm that Halakhah
is a legal system, not a hard science, and can profitably be compared to
other legal systems of the time, the Roman and Persian.

My answer (though not the only answer) to the question of “why study Tal-
mud” is then, that it is exciting and instructive. It only becomes boring when
it is presented as a unitary work, cut and dried, produced by angels whose
thoughts are so exalted that we cannot really understand them, and in a form
that is so abstract as to have no relation to real existential, religious, or social
problems. The preceding sketch is intended to lay out the lines along which
our understanding of the urban, cosmopolitan, intellectually open, and vibrant
community that is the dominant voice in the Bavli, and, in so doing, deepen
our understanding of the Talmud itself.
This is not to denigrate what is now understood as the more “traditional”
methods of Talmud study, though 150 years ago they were considered
revolutionary. The Brisker methods, the Telzer methods—all members of
the conceptual school—will continue to attract their adherents, and among
them the “best and the brightest” of our youth. But some provision must be
made for other modes of study that are, indeed, intrinsic to the human mind,
and some of those best and brightest will be attracted to other methods. And,
indeed, that is what the history of Talmud Torah teaches us. The shiv’im
panim ba-Torah were instituted in accordance with the biblical dictum of
educating each child according to its derekh: Hanokh la-na’ar al pi darko
(Educate [each] child in his own way, Mishlei 22:6).
Indeed, in the end, the debate between Rabbi Lichtenstein and Rabbi
Brandes is really less sharp than it seems. In a related article, Rabbi Lichtenstein
suggests that in the future even proponents of the Brisker method will include
other approaches in their learning and teaching.

I believe that the conceptual method will continue, for the foreseeable future,
to be a dominant force in the world of serious Torah learning. However, I also
believe that its status will recede somewhat. And this, in several respects. First,
the method itself is likely to be modified. Instead of pure, distilled Brisk, we are
likely to see more blended models—hopefully enriched rather than adulterated,
148 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul

but diluted nonetheless. . . . We can anticipate greater awareness of factual points

and recourse to a wider arc of sources.11

Elsewhere in the same article, Rabbi Lichtenstein suggests that:

Admittedly, there are classes of information, especially literary and historical,

that may bear more directly and substantively upon the structure and essence of
a sugya. Full discussion of this element would, however, open up issues that lie
beyond the scope of this paper. Here I shall content myself with stating again
that this aspect likewise probably deserves more attention than the Torah world
currently assigns it, but that it hardly deserves center court.12

The exact mix of these methods, and others, will of course depend on the
teacher, the students, and general societal conditions. It is to be hoped that
within that mix, however, that every capable student will be able to find a
derekh that is both true to the pure wellsprings of Torah and to the roots of
his or her own soul.

ENDNOTES

1. Notes from Atid: Talmud Study in Yeshiva High Schools, Jerusalem: Academy
for Torah Initiatives and Directions, 2007.
2. Ibid., pp. 11 and 15.
3. Ibid., p. 15.
4. Ibid., pp. 17–18.
5. Ibid., pp. 21–22.
6. Ibid., p. 33.
7. Ibid., p. 13. It may not be out of place to point out that one reason for this struc-
ture is the oral nature of the Bavli; it was compiled for oral transmission, and, indeed,
it shares some of the characteristics of oral literature, such as ring structures, where
the discussion ends with its beginning, where questions or deductions are arranged
in threes and sixes, fives and tens, so that sometimes a question is added as “filler,”
sometimes questions are arranged in ascending order of difficulty, and so on; see my
“Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud,” Oral Tradition 14/1 (1999),
pp. 52–99. Surely, if this was explained to students they could more easily take these
characteristics in stride, and the teacher might not have to pray that they adopt a pious
attitude and not “think ill of Ravina and Rav Ashi.” Since the Brisker approach does
not countenance these explanations, this method of analysis is closed to its proponents.
However, see Rabbi Lichtenstein’s prediction quoted at the end of this article.
8. Ibid., p. 45.
9. For details, see my article, “The Socioeconomics of Babylonian Heresy,”
Jewish Law Association Studies XVII, (2007) pp. 80–126.
10. A philological note: the phrase asu hizzuq, literally “made a strengthening,”
is somewhat awkward Hebrew. In Hebrew we would expect a verb hizzequ. The
 Why Study Talmud: Wellsprings of Torah and the Individual Soul 149

compound is a reflex of the Persian penchant for constructing such verbs, e.g., “to
hear” is “to make hearing,” etc. This is just what we would expect in bilingual situations,
such as the Yinglish: “efen di vinda” instead of “efen di fenster.”
11. See “The Conceptual Approach to Torah Learning,” in Yosef Blau, ed., twd-
mwl: The Conceptual Approach to Jewish Learning, New York: The Michael Scharf
Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press, 2006, p. 40.
12. Ibid., p. 33.
 Why I Study Talmud1
Richard Kalmin

Why study Talmud in the 21st century? I can’t answer that question; the
closest I can come is to address the question of why I study Talmud in the
21st century.2 Why I do so now is not at all what drew me to it when I began
studying as a graduate student in the fall of 1975. I had made a conscious
decision to give up fiction writing, which had been my passion throughout
high school and college. I had come to the conclusion that the exercise of
fiction writing, with the value it placed on ambiguity and evocation rather
than precision and logical analysis, was not healthy for me. It was as if by
creating imaginative universes I was detaching myself from the universe of
everyday experience. The fictional character I created in my final year of
writing sat in his chair all day and thought out loud. He was all mind and no
body; it never occurred to me to describe what he or the world around him
looked like.
I came to the Jewish Theological Seminary as a graduate student because
several of my professors and many of the authors I was reading in college
had either taught or studied there. I enrolled in an intensive Talmud course
because everyone seemed to think it was so important, but my only access
to it was in translation and it seemed to be forbidding and bizarre. I wanted
to study it intensively and in the original because I wanted to learn firsthand
what the fuss was about. I had virtually no Jewish background, lacking both
basic Jewish knowledge and the rudimentary Hebrew and Aramaic skills
necessary to understand the text. I was totally unfamiliar with the modes of
Talmudic thought and argumentation, and the conceptual framework that the
Talmud presupposes of its readership.
The concreteness of the Talmud was exactly what I needed. The Talmudic
passages I was studying dealt with an issue both conceptually rich and

151
152 Why I Study Talmud

fundamentally grounded in the world of everyday experience: the laws

of returning lost objects, and I felt myself more and more anchored to the
physical world. Studying these texts made me think about marvelously
concrete problems, like the meaning and ramifications of “despair without
knowledge,” which I struggled with for hours every day during my first full
month of study. The concept “despair without knowledge” refers to the fact
that when someone comes upon a lost object, he or she may not be able to
take possession of it since he/she does not know yet whether or not the object
still has an owner. Abaye and Rava, two of the greatest rabbis who ever lived,
have a classic dispute about this issue, with Abaye ruling that such despair
is true despair, meaning that under certain circumstances, the finder can pre-
sume that when the owner discovers he misplaced the object he will despair
of ever getting it back, thereby renouncing ownership. The finder, therefore,
can proceed as if the owner has already despaired and claim the object as
his own. Rava, on the other hand, rules that such despair is not true despair,
and therefore the finder cannot behave as if the owner has already despaired.
He must wait to take the object until he knows for certain that the owner has
despaired and therefore renounced ownership.
I was deeply invested in the classical rabbinic exercise of training myself
to think like an ancient rabbi. Often the exercise failed and I was unable to
make complete sense of the argument, but enough of the texts were under-
standable, and all were intellectually challenging, in fact daunting, and
unapologetically foreign and therefore fascinating from an anthropological
perspective.
And while the Talmud consists, among many other things, of legal texts
that are extremely complex and technical, it routinely injects into the discussion
popular proverbs, folk sayings, medical lore, magical formulae, scriptural
commentary, and stories, brilliantly outrageous stories, that vividly display
the rabbis’ likes and dislikes, passions and prejudices, fears and fantasies,
extraordinary senses of humor, and larger-than-life personalities. It made it
somehow more precious to me that all of these riches were hidden in a code,
expressed in an idiom that was startlingly foreign to the uninitiated, and
no book sufficed to unlock its secrets. Despite the fact that the Talmud has
existed in written form for centuries (having been transmitted orally its first
eight centuries or so), a teacher, a living, breathing human being, was still
necessary to mediate it to the student. The Talmud maintained a richly oral
dimension despite its character as a written text.
I found the Talmud compelling also because it allowed me to live in one of
the largest, fastest-paced, sophisticated cities in the world, and yet to vividly
experience the sights and sounds of antiquity, a world in many ways similar
to but in many other ways totally unlike my own.
 Why I Study Talmud 153

Today I study the Talmud in part because of its tolerance of diversity.

I like the fact that for every “Yes” in the Talmud there is also a “No”; for
every rabbi who says “Forbidden” there is another who says “Permitted.”
This tolerance of dissent, this insistence on preserving the voice of the loyal
opposition along with the majority, or of preserving equally valid alternatives,
is entirely the Talmud’s innovation in the ancient world. What might be for
me the most attractive feature of Conservative Judaism, its commitment to
pluralism, has its roots in the rabbis’ belief that elu ve-elu divrei Elohim
hayyim, both the words of Beit Hillel, whose opinion is authoritative, and the
words of Beit Shammai, whose opinion is usually, but not always, rejected
for practical purposes, represent the authentic word of God. Pluralism has
its roots in the Talmud’s claim that even though Beit Hillel and Beit Sham-
mai disagreed with each other in basic laws of marriage, divorce, and ritual
purity they nevertheless got along with one another, and were even able to
marry into one another’s families and socialize together. This portrayal is an
idealized picture masking some very real bitterness and hatred (witness the
Talmud’s depiction elsewhere of tension between the two groups that at one
point flared into bloodshed), but I think it’s significant that the Talmud chose
this particular idealized picture to portray.
This is certainly not to say that anything goes as far as the Talmud is
concerned. The Talmud recognizes as legitimate only a finite number of
alternatives. It preserves more than one view, for example, but often makes
it clear that only one of the views is authoritative. Often it preserves two or
three legitimate views and makes it clear that everything else is beyond the
pale. Those who abide by the limited set of options specified by the rabbis are
insiders; everyone else is not.
Nevertheless, the debates that are so basic to rabbinic literature do not stop
with the text of the Talmud, since the commentators printed on the sides of
the page: Rashi, Tosafot, R. Hananel, R. Akiva Eger, the Vilna Gaon, and so
on, as well as many other commentators who did not make it onto the page
but are preserved in separate books, carry the argument through the Middle
Ages and into the modern period. The authority to interpret allows later
generations to reverse the decisions of their predecessors in the guise of
commentary, to be radical while appearing traditional.
And the multiplicity of possibilities and legitimate alternatives is even
greater when we take the manuscripts of the Talmud into account. Just to
give one example, we find a mishnah that states: Kol ha-mekayyem nefesh
ahat mi-yisrael, ke-ilu kiyyem olam malei: “Anyone who sustains one
Jewish life, it is as if he sustained an entire world.” This statement seems to
be a clear example of Jewish particularism: “Whoever saves one Jewish life,”
with non-Jews obviously counting for less than Jews in the rabbinic scheme
154 Why I Study Talmud

of things. But several versions of this mishnah lack the word mi-yisrael,
according to which the statement reads: “Anyone who sustains one life, it is
as if he sustained an entire world.” This version of the statement affirms the
ultimate worth of every individual, Jew and non-Jew alike. Which version is
the real rabbinic view? Which version is the original rabbinic view? The fact
that the mishnah speaks about Adam, the first human, and that the statement is
one of several answers to the question of why God first created only a single
individual, makes it almost certain that the version of the mishnah without the
word mi-yisrael, “Jewish,” is correct, since Adam is the father of all humankind
rather than the father specifically of the Jewish people.
In one sense, the question of which version is original is of crucial
importance, but in another sense it is totally beside the point. As Saul
Lieberman has argued, manuscript variants are very often not merely scribal
errors, but reflect the active and conscious participation of later generations
in the composition of the text.3 They reflect the perceptions of Jews living
long after the classical rabbinic period about what the text had to be saying,
sometimes in defiance of what the text actually said. So the multiplicity of
legitimately Jewish views that can invoke the authority of the Talmud goes
far beyond the borders of the Talmudic text, and Jewish communities separated
by centuries and living at opposite ends of the earth have all left their imprint
on this text in some form or other. They are all participants in an ongoing
debate, along with Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, Abaye and Rava, and Rashi
and Tosafot.
Why, then, have I made it my life’s work to engage in the critical, scholarly
examination of the Talmud? I do so in part because I find antiquity endlessly
fascinating. And I find extremely appealing rabbinic Judaism’s view that
study for its own sake (i.e., for no ulterior motive) is the loftiest religious
duty, an act of redemptive significance that does no less than hasten the com-
ing of the messiah.
The ancients interest me not only because I can enlist them in support
of my theological beliefs or choice of lifestyle. I use the ancients not only
as ammunition for or against a particular ideology or political persuasion. I
try to respect and empathize with them for who they are and not for whom
I want them to be. It matters to me that they are interesting and present me
with intellectual challenges.
In fact, I often enjoy the rabbis precisely because they are outrageous,
because they are so unlike me, because they expand my notions about what
is possible in a human being. I like the fact that they speak freely without fear
of censure by enlightened, Western, 21st century, polite society.
One can talk all day about the Talmud, but unless one encounters an actual
Talmudic discussion, or a sugya as it is traditionally called, it is impossible
 Why I Study Talmud 155

to experience its full flavor. In the ensuing discussion I translate and explain
one sugya, which will hopefully motivate some readers to encounter the
Talmud firsthand rather than settle for “kissing the bride through a veil.”
In this translation, brackets serve to mark off words and phrases that are not
explicitly written in the original but which need to be supplied for the passage
to make sense. The frequency of these explanatory glosses reveals the extent
to which the Talmud is a “gapped text,” and depends on the reader for fuller
comprehension. Obviously some of these gaps can be filled in more than
one way, which is one reason why commentaries on the Talmud disagree so
frequently. The Talmud’s ability to mean different things to different people
accounts in part for its “staying power” over the centuries, its ability to thrive
in so many different cultures in so many different times and places.
The sugya below is taken from Bavli Berakhot 20b, a section of the Talmud
dealing with blessings and prayers:

(1) Ravina said to Rava, “Are women obligated to say the blessing after meals
by biblical law or by rabbinic law?”
(2) [An unattributed question based on part 1]: What practical difference does
it make?
(3) [An unattributed response to the question in part 2]: [It pertains to whether
or not a woman can] fulfill the obligation of the community [gathered together
at a meal]. If you say [that women are obligated] by biblical law, then [someone
subject to a] biblical obligation can fulfill the obligation of [others subject to
a] biblical obligation [and a woman can act as “prayer leader” on behalf of the
community]. But if you say [that women are obligated only] by rabbinic law,
then [she] is not [fully] obligated to [say the blessing], and all who are not fully
obligated to do something cannot fulfill the obligation of the community.
(4) What [is the answer to Ravina’s question in part 1? Is a woman’s obliga-
tion to say the blessing biblical or rabbinic]?
(5) Come and hear [the following Tannaitic tradition that can serve as
an answer]: “Indeed they said, ‘A son can bless on behalf of his father, and a
slave can bless on behalf of his master, and a woman can bless on behalf of her
husband, but the sages said, “May a curse come upon a man whose wife or sons
bless for him.”’” If you say [that a woman] is obligated [to say the blessing]
by biblical law, [then it makes sense that someone] obligated biblically [i.e.,
a woman] can fulfill the obligation [of someone] obligated biblically [i.e., her
husband]. But if you say [a woman] is obligated [to say the blessing only] rab-
binically, can [someone] obligated [only] rabbinically [i.e. a woman] fulfill the
obligation [of someone] obligated biblically [i.e., her husband]?
(6) [An alternative interpretation of the Baraita, according to which the
answer proposed by Rava in part 5 need not be accepted]:4 What case are we
dealing with here [i.e., in the Tannaitic tradition quoted in part 5]? With a man
who ate a small quantity [of food such that he is only] obligated [to say the
156 Why I Study Talmud

blessing] rabbinically [since the Torah specifies that a person “eat, be satisfied,
and bless,” i.e. one is only obligated to bless biblically when one has eaten
enough food to satisfy one’s appetite], [in which case] one obligated rabbinically
[i.e., the woman] can fulfill the obligation of another who is obligated only rab-
binically [i.e., a man who ate a small quantity of food]. [Therefore it may well
be that a woman is only obligated rabbinically to say the blessing after meals.]

It will be helpful to explicate this discussion, which is a typical Talmudic

sugya but which is full of assumptions that are unfamiliar to the uninitiated.
In part 1, Ravina asks his teacher, Rava, whether women are obligated to say
the blessing after meals (birkhat ha-mazon) by Torah law or only according
to the rabbis. To answer this question, it is not enough to simply open a Bible
and see whether or not the obligation for women is stated there. The fact is
that most readers of the Bible today would agree that the text obligates neither
men nor women to say the blessing after meals. The rabbis, however, have
their own techniques of reading the Bible, called midrash, and they consider
laws derived from the Bible via rabbinic techniques of exegesis to be authen-
tically biblical. Ravina’s question, therefore, means: Are women obligated to
say the blessing after meals according to rabbinic methods of biblical inter-
pretation, as men are, or is their obligation a rabbinic innovation with no roots
in scripture? It bears emphasizing that Ravina’s question presupposes that
women are obligated to say the blessing; the only question is its origin.
Part 2 of the sugya inquires about the practical, legal implications of
Ravina’s question, and part 3 responds that Ravina wants to know whether
or not women can fulfill the obligation of men, who must recite the blessing
according to the Torah. Our sugya views obligation according to the Torah as
of a different order than rabbinically based obligation, and only someone who
is biblically commanded can fulfill the obligation of another who is biblically
commanded. In rabbinic prayer and blessings, one person fulfills another per-
son’s obligation by reciting the blessing out loud, enabling the other person to
hear the words and respond “Amen.” If a woman is biblically obligated, she
can recite the blessing out loud and others who are biblically obligated can
fulfill their obligations by listening and responding “Amen.”
In response to Ravina’s question, Rava in part 5 quotes a Tannaitic tradition
introduced by the technical term “Come and hear,” which signals to the reader
that a tradition will be quoted in an attempt to answer Ravina’s question. The
Tannaitic tradition asserts that a woman can bless on behalf of her husband,
and thus appears to provide a clear answer to Ravina’s question. The fact that
the Baraita wishes a curse on a man whose wife blesses on his behalf estab-
lishes unambiguously that the Baraita works within a hierarchical system that
presupposes that men are superior to their wives, masters are superior to their
slaves, and fathers are superior to their sons. The Baraita sees nothing wrong
 Why I Study Talmud 157

with this hierarchy; in fact it works to maintain it and perhaps to fortify it and
help construct it. In other words, it is likely that reality was much messier than
this Baraita would have us believe, that Jewish society was more fluid than
this Baraita admits, and women occasionally were socially superior to their
husbands and sons were occasionally socially superior to their fathers.
If the sugya stopped here the conclusion would be that a woman is obligated
to say the blessing according to the Torah. The sugya would be very straight-
forward, asking whether or not a woman can bless on behalf of a man and
quoting a Baraita that states explicitly that she can. The discussion continues
on, however, suggesting in part 6 an alternative, and very forced, interpreta-
tion of the Baraita, according to which a woman may fulfill the obligation of
her husband only when he has a lesser, merely rabbinically based obligation
to say the blessing. The interpretation of the Baraita in part 6 is very forced,
since it is very unlikely that the Baraita, when it says “A woman blesses on
behalf of her husband,” is referring only to a man who ate a small quantity
of food such that he is only “rabbinically” obligated. Most likely, asserts
the Baraita, a woman can bless on behalf of her husband irrespective of the
quantity of food he consumed. In any event, the sugya ends without legal
resolution, offering two interpretations of the Baraita that yield two opposing
answers to the legal question.
What is the point of this sugya? If its point is to decide the law, then
we face a difficult question: Why did the sugya not conclude after Rava’s
straightforward interpretation of the Baraita in part 5, which answers the
opening question, but instead conclude with the forced interpretation in part 6,
according to which the question cannot be answered?
Part 6 of the sugya may have been uncomfortable with Rava’s interpretation
because it puts the woman’s obligation on the same level as the man’s, even
though the Baraita frowns on putting this equality into practice. Perhaps part
6 was not willing to concede even this much equality between the sexes. Part
6 therefore reinterpreted the Baraita such that a woman’s obligation was on
a lower level than that of a man, reducing to a triviality the Baraita’s area
of applicability. If this alternative understanding of part 6’s motivation
is correct, then perhaps we have uncovered an important bit of information
about rabbinic attitudes toward women in late antique Mesopotamia. And
since the Baraita itself purports to derive from first or second century CE
Palestine, we may have uncovered an important difference between early
Palestinian and later Babylonian attitudes toward women.
As noted, according to the first interpretation of the Baraita, the obligations
of men and women are biblical. The Baraita discourages a woman from leading
the blessing because of sociological factors, namely the inappropriateness of
society’s normal hierarchy being disrupted. In 21st-century Western society,
158 Why I Study Talmud

however, where at least in many circles what the ancients conceived of as the
normal hierarchy is either obsolete or is becoming obsolete, those who wish to
adhere to the Talmud’s legal rulings but are not prepared to accept as eternal
all of its cultural and societal assumptions, can accept part 5’s interpretation
of the Baraita and can rule that the husband and wife are equally obligated.
The Talmud, which definitely does not view egalitarianism as a virtue to be
promoted, can therefore be used to promote an egalitarian agenda. In this and
in many other instances, it is possible for a modern reader of the text to break
down part of the logic of the sugya and look afresh at its component parts,
maintaining one’s allegiance to the tradition but searching through it to find
a usable past. One can remain within the system of rabbinic Judaism without
slavish devotion to all of its prejudices, and can unearth old traditions that
are authentically Jewish even though they have been suppressed, ignored, or
papered over by hundreds of years of commentary by people with agendas
radically different than our own.
It is likely, however, that the sugya has another motive for concluding
with part 6’s alternative to Rava’s interpretation. For as noted, part of the
Talmud’s purpose is to train people to think like rabbis, to cultivate the
ability to look at every question from diametrically opposing points of
view. According to the Talmud, any judge worthy of appointment to the
highest court, the Sanhedrin, should be able to devise 150 arguments in
favor of the proposition that a reptile is ritually pure, despite the fact that
the Torah says explicitly that it is impure.5 And in order to understand
arguments found in virtually every page of the Talmud one must be able
to make sense of logical arguments that demonstrate that proposition X is
true, followed immediately by logical arguments that demonstrate that X
is false. The Babylonian Talmud delights in finding reasons not to draw
conclusions, to the point where the Talmud presents as a problem in need
of solution the possibility that a tradition enables us to decide between two
competing points of view.
Many of us moderns would perhaps prefer a Talmud that drew conclusions
more often; if our sugya, for example, accepted the straightforward inter-
pretation of Rava and ended the sugya with part 5. This is the route chosen
much more often by the Yerushalmi, the Babylonian Talmud’s close relative,
produced in the land of Israel between the third and fifth centuries CE. For
the rabbis of Babylonia, however, settling for the simple and straightforward
interpretations and answers of the Yerushalmi betrays a lack of serious
engagement in the study of Torah, the most important commandment for a
Jew and therefore the summum bonum of human existence.
I can certainly understand why someone might think differently, but
personally I prefer the Babylonian model of disciplining my mind to follow
 Why I Study Talmud 159

discussions that proceed in one direction, and then do a sudden 180 degree
turn and proceed headlong in the opposite direction, only to reverse course
again just as suddenly, and so forth, until, almost inevitably, the Talmud
finally comes to rest temporarily, concluding that the opposing sides of the
debate have no choice but to agree to disagree. It is this open-endedness, this
emphasis on the way one thinks at least as much as what one thinks, this
compulsion to examine every issue from perspective X and the opposite of
perspective X, that many find infuriating about the Talmud, but which I find
exhilarating and endlessly rewarding.

ENDNOTES

1. I am delighted to thank my friend and colleague, Professor Judith Hauptman of

the Jewish Theological Seminary, who read an earlier version of this essay and made
several helpful suggestions. I alone, of course, am responsible for any remaining
errors of fact or judgment.
2. When I use the word “Talmud” throughout this essay, it is shorthand for
“rabbinic literature of late antiquity.” For while I derive most pleasure from the
Babylonian Talmud, it would be artificial to distinguish too sharply between the study
of Talmud and the study of ancient rabbinic literature in general.
3. Saul Lieberman, introduction to Tosefet Rishonim, vol. IV (Jerusalem: Mosad
ha-Rav Kook, 1939), pp. 12–15.
4. The printed text of the Talmud contains the following clause: “But according
to your reasoning there is a problem [since the Tannaitic tradition you cite also says,
‘A son blesses on behalf of his father.’ But how can this be?] Is a minor [i.e., the
son] obligated [to say the blessing according to the Torah]?” I follow the reading of
R. Moshe ben Nahman in his commentary, Milhamot Hashem, who argues convinc-
ingly that this clause is not an integral part of the discussion but rather was added by
a later hand.
5. See b. Eruvin 13b; and b. Sanhedrin 17a and 17b.
 The Meaning and Significance of
New Talmudic Insights
Ephraim Kanarfogel

I vividly recall the day toward the beginning of my freshman year in high
school year when our (very bright and learned, and sometimes irreverent)
rebbe announced that “everyone should like learning (=lernen) because as
we know, learning is fun.” Although at that point, I would not have been
able on my own to formulate this sentiment in quite so bold a fashion, I
resonated to my rebbe’s words because I believed them to be essentially
correct. Serious Jewish learning, and the study of the Talmud and its inter-
pretation in particular, can and should be great fun. Indeed, what my rebbe
went on to say was that although the study of Torah is among the most
venerated (and spiritually compensated) mizvot, it is perfectly acceptable
to engage in Talmudic study (as part of the larger precept of Torah study)
because one really likes to do so, and because it provides enjoyment.1 In a
more formal construct, the simhah that can be engendered through Torah
study is precisely what leads to its prohibition during intense periods of
mourning.2
This then is the very short and partial answer to the question of why I
study the Talmud. What I should like to do in this essay is to try to quantify
what in fact is so enjoyable about the study of the Talmud, at least to my own
(idiosyncratic) way of thinking. As with certain puzzles or logic problems,
much of the fun lies in figuring out or decoding the system and the meaning
behind the material that is presented. This process begins by getting the indi-
vidual or local Talmudic sugyot right. The challenge here, however, is to be
able to decipher difficult words and texts from the linguistic and literary stand-
points as well, and not only from the conceptual side. You don’t have a sugya
right (and that part of the larger picture decoded) until you have interpreted and
accounted for the specific words and phrases of the Talmudic text as vehicles

161
162 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

and representations of the reasoning and halakhic or rabbinic dicta that are at
the sugya’s core.
Adding to the challenge, sugya interpretation depends not only on
uncovering or discovering the most logical or reasonable approach to
the text at hand. Proper interpretation is achieved only by understanding
both the text and the concepts behind it in accordance with or against the
backdrop of the broader teachings of the Oral Law as a whole. As the late
twelfth century Tosafist (and student of Rabbenu Tam) R. Hayyim Kohen
noted, pure logic or rational thinking is not necessarily able to account for
the specific parameters, requirements or penalties that each Torah precept
generates.3
On the other hand, the Talmudic corpus allows for and encourages not only
the raising of questions or problematics that emerge from new circumstances
or developments over time within the history of human existence (e.g., “selling
chametz,” using a “Shabbos clock,” employing breakthroughs in medical
technology),4 but also the development of new overarching methods of study,
such as the “Brisker derekh” of R. Chaim Soloveitchik (d. 1918), or the dif-
ferent, but no less systematic approach of R. Chaim’s younger contemporary,
R. Shimon Shkop (d. 1939).5
Tracing and appreciating the relationship (in terms of both the similari-
ties and the changes) between the approaches of leading medieval Talmudic
commentators (rishonim), and those of the commentators in the early mod-
ern and modern periods (‘aharonim), as well as the points of interface or
engagement between them, sometimes has the quality of catching a chemi-
cal reaction or a biological phenomenon at the instant at which it actually
occurs. These interactions are palpable and suggestive, and can be traced
back to the original Talmudic or rabbinic text(s) under discussion as an inte-
grated continuum or whole. Also, the ability to find something really new to
say in the midst of so much that has come before, to put forward a real hid-
dush, is truly exciting. The process of locating and understanding a hiddush
can be comparable (depending upon your taste) to a thrilling roller coaster
ride, or to the various parts of an intricate symphony coming together.

II

Rather than trying to continue to diagram these points of satisfaction or

enjoyment in descriptive terms, I would like to present an example of a sugya
and its development, a veritable Talmudic puzzle, that encapsulates much of
what I have just described, and more. Although markedly more discursive
than the remarkably apodictic Mishnah, the Gemara is similarly a work of
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 163

legal theory and illustrative cases, not a complete record of case law. Any
established decisor of Jewish law or judge sitting on a beit din (rabbinic
court) will encounter myriad cases or situations that are not described or even
mentioned explicitly in the Talmud. Through application and reasoning, the
decisor must be able to identify relevant Talmudic passages and constructs
(as well as applicable post-Talmudic precedent).6 On a more theoretical or
preemptive level, it is also fascinating to consider the halakhic possibilities
according to Talmudic law in larger (and more complex) kinds of cases that
the Talmud does not specifically address. This is the type of situation that we
will now proceed to discuss.
R. Aryeh Leib ha-Kohen Heller (d. 1813), author of the highly regarded
Qezot ha-Hoshen commentary (published in Lemberg in 1788 and 1796) to
Shulhan ‘Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat,7 zeroes in on just such a “missing” case,
one that appears to have “fallen through the cracks” of the Talmud. Can
an agent (shaliah) who was appointed to deliver a gift (matanah) appoint
another agent to perform this task?8 Jewish law very much recognizes the
possibility of appointing an agent to execute or to perform the wishes of the
one who sends him. In rabbinic parlance, sheluho shel ‘adam kemoto, an
agent is considered to be “just like the one who has appointed (or sent) him.”9
Agency (shelihut) can be employed in a wide range of purposes, for example,
to acquire or to sell objects, to effect an halakhic berothal (qiddushin), to
deliver a bill of divorce, to pay off a debt, to give charity, and so on. Indeed,
one of the few limitations of the powers of an agent is that he cannot perform
a religious obligation that is incumbent upon the individual (sender) himself,
in a personal (or bodily) manner, such as the donning of phylacteries.10
The Talmud deals explicitly (in Gittin 29a) only with a related question
to the one raised by the Qezot ha-Hoshen. Just as an agent who has been
appointed to deliver a bill of divorce may appoint a second agent to complete
this mission, so too an agent who was appointed to deliver a gift deed (i.e.,
a deed for a field that is being given as a gift) may appoint a second agent
to do so. In discussing this issue, however, the Talmud notes an important
distinction, which leads to a disagreement in interpretation between Abbaye
and Rava (and between the earlier Amoraim Rav and Shmu’el). According to
the Talmud, if the husband instructed an agent (or two agents) to first write
the bill of divorce and then to give it in addition, they may not appoint some-
one else to do the writing. For Abbaye (and for Rav), the problem with this
second appointment is that it would lead to additional embarrassment for the
husband. The husband may not have been capable of writing the get him-
self (even though the Torah instructs him to do so), and so he appointed an
agent (or agents) to do this. If that agent appoints someone else, an additional
(outside) person now knows that the husband is incapable of writing the get.
164 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

Abbaye’s line of reasoning here would not apply, however, to the writing of
a gift deed, since there is no requirement that the giver of the gift write his
own document. Hence, if he assigns this task to one agent and that agent then
assigns this task to another, the giver incurs no embarrassment whatsoever.
Rava, however, holds (as does the Amora Samuel) that an agent who was
assigned to write (and then to give) a get may not appoint another agent to
write the get because of a larger limitation of agency. An agent can be charged
by his sender directly to make a particular statement or verbal declaration.
But this agent cannot be properly authorized to issue an instruction (alone) to
another agent, on behalf of the one who had appointed him initially. Literally,
“words [alone] cannot be given over to an(other) agent” (milei lo mimseran
le-shaliah).11 If the second agent’s assignment is to give the get, his appoint-
ment by the first agent is for more than just words. (As Rashi notes, ‘it beh
meshasha, “there is substance to his appointment.”) If, however, the second
agent is charged by the first agent to initially write the bill of divorce, such an
appointment is “for words” (le-milei, a verbal instruction) alone. There is no
palpable object at this point, such as an existing get, over which (or through
which) the agency assignment can be properly transferred from the first agent
to the second.
Moreover, this larger principle concerning agency would apply equally to
an agent who was assigned to write a gift deed, as it would for the writing of
a bill of divorce; the assignment to write a gift deed (as opposed to the giving
of an already written deed) is also considered milei, and cannot be transferred
by one agent to another. The Talmud typically rules that the law is decided
according to the position of Samuel when he disagrees with Rav in cases
of monetary and related laws (dinei, which includes agency; the law is like
Rav, on the other hand, in matters of ritual law, issur ve-heter).12 Thus, the
conclusion that agency may not be assigned, for either the writing of a get
or for the writing of a gift document, is codified by both R. Jacob b. Asher
in his Arba’ah Turim, and by R. Yosef Caro in the Shulhan ‘Arukh.13 All
would agree, however, that where a get or gift document already exists, and
the husband or the gift giver assigns an agent only for its delivery (shaliah
le-holakhah) and not for its writing, that agent may appoint another agent in
turn, since this is not an instance of milei.
As mentioned above, the point of inquiry of the Qezot ha-Hoshen (Hoshen
Mishpat 244, comment 2) is about how this sugya and these rulings would
apply to an agent appointed not to deliver a gift deed, but rather to an agent
appointed to deliver the gift itself. At first blush, we would think that there
should be no question (or point of contention) whatsoever. The first agent who
appoints a second agent to deliver an actual gift is authorizing him to deliver
an existing object (such as a get); this is surely not a case of milei at all.
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 165

R. Aryeh Leib Heller, however, begins his inquiry with a suggestive obser-
vation. Although the Talmud derives that an agent for the husband (a shaliah
le-holakhah) who was appointed to deliver a bill of divorce to the wife (or
her agent), may appoint a second agent to do this (since there is no problem
of milei here, as we have seen), one of the Tosafists, R. Solomon b. Judah of
Dreux (known as ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux),14 maintains that this would not be the
case for an agent who was appointed to give a ring for betrothal (qiddushin) to
a women. Even if this agent cannot continue his mission due to an accident or
another unavoidable occurrence (‘ones, and not owing to any malfeasance or
mistake on his part), he is unable to appoint another agent in his stead.
Although this agent was appointed to deliver an existing object, a ring,
which should be akin to an agent appointed to deliver a get (that is certainly
not considered to be mere milei), ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux holds that the assign-
ment of delivering a ring for betrothal is nonetheless considered to be akin
to milei, based on the following distinction that emerges from the relevant
Talmudic sugyot. Once the husband hands a get to his agent for delivery,
the agent, like the husband himself, can put forward the bill of divorce even
against the will of the woman (or more precisely, without requiring her acqui-
escence at that point).15
If the woman refuses to (extend her da’at and to) accept a ring of qiddushin,
however, the qiddushin is not valid. As such, the ring, unlike the get, has (or
should be assigned) the status of milei, and therefore cannot be transferred
from one agent to another. The initial agent received the ring from the potential
bridegroom himself and he was authorized directly to attempt to effect the
qiddushin; the validity of his appointment is beyond question (even if the
woman does not accept the ring from him in the end). The second agent,
however, is not authorized as directly by the bridegroom, and the object in
question, the ring, also does not convey full authorization in this situation,
since the woman may reject it. In the case of a get, however, the second agent
is just as powerful (and as authorized) as the first since he, like the first agent
(and like the husband himself), can present the get (and complete the mission
of the shelihut by accomplishing the divorce), regardless of the intention of
the person receiving it.
Qezot ha-Hoshen further refers to the gloss of R. Moses Isserles (Ramo,
d. 1572) to Shulhan ‘Arukh, Even ha-’Ezer 35:6, which cites two views on
this question: the view just discussed (held by ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux), that a
second agent cannot be appointed for (the) marriage (ring), and another view
(which originated with a German Tosafist contemporary of R. Solomon of
Dreux, R. Barukh b. Samuel of Mainz, d. 1221), that as long as the potential
bridegroom actually gives the first agent the ring or the money to be used
for the qiddushin (so that an object for transference exists), and does not
166 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

instruct the agent to lay out his own money in order to betroth the woman on
the groom’s behalf, a second agent can be appointed by the first agent and
there is no problem of milei.16 Qezot ha-Hoshen reasons that since according
to the position of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux, the person who is meant to receive
a gift from another surely has the prerogative to reject the gift and to refuse
to receive it, a second agent in that case is comparable to the qiddushin case
(where the woman can reject the qiddushin), rather than to the case of a get
(where the get is not subject to her will). As such, there is also a milei problem
or aspect in the instance of giving an actual gift via an agent, which effec-
tively undermines the appointment of a second agent, providing a (somewhat
unexpected) resolution to the original query of the Qezot ha-Hoshen.
In presenting his analysis, the ba’al Qezot ha-Hoshen notes that his
approach also resolves a significant question that had been posed by R. Jacob
Joshua Falk (d. 1756) in his Pnei Yehoshua. R. Falk was best known for
formulating penetrating, large-scale questions, of the sort that had not been
in evidence since medieval times (with the possible exception of R. Samuel
Eidels, the Maharsha, d. 1631). This line of questioning sought to get to the
heart of the sugya in a fundamentally meaningful way, in order to open new
avenues of discussion.17
Pnei Yehoshua had raised just such a question with regard to the related
sugya in Gittin 29a. According to the Talmudic discussion, a certain man
appointed an agent to deliver a bill of divorce to his wife. The agent reported
that he could not identify her; he simply did not know who she was. The
husband then instructed the agent to give the get to a rabbinic scholar named
Abba bar Manyomi, who did know the woman in question. The agent could
not locate Abba bar Manyomi, and instead desposited the get with a group
of Amoraim that included R. Abuhu, R. Haninah bar Pappa, and R. Yizhaq
Nafha. The Amora R. Safra was sitting near them. This group asked R. Safra
to let them know when R. Abba bar Manyomi arrived, so that they could give
him the get (and R. Abba would then give it to the woman in question). R. Safra
objected, on the grounds that the agent in this case was not authorized to do
what he did.
Rashi understands R. Safra’s point of objection to mean that this agent
had last been instructed by the husband to give the get to R. Abba bar
Manyomi (rather than to give it himself to the woman). As such, since
the agent was no longer fully in the place of the husband with respect to
giving the get (by virtue of the fact that he could not complete the divorce
by delivering the get to the woman), he was not authorized to give it to
anyone other than R. Abba bar Manyomi. Pnei Yehoshua, however, ques-
tions why this is so. Although this agent was indeed no longer responsible
for giving the get itself, why could he not appoint another agent to give it
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 167

to R. Abba (which was his current mission), just as any shaliah instructed
to deliver a get typically can? Qezot ha-Hoshen explains, in accordance
with the reasoning of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux, that since Abba bar Manyomi
could theoretically refuse to take on this assignment to deliver the get
when and if the husband’s agent ultimately presented it to him, the situa-
tion becomes akin to one of milei even though a get is involved. In a word,
this is a case of get that takes on the characteristics of qiddushin/matanah,
since the authority of the agent (who seeks to appoint another agent) cannot
guarantee that the final goal (or transaction) will be accomplished.
Qezot ha-Hoshen has additional discussions about the implications of
the position of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux in other unusual cases involving the
transference of a get. Nonetheless, his initial line of inquiry has borne fruit.
According to the view of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux, an agent for the delivery of a
gift is akin to an agent for qiddushin, rather than to an agent for the delivery a
get (the fact that he has the gift in his hand notwithstanding). Therefore, any
attempt on the part of an agent appointed for the delivery of a gift to appoint
another agent in his place raises the problem of milei, which is not (typically) a
problem in the case of an agent appointed to deliver a get, according to an
explicit Talmudic ruling. A new point of Jewish law has been made by the
ba’al Qezot ha-Hoshen, owing to his ability to isolate and productively analyze
a suggestive view of one of the Tosafists, that initially appears only in a
different sugya and realm.

III

If we step back in order to assess the accomplishment of the Qezot ha-Hoshen

against the backdrop of the development of Jewish law through the Talmudic
and medieval periods (which can also, in and of itself, be a source of great
satisfaction, at least to me), we note that at the base of R. Aryeh Leib Heller’s
analysis is a dispute between two contemporary Tosafists, one from Rhineland
Germany (R. Barukh of Mainz) and the other from northern France (R. Solomon
ha-Qadosh of Dreux). This dispute, however, is not found anywhere within
the standard Tosafot to the Baylonian Talmud, nor is it found in any vari-
ant Tosafot texts.18 Rather, the respective positions appear as two disparate
formulations, in two different places within the Sefer Mordekhai (and its
glosses), which were first brought together by R. Moses Isserles. Although
Qezot ha-Hoshen does not explicitly discuss R. Barukh of Mainz’s position,
it is clear that R. Barukh’s view would allow an agent assigned to deliver a
gift the ability to authorize another agent to undertake this task. Simply put,
R. Barukh holds that any case of agency in which the transfer of an object is
168 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

involved (be it a get or a gift, or be it a wedding ring or the money of qiddushin)

obviates the problem of milei. Moreover, matters of agency in qiddushin are
derived and learned from those in gittin (as per Qiddushin 41a), and these two
institutions should generally not be separated or split.19
Qezot ha-Hoshen preferred to focus instead on the more nuanced view of
ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux, precisely because it singles out the giving of a get and
its agency in this instance, in accordance with specific parameters of Talmudic
law. Agency for a get does have some unique properties and prerogatives
as we have seen, owing mostly to the relatively one-sided giving of the get,
which does not require the ongoing acquiescence of the women (mi-da’atah).
A gift object, however, no less than the ring or money of qiddushin, can be
rejected, and these items cannot be transferred to a second agent, because of
the milei problem. This is the essential appeal of the position of ha-Qadosh
mi-Dreux that Qezot ha-Hoshen develops further and presents in a new light,
in order to answer his initial query.
Indeed, this was also the view of the Italian Tosafist, R. Isaiah di Trani, of
which Qezot ha-Hoshen (and others in his day) were apparently unaware.20
RID, who studied in the Rhineland at the turn of the twelfth century with
R. Simhah of Speyer (and also became familiar with the teachings of Rabbenu
Tam, via his German students),21 writes in his Tosafot RID that when the
Talmud (in Qiddushin 41b) equates the rules for an agent in both get and
qiddushin, it does so only with respect to the first or initial agent. A second
agent cannot be appointed by the first for qiddushin because of milei, even
if an object is given for the qiddushin. The first agent can appoint a second
agent to deliver a get, on the other hand, without any problem. In cases of
divorce, the get is the davar ha-megaresh, the instrument of divorce. Thus, if
a get is lost, the agent cannot do anything without it, and has no option but to
return to his sender without having accomplished his mission.
If, however, the object of qiddushin is lost, an agent appointed for this
purpose can take money out of his own pocket (if he wishes to do so) on
behalf of the bridegroom who has sent him, and can thereby successfully
complete his mission. As such, the main role for an agent for qiddushin is
milei; he is given an instruction (that he can accomplish in different ways,
with an object of worth or with funds provided by his sender, or with his
own money). At the same time, he cannot transfer this instruction over to
another agent, because it is quintessentially defined as milei. An agent for
divorce, however, can accomplish his mission only by handing the woman
the bill of divorce for her that was given to him by the husband. If this get
is lost, the mission cannot be completed. On the other hand, a second agent
who is designated by the first to give this get to the woman may do so, since
this is the original (and only) instrument of divorce that can be effective.
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 169

Thus, the position of R. Isaiah di Trani is fundamentally the same as that of

ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux.22
It should be noted that much of the halakhic jurisprudence in the centu-
ries prior to the Qezot ha-Hoshen tended to favor the view of R. Barukh
of Mainz over that of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux. Although R. Yosef Caro (d.
1575) makes brief mention in his Beit Yosef only of the view of ha-Qadosh
mi-Dreux,23 Ramo, in his Darkhei Mosheh glosses to the Arba’ah Turim,24
cites the view of R. Barukh of Mainz (without attribution, as a yesh ‘omrim),
and the somewhat more limiting view of the Shiltei ha-Gibborim (c. 1550,
which Ramo refers to imply as “glosses to the Alfasi”).25 Shiltei ha-Gibborim
follows the view of R. Barukh for the most part, but makes a distinction
between a situation in which the agent was authorized to give the woman
an object or money for qiddushin that had been given to him by the bride-
groom (in which case he can appoint another agent) and an instance in
which the agent is instructed by the bridegroom to use his own money, in
which case he cannot appoint another agent to accomplish this due to the
problem of milei. Ramo does not refer at all here to the position of ha-
Qadosh mi-Dreux.
In his Mappah glosses to the Shulhan ‘Arukh (Even ha-’Ezer 35:6), Ramo,
as noted above, again cites the (more lenient) position of R. Barukh of Mainz
first as a yesh ‘omrim, together with the caveat of the Shiltei ha-Gibborim,
and then concludes with a second, more stringent yesh ‘omrim that is the
position of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux. R. Yo’el Sirkes (d. 1640), in his Bayit
Hadash (Bah) commentary to the Arba’ah Turim (in what also appears to
be a response to the passage in the Beit Yosef) specifically critiques the
view of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux by name.26 R. Solomon Luria (d. 1573) had
also criticized the view of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux in similar terms (and quite
harshly), albeit without mentioning him by name.27
Qezot ha-Hoshen helps to shift the perception that was put forward by
these leading Ashkenazic commentators to the Arba’ah Turim and Shulhan
‘Arukh in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by forcefully,
yet elegantly, bringing to the fore the Talmudic details and logic that stand
behind and support the position of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux. By raising the new
scenario that he does with respect to the giving of a gift, Qezot ha-Hoshen
has not simply proposed and addressed a situation that was not discussed
by the Talmud. He has shown that ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux has logical staying
power and attractiveness over the course of various Talmudic sugyot. The
status of these acts that are assigned to a shaliah cannot be determined solely
by looking at physical or structural categories (since it would seem, prima
facie, that an actual gift is certainly comparable to a get). Rather, the purpose
or function of the object in question is most crucial. Thus, the solution
170 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

proposed by Qezot ha-Hoshen is both new and old at the same time,28 and
it succeeds in answering the important question of the Pnei Yehoshua as
well.29
Finally, R. Jacob Lorberbaum of Lissa (d. 1832), in his Netivot ha-Mishpat
(published in Zolkiew, 1809–1816) argues, as is his wont, against the reasoning
of the Qezot ha-Hoshen on the basis of another sharp distinction that emerges
from both the logic and the details of the Talmudic system.30 A gift does not,
in fact, typically require a bona fide shaliah to effect its transfer. As long as
the gift ends up in the hands of its designated recipient, the mode through
which it is transferred is largely irrelevant.
Thus, for example, if a trained (or even an un-trained) animal was used to
bring the gift from its original owner to the recipient (ma’aseh qof), no one
would question the validity and propriety of the recipient now benefiting
from the gift. This is not the case, of course, for gittin or qiddushin, where
a new halakhic status is being assigned based on the transference of a get or
of a ring of betrothal. In these situations, the manner in which the object gets
from the husband or bridegroom to the woman in question is crucial. The will
of the husband or bridegroom, together with the actions of a proper agent,
come together to create the new status (or halot, in rabbinic parlance). The
same holds true for a situation in which the deed for a gift is being transferred.
There as well, the authorization and status of the agent are instrumental in
helping to affect the qinyan that is at stake.
With regard to the actual giving of a gift, however, the manner in which
a gift is transferred from the giver to the receiver is, as indicated, largely
irrelevant (unless the giver had specified that his gift must be acquired
by the receiver through a particular mode or qinyan), and there can be
no doubt that one agent can assign this task to another. A get requires a
formal act of giving (a ma’aseh netinah) and an authorized person to per-
form this act. The husband or the agent may be required, for example, to
instruct the woman to pick the get up off the floor and to acquire it. Giving
a gift, however, inherently requires no such formal authorization. Once
the receiver has the gift in hand, it belongs to him, as long as it has been
made clear that the giver truly wishes him to have it. Moreover, even if an
agent was appointed to ensure that the gift reaches the receiver, the agent
can also fulfill his mission via an “unauthorized” or improperly appointed
agent, as the long as the gift finds its mark. There is no problem of milei
here whatsoever.
While Qezot ha-Hoshen worked hard to locate the giving of a gift via
agency within the Talmudic categories of agency for a get and agency for
qiddushin (and demonstrated that agency for a gift is much more akin to the
latter), Netivot ha-Mishpat maintains that the giving of a gift is completely
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 171

removed from the Talmudic systems of get and qiddushin. Logic suggests
that agency for the giving of a gift (as opposed to the giving of a gift deed)
may well be in a category of its own. Although Netivot ha-Mishpat appears to
be completely reactive here to the strategy of the Qezot ha-Hoshen, R. Jacob
Lorberbaum rejects as unnecessary the structural and categorical extensions
put forward by the Qezot.
The ba’al Qezot ha-Hoshen (who was able to respond in his lifetime to the
critical observations of his good friend R. Lorberbaum on earlier sections in
Hoshen Mishpat) might argue here that one cannot go “out of system” purely
on the basis of a logical observation. The gist of the discussions from both the
medieval and early modern periods certainly suggests that cases of agency
of this type do in fact emerge from the Talmudic structures concerning gittin
and qiddushin, even as there are disputes about the particular applications.
In any case, both Qezot ha-Hoshen and Netivot ha-Mishpat have contributed
startlingly new insights, which at the same time cause a review and rethinking
of prior positions and approaches. To my mind, the identification and formu-
lation of this kind of a new-old cycle is the goal and the hallmark of Talmud
study at its best.31

IV

All of this textual and logical intrigue, together with the insights and impli-
cations for the textual history of the Oral Law, and topped off by the outright
hiddushim that emerge, are why studying the Talmud and its interpretations is
so enjoyable to me. The Talmud itself presumes that “there can be no house
of study without innovation.”32 Similarly, the Zohar remarks (in its idiom)
that “at a moment when a word of Torah is made anew (mithadesh) in the
mouth of man, the word ascends and stands before the Holy One blessed
be He, who takes it and kisses it and crowns it with seventy decorated and
engraved crowns.”33 In our own day, Rav Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveitchik
of blessed memory wrote that “halakhic man is a man who longs to create,
to bring into being something new, something original. . . . The dream of
creation is the central idea in the halakhic consciousness.”34 The study of
the Talmud may be compared to both a puzzle and a treasure map. It allows
students to invest their time and creativity with the hope of glimpsing and
ultimately mastering things that matter, both old and new, and perhaps even
contributing to the ongoing mosaic of study, be it an insight or a full-fledged
interpretation, that can be appreciated by fellow travelers on this always
noble and uplifting journey.35
172 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

ENDNOTES

1. In the introduction to his Eglei Tal (repr. New York, 1968), R. Abraham
Bornstein of Sochaczew (d. 1910) strongly criticizes (as a ta’ut mefursam) the
view that one who finds enjoyment in the study of Torah and in the setting forth of
hiddushim is thereby diminishing the coveted goal of studying Torah lishmah, for
its own sake. Quite to the contrary, according to R. Abraham, the enjoyment that is
experienced actually reflects the essence of Torah study: wadrba ky zh hwa xyqr mxwt
tlmwd twrhlhywt çç wçmj wmt[ng waz dbry twry nbl[yw bdmw. wmajr çnhnh mdbry twrh
hwa n[çh dbwq ltwrh...abl hlwmd lçµ mxwh wmt[ng blymwdg blymwdw hry zh lymwd lçmh
wkwlw qwdw ky gµ ht[nwg m[wh. See also Seder Eliyyahu Rabbah, ed. Meir Ish-Shalom
(repr. Jerusalem, 1960), 92 (chap. 18, s.v. teda lekha): kdŸ amr lh˜ hqb|h lçral bnyy mh
çmjh yç lw ladµ b[wlµ hzh ala dbry twry twrh blb⁄d, and cf. Norman Lamm, Torah
Lishmah in the Works of R. Hayyim of Volozhin and his Contemporaries (New York,
1989), 84–85, 114–119. Note also the permissibility of writing down hiddushei Torah
on Hol ha-Mo’ed as understood, e.g., by Taz to Shulhan ‘Arukh, Orah Hayyim 545,
sec. 13, and by Birkei Yosef le-R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai [Hida] (repr. Jerusalem,
1969), Orah Hayyim, ad loc., sec. 3, citing She’elot u-Teshuvot min ha-Shamayim
le-R. Ya’aqov mi-Marvege.
2. See, e.g., Ta’anit 30a, where the prohibition of Torah study on the ninth of
Av is based on Psalms 19:6, “the orders of the Almighty are upright and gladden
the heart” (pqwdy hò yçrµ mçrjy lb). Although the Talmud in Mo’ed Qatan 15a
derives the prohibition of Torah study for a mourner during the shiv’ah period from
a different verse (Ezekiel 24:17), Tosafot to Mo’ed Qatan 21a, s.v. ‘asur rectifies
these verses and presumes that the “gladness” that is generated by Torah study is the
cause of the prohibition for one who is mourning a personal loss as well. Related
to this discussion are whether mourners (personal or national) may study devarim
ha-ra’im, works or sections within the Tanakh (and the Talmud) that are of a sad
or somber nature (such as the book of Job or that discuss the destruction of the Beit
ha-Miqdash; the extent to which the mourner may delve into these subjects (and po-
tentially reach new or deeper understandings within them); and the possibility of the
mourner teaching these materials to others. See, e.g., Beit Yosef, Arba’ah Turim to
Orah Hayyim, at the beginning of 554 (esp. whròòp[r≈] ktb [çqwryz] bpyò aykh abl la
bayò aywb mçwµ dhwy [mwq fpy wamryò qwry˜ dwqa abl sbra aswr [kòòl); Shulhan ‘Arukh,
loc cit. secs.1–2, and Taz, sec. 2; Shakh to Yoreh De’ah 384, sec. 1; and Shi’urei
ha-Rav [Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveitchik] ‘al ‘Inyanei Avelut ve-Tish’ah ba-Av, ed.
Elyakim Koenigsberg (New York, 1999), pt. 1, 71 (sec. 23), and pt. 2, 39–40 (sec.
20), and 44–46 (sec. 22).
3. See ms. Florence (Laurenziana), Plut. II.20, fol. 251v, and cf. my “Torah Study
and Truth in Medieval Ashkenazic Literature and Thought,” in Study and Knowledge
in Jewish Thought, ed. Howard Kreisel (Beer Sheva, 2006), 101–120 (and esp. 111,
n. 18). Note also the statement of Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed, 3:26,
that any attempt to understand or to account philosophically for the specific (halakhic)
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 173

details or requirements of the precepts will lead to “prolonged delusion” (shigga’on

‘arokh). Cf. Jacob Katz, Halakhah ve-Qabbalah (Jerusalem, 1986), 52–55.
4. See, e.g., I. M. Ta-Shma, Creativity and Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 2006),
87–101, and my “Halakhah and Mezi’ut (Realia) in Medieval Ashkenaz: Surveying
the Parameters and Defining the Limits,” Jewish Law Annual 14 (2003), 193–224.
Cf. R. Moses Feinstein, Igrot Mosheh, Yoreh De’ah, vol. 1 (New York, 1959), #101,
sec. 5 (p. 186, cols. 1–2).
5. See, e.g, S. Y. Zevin, Ishim ve-Shitot (Jerusalem, 1958), 39–85; Elyakim
Krumbein, “Me-R. Chaim Brisk veh-R. Yosef Dov Solovetichik ve-’ad Shiurei
R. Aharon Lichtenstein: ‘al Gilgulehah shel Mesoret Limmud,” Netu’im 9 (2002),
51–94; and Shai Wozner, “Hashivah Mishpatit bi-Yeshivot Lita bi-Re’i Mishnato
shel ha-Rav Shim’on Shkop,” Ph.D. dissertation (The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, 2005).
6. See, e.g., Teshuvot R. Avraham ben ha-Rambam, ed. A. H. Freimann (Jerusalem,
1937), #97, and cf. my “Progress and Tradition in Medieval Ashkenaz,” Jewish
History 14 (2000), 287–316.
7. R. Aryeh Leib’s two other seminal works are Shev Shemateta (Lemberg, 1804)
and Avnei Millu’im to Even ha-’Ezer (Lemberg, 1816).
8. See Qezot ha-Hoshen to Hoshen Mishpat 244, comment 2.
9. See, e.g., Berakhot 34b, Hagigah 10b, Qiddushin 41b, Nedarim 72b, Nazir 12b,
Bava Mezi’a 96a, Menahot 93b; and cf. Rashi’s Torah commentary to Exodus 12:6.
Whether an agent is considered to be an extension (a “third hand,” lit., mishum yad)
of the one who has activated him, or whether the agent is considered to be a fully
authorized yet distinct representative of his sender (n[çh kb[l dy˜) is a matter of in-
tensive discussion. See, e.g., Qezot ha-Hoshen to Hoshen Mishpat 105, comment 1,
and to Hoshen Mishpat 188, comment 2.
10. See, e.g., Tosafot Rid to Qiddushin 42b, s.v. shani hatam (Jerusalem, 1968),
fol. 10b, and cf. Qezot ha-Hoshen to Hoshen Mishpat 182, comment 1. Note that
Gershon Hundert, “On the Problem of Agency in 18th Century Jewish Society,”
in Studies in the History of the Jews in Old Poland in Honor of Jacob Goldberg,
[=Scripta Hierosolymitana, vol. 38], ed. Adam Teller (Jerusalem, 1998), 82–89, deals
with agency in the context of cultural transformation, and has nothing to do with the
concept of agency being discussed here.
11. See also Gittin 66b, 71b, 72b. There is discussion as to whether the authorizer
can say initially, “I want your shelihut to be to tell another person to do something on
my behalf,” but this cannot be presumed. Cf. below, n. 22.
12. See, e.g., Bekhorot 49b, Niddah 24b, and cf. Tosafot Gittin 60b, s.v. ve-
hashta.
13. See Hoshen Mishpat 244.
14. R. Solomon b. Judah of Dreux was a student of R. Isaac b. Samuel (Ri) of
Dampierre (d. 1189). On R. Solomon (including his designation as ha-Qadosh)
and his teachings, see E. E. Urbach, Ba’alei ha-Tosafot (Jerusalem, 1980),
1:337–340, 515–516, and Norman Golb, The Jews in Medieval Normandy (Cambridge,
1998), 399–410. R. Solomon’s position with respect to agency for qiddushin is cited
174 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

in (a marginal gloss to) Sefer Mordekhai ‘al le-Massekhet Qiddushin, sec. 504 (to
Qiddushin 41b) [=ed. H. Z. Dimitrovsky and J. Roth (Jerusalem, 1990), 179–180].
On Sefer Mordekhai (and the marginal notes and glosses to it) as a repository of
little-known or otherwise unknown Tosafist positions from both northern France and
Germany, see, e.g., Urbach, Ba’alei ha-Tosafot, 2:556–561, and Simcha Emanuel,
Shivrei Luhot (Jerusalem, 2007), 9–12, 321–323. Indeed, like R. Shabbetai b. Meir
ha-Kohen (d. 1662, author of the Shakh commentary to the Shulhan ‘Arukh), Qezot
ha-Hoshen mined the Sefer Mordekhai in order to locate the fullest range of positions
of Tosafists and other Ashkenazic rabbinic figures available, a technique not always
practiced by other ‘aharonim. I hope to return to this theme in a separate study.
15. In his Gilyonei ha-Shas (Vienna, 1924) to Gittin 29a (s.v. u-milei), R. Yosef
Engel (d. 1920) discusses how the herem de-Rabbenu Gershom (d. 1028), an enact-
ment which mandates that a woman cannot be forced to accept a bill of divorce
against her will, might impact the approach of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux. His conclusion
is that while (overall) a woman cannot be divorced against her will, the process does
not require her assent or acquiescence at each point (dhayswr rq çla lgrç [l krjh la
çla lgrç ala md[jh). Qiddushin, on the other hand, requires her da’at and her posi-
tive will throughout. As such the halakhic approach and reasoning of ha-Qadosh
mi-Dreux need not be adjusted in any way.
16. This second view is found in Sefer Mordekhai le-Massekhet Gittin, sec. 420
(to Gittin 66b) [=ed. H. Z. Dimitrovsky and M. A. Rabinowitz (Jerusalem, 1990),
684–685], in the name of R. Barukh and his no longer extant Sefer ha-Hokhmah.
On R. Barukh and his work, see Urbach, Ba’alei ha-Tosafot, 1:425–29; Emanuel,
Shivrei Luhot, 104–146; and my “The Development and Diffusion of Unanimous
Agreement in Medieval Ashkenaz,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and
Literature, vol. 3, ed. I. Twersky and J. Harris (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 26–28,
39–40.
17. See Ta-Shma, Creativity and Tradition, 166–174, and idem., “Devarim
Ahadim ‘al Sefer Pnei Yehoshua ve’al Mehabreo,” in Mehqarim be-Toledot Yehudei
Ashkenaz [Sefer Yovel li-Khvod Yizhaq Zimmer], ed. G. Bacon et al. (Ramat Gan,
2008), 277–285.
18. Indeed, R. Barukh b. Samuel’s name does not appear at all in the standard
Tosafot (although some suggest that he was the compiler of Tosafot Sotah; see
Urbach, Ba’alei ha-Tosafot, 1:428–29, 2:637–639), while R. Solomon of Dreux’s
name is mentioned a total of twelve times. See Urbach, Ba’alei ha-Tosafot (above,
n. 14, and cf. 1:344), and see also Peretz Tarshish, Ishim u-Sefarim ba-’Tosafot’, ed.
Simon Neuhausen (New York, 1942), 67 (#254), and 69 (#261).
19. Cf. R. Isaac bar Sheshet, She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rivash (repr. Jerusalem,
1968), #228.
20. Qezot ha-Hoshen does not cite Tosafot ha-RID as far as I can tell. It does cite
Pisqei ha-RID on a number of occasions, although always from another source,
especially Arba’ah Turim (or from commentaries associated with this work). See, e.g.,
Hoshen Mishpat, 49, comment 5; H. M. 70, comment 6; H. M. 92, comment 10; H. M.
121, comment 3; and H. M. 351, comment 2. Cf. I. Ta-Shma, Knesset Mehqarim, vol. 3
(Jerusalem, 2005), 24–26, and above, n. 10.
 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights 175

21. See, e.g., Ta-Shma, ibid., 20–21, 24, 40–43.

22. See Tosafot RID le-Masskhet Qiddushin 41a, s.v. ‘ashkehan be-gerushin: wapyò
aµ msr lw çwµ jp≈ [lqydwçy˜] la dmy lgf çhgf hwa dgr hmgrç çaµ nabd hgf ay˜ kj
lçlj lgçh abl jp≈ hqdwçy˜ aµnabd ykwl lqdçh mçlw nm[a ç[yqr hçlyjwt myly whlb˜
la mmsr˜ lçlyj. A point of difference between RID and ha-Qaodosh mi-Dreux might
be seen in the case of an agent who was given a document by the bridegroom through
which to betrothe the woman, a specific shetar qiddushin. That assignment is perhaps
akin to an agent assigned to deliver a get, and it might therefore be possible, accord-
ing to RID, for the first agent to appoint a second in this limited instance of qiddushin
bi-shetar. Cf. the similar view of (the Italian work) Shiltei ha-Gibborim that follows
(at n. 25), as well as Beit Shemu’el, Even ha-’Ezer 35:15.
23. See Beit Yosef to Arba’ah Turim, Even ha-’Ezer 35 (end), s.v. katav ha-
Mordekhai. R. Yosef Caro does not mention any of this in the body of the Shulhan
‘Arukh in Even ha-’Ezer 35. He does, however, cite in the name of an uncontested
yesh mi she-’omer in 36:5 (in the following unit, which deals with a women’s
ability to appoint an agent to receive qiddushin for her), that her agent cannot appoint
a second agent because this would be a case of milei, which cannot be given over to a
shaliah. Cf. Hiddushei ha-Rashba to Qiddushin 41a, s.v. melammed, and Tosafot Rid,
ad loc., s.v. ha-’ish meqaddesh.
24. Even ha-’Ezer 35:10. Darkhei Mosheh was composed prior to Ramo’s glosses
on Shulhan ‘Arukh (Mappah), and are generally a bit lengthier than the Shulhan ‘Arukh
glosses. Cf. I. Twersky, “The Shulhan ‘Arukh: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,”
Judaism 16 (1967), 141–158.
25. These glosses on Rif’s Halakhot Rabbati known by the title Shiltei ha-
Gibborim were composed by the sixteenth-century Italian rabbinic scholar, R. Joshua
Boaz b. Simeon Barukh. See Hida, Shem ha-Gedolim (Warsaw, 1876), ma’arekhet
sefarim, fol. 51a, sec. 76.
26. See Bah to Arba’ah Turim, Even ha-’Ezer, 35, s.v. katav ha-Mordekhai.
R. Yo’el wonders where ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux came up with this distinction, since
it is not found in the Talmud. R. Yo’el is thus more comfortable with the view of R.
Barukh of Mainz, since the Talmud derives agency in qiddushin (completely) from
the parameters of agency in gittin (la açkj˜ dgr zh btlmwd wgµ pçf hhyqç dlgmry
mqçyghwyh ly[yah l[g˜ çlyjwt w[ryd [yw˜.).
27. See Yam shel Shelomoh to Qiddushin, ch. 2, sec. 1 (end): wawmr jny daπ
dgpqmpwyh dgbra rba la [yytyg˜ lh dha bryyta dwçlj wçljh dmlmd vhvlyj [wçh çlyj
myyjy bswgya dhka l[gy˜ qydwçy˜ wamdwyò akwlh mylta raçkj˜ gyrwçy˜ qydwçy˜ mgl˜. wmsq
wamr qra whlkh wkwy whòòf dkl hyka ççljw l[çwt m[çh wkgmr çlyjwtw ngmr hm[çh la
hwy myly mçaòòk bktybt hgf wjtymtw ktb mrdky swπ prq htqbl. On Maharshal’s use
of the phrase lo zeitinan leh (‘we do not listen to him’), cf. Twersky, “The Shulhan
‘Arukh,” 114–115, n. 13, and my “Progress and Tradition,” 290.
28. Two Shulhan ‘Arukh commentaries appear to go in same direction as the
Qezot ha-Hoshen in highlighting the significance of the view of ha-Qadosh mi-Dreux
(albeit in much more muted terms). They are R. Moses of Vilna/Brisk in his Helqat
Mehoqeq (Even ha-’Ezer 35, n. 16), who briefly notes that R. Yosef Caro seems to
176 The Meaning and Significance of New Talmudic Insights

favor this view (above, n. 23), and R. Yo’el Sirkus’ son-in-law, R. David ha-Levi, in
his Turei Zahav (Taz), ad loc., sec. 8.
29. Pnei Yehoshua (Qiddushin 41a, s.v. de-tanya ve-shilah) also analyzes the question
(and dispute) of whether an agent appointed by the women to receive a get for her
may appoint another agent, or whether this is considered to be milei. Cf. above, n.
22. For a somewhat less creative approach to many of the issues discussed by Qezot
ha-Hoshen, see the responsa collection of R. Jacob Reischer (d. 1733), Shevut Ya’akov,
pt. 2 (Offenbach, 1711), sec. 139.
30. Netivot ha-Mishpat, 244:1 (mishpat ha-’urim/be’urim).
31. For a brief assessment of R. Jacob Lorberbaum’s penetrating style of reason-
ing, see Ta-Shma, Creativity and Tradition, 174. The ba’al ha-Netivot finds support
for his view based on Shulhan ‘Arukh, Even ha-’Ezer 141:35; even in the get process,
some opinions allow a non-Jew to be relied upon to transfer a get between the
husband and his properly designated agent, who will then actually give the get to the
woman. See also Shakh to Hoshen Mishpat, 358:1, who speaks to the fact that a gift
can be given without any formal statement by the giver to the receiver, as long as it
is known by convention or by sign that this is the will of the giver of the gift, and cf.
Taz, above, n. 28.
32. Hagigah 3a, ay apr lbt hmdrç bla jydzç.
33. Zohar, vol. 1 (repr. Jerusalem, 1984), fol. 4b (introduction).
34. R. Joseph Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man (Philadelphia, 1983), 99. For these
citations in fuller context, cf. Jonathan Sacks, “Creativity and Innovation in Hal-
akhah,” in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, ed. M. Sokol (Northvale,
1992), 146–147.
35. Cf. Michael Rosenzweig, “Personal Inititative and Creativity in ‘Avodat ha-
Shem,” The Torah u-Madda Journal 1 (1989), 77–83.
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein

I study Talmud for a great many reasons. The incredibly complex legal
discussions pose a great intellectual challenge. The relentless search for the
sources and origins of laws testifies to a passion to probe to ultimate truths
and to set matters straight that I admire and strive to emulate. The rich discus-
sions of Jewish beliefs and practices help me to understand and appreciate
my faith. Among the over two thousand folios of Talmud one finds topics
that range from the most prosaic to the most sublime and that cover almost
every aspect of human experience. Apart from this diversity in content, the
Talmud student encounters a dizzying diversity of genres: scriptural interpre-
tation (midrash), stories, folklore, tall tales, liturgical compositions, homilies,
poetry, maxims, dream interpretations, magical spells, genealogies, medicinal
recipes, and more. For good reason, some scholars compare the Talmud to
an anthology or an encyclopedia. Yet such characterizations do not really do
justice to the range of material that the student of Talmud encounters. When
I turn the page and begin to study a new folio of Talmud, I never know quite
what to expect. That excitement at the Talmud’s potential to produce yet
another surprise keeps me coming back for more.
Above all, I am fascinated by the Talmud’s rich repertoire of stories,
especially the biographical anecdotes about the sages, the same sages whose
legal traditions appear throughout the Talmud’s discussions of law and ritual.
I would guess that there are close to 1,000 such stories in the Talmud; most
are terse accounts of an event or two, though some present more extended
narratives that depict a series of episodes in a sage’s life. Even these longer
narratives, however, rarely exceed a few hundred words. Like the rest of
the Talmud, they were composed and transmitted orally until the middle

177
178 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

ages and therefore formulated very tersely to facilitate memorization. The

acting characters were generally historical figures, and some of the stories
undoubtedly have historical kernels. But in their current forms the stories are
closer to what we would call didactic fiction. They aim not to communicate
“what actually happened” out of some dispassionate interest in the historical
record, but rather to teach values, beliefs, and ideals. For this reason many
of these stories appear in multiple versions in different rabbinic compilations
as different storytellers changed and embellished the stories they received for
their own purposes. Many of the stories display a sophisticated narrative art,
involving reversals, wordplay, irony, symbolic names, tripartite structures,
and other literary devices, which adds an aesthetic dimension to the reading.
Some of the more complex stories express tensions of the rabbinic worldview
for the rabbinic audience to ponder, providing sages a means to consider and
evaluate significant difficulties of their culture. In most cases these stories
still have much to teach and offer us a great deal to meditate upon.
I would like to illustrate the richness of Talmudic stories with two readings,
first a short discussion of a brief story and then a longer and sustained analysis
of a more complex narrative. The brief story appears in Tractate Bava Qama,
folio 50b.

“Once a man was removing stones from his field [and putting them] into the
public domain. A certain Hasid (Holy Man) came upon him and said, “Scoun-
drel! Why do you remove stones from a domain that does not belong to you [and
put them] into your domain?”
He [the man] laughed at him.
After some time that man was in need and he sold his field.
He was walking in that very place and he stumbled on those very stones.
He said, “That Hasid (Holy Man) spoke well to me when he said, ‘Why do you
remove stones from a domain that does not belong to you [and put them] into
your domain.’”

When the reader first encounters this story I think he or she inevitably does
a double take at the Hasid’s words: “Wait a minute! That is not what the man
was doing at all. He was removing stones from his domain and throwing them
into a domain that did not belong to him, the public domain.” Thus we begin
by sharing the same perspective as the protagonist. And perhaps we would
be inclined to do the same thing, to cast litter out of our back yards so as to
be rid of the nuisance and thereafter to be able to enjoy the grass and plant
flowers (though hopefully we would not laugh derisively at a Hasid). Only
after we read the ending and decode the story do we realize that the Hasid’s
words are true; in this way the storyteller effectively leads the audience to
the same shift in perspective as the protagonist. When the man repeats the
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 179

Hasid’s words to conclude the story, this time with understanding and appre-
ciation, the audience likewise shares his new insight. The use of Sophoclean
or dramatic irony makes the story particularly entertaining: seeking to avoid
a particular situation (stumbling over rocks in his domain) the man ends up
bringing it about (stumbling over rocks in his [true] domain). The storyteller
could have had him learn the lesson in many different ways—slipping on a
banana peel that someone else had thrown into the street. But the irony of
stumbling on those very stones he discarded entails classic poetic justice:
measure for measure—in rabbinic terms, middah keneged middah—the
punishment perfectly fits the crime.
This compact story communicates a number of lessons. Most simply, littering
is a nuisance, and ultimately affects litterers, too. Put more generally, what
goes around, comes around. Yet the core message derives from the words of
the Hasid, emphasized by their repetition at the end. We naturally feel that
our lawfully acquired property, especially real estate, is ours. Our land, our
house, and everything in it are our possessions. They belong to us, and no
one can take them away. Yet in truth circumstances can change rapidly. We
are always vulnerable to swings in fortune. What we possess one day can be
lost the next. Some things, however, can never be taken away from us—that
which we share with all others. Public spaces, public parks, all public areas,
paradoxically, are our true possessions, for we never can be deprived of them.
The protagonist learns “the hard way” that wealth is ephemeral, but that
which we own together with others endures.
The story thus teaches a deeper insight into reality, into the true nature of
things, over against superficial appearances. Many Talmudic stories have a
similar dynamic, moving characters—together with the audience—from the
conventional, simplistic view of reality to a deeper spiritual insight, often
articulated by a sage, rabbi, Hasid, or wise man. Narratives provide a particu-
larly effective—and enjoyable—way of communicating and receiving such
insights of the sages. For it is one thing to have someone state or assert a les-
son, and quite another to accept and believe it oneself. Through the process
of decoding the story and learning along with the character, the audience
comes to absorb the didactic point in a much more direct manner. In this way
Talmudic stories help mold the readers’ moral and spiritual characters.
In the remainder of this essay I will analyze a longer and more complex
story from a variety of perspectives. The story appears in Tractate Menahot,
folio 29b, in a section of Talmud that deals with the laws of writing Torah
scrolls.The Talmud describes the calligraphy scribes must use, and requires
that seven of the twenty two Hebrew letters (and two final forms of the seven,
making nine total) be written with decorative marks or tags above them,
which have the appearance of crowns, as can be seen in Figure 13.1.
180 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

Figure 13.1. The Hebrew letters with “crowns.”

We then find the following story:

[A] Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: At the time when Moses ascended on
high [to receive the Torah] he found the Holy One, Blessed be He, sitting and
tying crowns to the letters. He said before Him, “Master of the Universe! Who
restrains your hand (from giving the Torah immediately, without the crowns)?”
[B] He said to him, “There is a certain man who will live in the future at
the end of some generations, and Akiba b. Yosef is his name, who will, in
the future derive heaps and heaps of laws from all the tips [of the crowns of
the letters].”
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 181

[C1] He [Moses] said to him, “Master of the Universe! Show him to me.” He
said to him, “Turn around.”
[C2] He [Moses] went and sat at the end (sof) of eight rows of students, but
he did not understand what they were saying. His strength failed him. When
they came to a certain matter, his [Akiba’s] students said to him, “Master, how
do you know this?” He said to them, “It is a law [given] to Moses at Sinai.” His
[Moses’s] mind was settled.
[C3] He [Moses] returned and came before the Holy One, blessed be He. He
[Moses] said to him, “Master of the Universe! You have such a one in your
world and you give the Torah by my hand?”
[C4] He said to him, “Silence! Thus I have decided.”
[D1] He [Moses] said before him, “Master of the Universe! You showed me
his Torah. Show me his reward.” He said to him, “Turn around.”
[D2] He [Moses] turned around. He saw them weighing his [Akiba’s] flesh
in the meat-market.
[D3] He said to him, “Master of the Universe! This is Torah and this is its
reward?”
[D4] He said to him, “Silence! Thus I have decided.”

This is one of my favorite Talmudic stories, one that I find fascinating and
disturbing, enlightening and perplexing, in some respects straightforward
and at the same time deceptively profound. Above all, I sense that it is a
very, very honest text, where the rabbis essentially reveal to us their deepest
feelings about two critical theological issues. It is also a very rich text that
exemplifies many of the engaging characteristics of Talmudic stories. I will
discuss this story from six different perspectives: (1) genre, (2) poetic and
aural qualities (that is, how it sounds when read aloud), (3) literary structure,
(4) the content, namely the theological issues it addresses, (5) biblical resonances,
and (6) rabbinic intertexts, that is other Talmudic stories with which it shares
ideas or language in common.
(1) The genre, that is, the type or category of story. This story is unusual
when compared to most Talmudic stories in that it stars both a biblical figure,
Moses, and a rabbinic sage, Rabbi Akiba. There are two types of rabbinic
stories: first, sage-stories, the biographical anecdotes telling of the lives and
deeds of the sages that I mentioned above, and second, exegetical-stories,
narratives constructed mainly from biblical interpretation that feature biblical
characters as the protagonists. One rarely finds a story that involves both bib-
lical and rabbinic figures as we have here. In other words, the story does not
fall neatly into the two standard categories of Talmudic stories, which causes
the alert reader to pay close attention.
Now in order to bring together a biblical and a rabbinic figure the story
resorts to a form of time-travel: Moses is transported into the future to two
182 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

points in Rabbi Akiba’s life. He first takes a seat in R. Akiba’s academy and
then witnesses Akiba’s martyrdom. So we could categorize this story as science
fiction or fantasy or surreal, if we wished to be somewhat anachronistic. At
all events, we have a very unusual story when considered over against the
typical types of rabbinic stories.
(2) The poetic and aural effects. Talmudic stories, like the rest of the Talmud,
were originally transmitted orally. These stories, like the oral literature of
most cultures, include repetitions, alliteration, rhyme, and other such techniques
that we today tend to associate with poetry. Our story of Moses and R. Akiba
has a particularly high density of these devices. Although it is always
difficult to represent such effects in translation, one can get a general sense
of some of them at least. The opening line (A) offers prominent repetition
of the “sh” sound:

be-sha-a she-alah Moshe lamarom, metsa-o lehaqadosh barukh hu she-yoshev

ve-qosher . . .
(At the time when Moses ascended on high, he found the Holy One, Blessed
be He, sitting and tying . . . )

This sound in fact recurs throughout the story. Line C2 begins:

halakh veyashav besof shemonah shurot. . . . tashash kokho

(He went and sat at the end of eight rows. . . . his strength failed him.)

We also find a few rhymes:

tashash kokho . . . nityashva da’ato (C2; his strength failed him /his mind was
settled)
shoqlin besaro bemequlin (D2; weighing his flesh in the meat-market)

There are a number of words repeated in different lines, sometimes in different

linguistic forms, so as to create a type of literary cohesiveness by what we
might call “verbal echoes.”2

(a) The story begins: “in the hour Moses ascended” (alah; A). It ends with
God stating “thus it ascended (alah) in thought before me (translated as: thus I
have decided; D4).
(b) Moses finds God “sitting (yoshev) and tying crowns” (A); He goes
and “sits (yoshev) behind eight rows” (C2). When he hears Akiba respond to
the students that the law derives from Moses on Sinai “his mind was settled
(nityashva),” from the same root (C2).
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 183

(c) God tells Moses that there will be a man “at the end (sof) of some genera-
tions” (B). Then Moses sits “at the end (sof) of eight rows” (C2).
(d) God tells Moses, “There is a certain man” (adam ehad) (B). In Akiba’s
academy they come to “a certain matter” (davar ehad) (C2).
(e) Moses first asks God “who restrains your hand,” (meakev al yadekha; A).
And God says “there is a man” (adam . . . yesh) (B). When Moses sees Akiba,
he asks why, if “there is such a man” (yesh . .adam), that God gives the Torah
“by my hand” (al yadi; C3).

These alliterations, repetitions, and rhymes almost transform the story into a
type of poetry, or at least create a poetic effect when reading it, and I think
this contributes to the impact of the content, as I’ll explain later.
(3) Literary Structure. Apart from these literary features, the story has a
neat, two-part structure, which can be diagrammed as follows.

[A] Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: At the time when Moses ascended on
high . . .
[B] He said to him, “There is a certain man . . .

Textbox 13.1

[C1] He [Moses] said to him, “Master of [D1] He [Moses] said before him, “Master
the Universe! Show him to me.” of the Universe! You showed me his Torah.
He said to him, “Turn around.” Show me his reward.”
He said to him, “Turn around.”

[C2] He [Moses] went and sat at the end [D2] He [Moses] turned around. He saw
(sof) of eight rows of students... them weighing his (Akiba’s) flesh in the
meat-market.

[C3] He [Moses] returned and came before [D3] He [Moses] said to him, “Master of
the Holy One, blessed be He. He [Moses] the Universe! This is Torah and this is its
said to him, “Master of the Universe! You reward?”
have such a one in your world and you give
the Torah by my hand?”

[C4] He said to him, “Silence! Thus I have [D4] He said to him, “Silence! Thus I have
decided.” decided.”

Note the parallel structure in sections C1–C4 and D1–D4, including the
repeated language in C1/D1 and C4/D4: Moses requests to see R. Akiba
twice, makes two visits to the future, asks God two questions in reaction to
his visit, and receives two answers. And the two visits are recounted in much
the same words.
184 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

Clearly, then, we have a very deliberately organized and formulated story,

where the form and content join to express the story’s meaning.
(4) Content. The heart of the story grapples with two critical problems for
rabbinic theology—and one of the reasons the story is so powerful is that it
brings these two unrelated issues together in the same story.
The first problem is the gap between the original revelation on Mt Sinai
and the contemporary Torah of the rabbis of the Talmudic period. The sto-
rytellers are keenly aware that Torah has expanded and developed as each
rabbinic generation has added interpretations, legal pronouncements, and
explanations to the corpus of tradition. Because thousands of rabbinic sources
include a name or attribution, such as “Rabbi So-and-so said,” which locate
them in a specific historical era, any Talmudic sage would be conscious of
the growth in the amount of rabbinic sources over time. The obvious fact of
the expansion of Torah presents a theological difficulty in light of the rab-
binic claim that the Oral Torah was revealed to Moses along with the written
Torah. How can a tradition be part of the Torat Moshe, the “Torah of Moses,”
and at the same time be attributed to a given sage. If “Rabbi Meir said such-
and-such,” that would imply that no one made the statement until Rabbi Meir,
and therefore it cannot go back to Moses. At the root of this issue lurks the
problem of legitimacy: if rabbinic traditions originate in a sage, not with the
Sinaitic revelation, what makes them authoritative? 3
The story gives concrete and almost literal expression to this difficulty by
depicting Moses in a later rabbinic academy unable to understand the Torah
being discussed. In very vivid terms, terms with which I think all rabbis could
sympathize, the story imagines Moses sitting in the back of the room, eight
rows behind the real action, far from the most respected and erudite rabbis.
The storyteller describes a hierarchically ordered academy where students sit
according to their abilities, the most knowledgeable sages towards the front,
those knowing less Torah towards the back, a structure well known from
other Talmudic sources. Since all sages presumably started out, at the begin-
ning of their academic careers, as aspiring students seated in those very back
rows, straining to understand the brilliant arguments of the most senior schol-
ars at the front of the room, they all would probably feel a certain kinship with
the Moses of the story. Just as they themselves used to experience frustration,
perplexity, lack of self-confidence, anxiety, despair during their debut in the
academy, so too Moses “did not understand what they were saying,” and
consequently his “strength failed him.” But for Moses the problem is even
more acute than for the beginning student, as his failure to follow the discus-
sion is not a function of youth, or inexperience, or need to accumulate the
requisite breadth of knowledge, but results from the fact that the Torah he
now hears simply does not exist in his own time. This incredible scene is in
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 185

part why I see the story as being so honest. The rabbis candidly and explic-
itly concede here that the Torah of their times—the “Torah of Moses” they
know and love—would be unintelligible to Moses himself. And they don’t
just acknowledge this idea in some theoretical way, but portray it in real flesh
and blood, so to speak.
The story resolves this theological difficulty by insisting that the expanded
and developed Torah of the rabbinic era somehow inheres in the original
Torah revealed to Moses. Although Moses cannot understand the subject,
R. Akiba asserts that the matter is nonetheless a “law revealed to Moses on
Sinai.” Now the text does not use the term “paradox,” but I think that it gives
expression to that idea. Rabbinic Torah is Moses’s Torah, on the one hand,
although, on the other, it is also not Moses’s Torah. Moses can’t understand
it, but it devolves from him. The paradox is embodied in the figure of the
crowns that God attaches to the letters, illustrated above. Though purely
ornamental, the storyteller imagines that R. Akiba is able to find meaning in
the linear markings and base new teachings upon them. The crowns, therefore,
are both part of the original revelation, adorning the letters of the Torah that
Moses receives, and at the same time constitute the foundation for R. Akiba’s
“heaps and heaps” of laws. Later rabbinic interpretations inhere in the Sinaitic
revelation, the Torah of Moses, even though Moses has no knowledge of them
when he receives the Torah. Moses’s Torah, in other words, contains both
original Torah and potential Torah, and Akiba, together with later rabbis,
flesh out the potential of Moses’s original.
Yet this attempt to moderate or rationalize the paradox simply leads to a
different paradox. For we could fairly ask, as Moses almost explicitly does,
why should God put the crowns there in the first place? Something “restrains
God’s hand,” from giving the Torah without the crowns, without the potential,
namely the rabbis who will expand and interpret Torah in their own way. So
we are not dealing with a case like that of a tree that has the potential to grow
out of an acorn, where we might say that the tree, though not present in the
original creation of the acorn, somehow inheres in it. Nor are we dealing with
a case like geometry, where a limited set of axioms give rise to all sorts of
complex theorems. Here we might fairly say that the theorems inhere in those
axioms, and potentially can be derived from the axioms by later thinkers
who generate proof after proof and so expand the corpus of geometrical
knowledge. In our case, by contrast, God essentially acknowledges that he
adds the crowns because Akiba will expound heaps of new laws. The crowns
are not placed to provide rabbis the opportunity to generate new laws, but
are a result of the expanded corpus of Torah that God knows the rabbis will
formulate. This, I believe, is the sense of the question, “who restrains your
hand”—who prevents you? R. Akiba and other rabbis prevent God from giving
186 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

the Torah without the crowns due to the nature of their activity. If we see this
story as about the Torah’s potential, it is a very odd type of potential, for the
potential is a function of the end, not the other way around, and we are back
to our paradox.
From another point of view, this paradox devolves from the paradoxical
relationship between God and time. For God, who transcends time, the past,
present, and future are one.4 So Akiba and his activity are already present in
the transcendent divine purview, even though they do not yet exist for Moses
and the Torah as revealed to him. God knows the (future) rabbinic Torah and
feels compelled, me’akev—“prevented or constrained” as it were, to produce
a Torah for Moses that accommodates Akiba. Like all matters of time travel—
what if a man travels to the past and kills his grandfather?—we confront a
type of paradox. The story seems to be keenly aware of the temporal paradox
in its conflicted use of tenses: “There is a certain man, who will live in the
future at the end of some generations, and Akiba b. Yosef is his name, who
will, in the future derive . . . (B).” There is a man, now, in God’s meta-temporal
view, who “will live, in the future, at the end of many generations” (in our
time-limited perspective), and Akiba b. Yosef is his name, for God, for whom
the future is present, “who will, in the future, derive heaps and heaps—the
future for Moses again.5 From this perspective it makes little sense to see the
issue in terms of potential Torah or the expansion and development of Torah,
for Akiba’s Torah is as present as Moses’s, and we can understand the need to
add the crowns. But we have simply replaced one paradox with another, and
remain as befuddled as Moses, who, when, momentarily allowed to transcend
time, found himself perplexed by R. Akiba’s discussion.
At all events, up to this point the story has a happy and somewhat playful
tone. Moses seems satisfied when Akiba attributes the authority of the law to
him, even if he cannot understand the details—“his mind was settled.” The
students appear to be satisfied with Akiba’s claim. I imagine Akiba is satisfied
to have parried the students’ challenge. And perhaps the audience would have
been satisfied to have an important theological issue addressed and grappled
with in a fascinating way. If only the story ended here, everything would be
well. Alas, Moses cannot let it rest at that. He asks another question: why did
God give the Torah through him, if he does not even deserve to sit in the last
rows of Akiba’s academy? With this question the story shifts to the question
of reward or merit, and therefore inevitably, of the opposite, punishment:
sekhar ve-onesh, theodicy (the question of God’s justice), a second, and quite
different, theological issue. And the tenor of the story immediately starts to
shift. If I could speak to Moses I would say, “Moses, why did you have to do
it? No, you couldn’t be satisfied with one answer. You had to push onward.
You never know when to stop, do you? You just had to ask. Now look what
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 187

you’ve done. Everybody was happy. Everything was fine. And you went and
messed it up.”
God’s answer to the new issue, “Silence! Thus I have decided,” literally,
“thus it came up in thought before me,” marks the shift in the tenor of the
story. As opposed to his answer to Moses’s first question, the rather detailed
explanation of Akiba and his activity, God gives no answer. Indeed, his
response, shtok, “silence!” with the sense of “shut up,” is mean-spirited and
cold. No longer are God and Moses the partners they seem to be at the begin-
ning of the story, with God inviting Moses in to see his work-in-progress:
now they are master and slave, the master owing his slave neither explanation
nor courtesy.
Once again, Moses cannot leave it at that, and proceeds to make another
demand and ask another question. And I would say much the same things
to him that I said before, in a much stronger fashion, as here he really goes
too far in asking to see Rabbi Akiba’s ultimate fate. The vision of Akiba’s
agonizing, tortured death clearly draws on the famous rabbinic tradition of
Akiba’s martyrdom, that the Romans flayed him to death with iron combs,
tearing off his flesh, to which it adds the ultimate ignominy, that they then
sold his flesh in markets, presumably as food for dogs. With Moses’s third
question the tenor of the story shifts once more: “This is Torah and this is
the reward?” We feel a palpable sense of astonishment tinged with anguish,
objection, perplexity, perhaps even anger. When God again answers Moses
shtok, “silence!” the image of master and slave is nuanced as that of a capri-
cious master who coldly watches the death of one slave with no care to
explain why to the others. For this reason the ending is so chilling. Not only
does Moses receive no answer, but he—and with him, we—are left to wonder
whether the same thing could just as easily happen to us.
The inscrutability of theodicy is underscored by the parallel language and
structure that I delineated above—Moses’s two questions and God’s two
responses, C1–C4 vs. D1–D4. Despite Akiba’s greater mastery of Torah, God
gives the Torah through Moses. Therefore merit or reward (sekhar) is arbitrary
and undeserved. Despite Akiba’s greatness in Torah, he endures horrible
suffering and a degrading death. Therefore punishment is arbitrary and unde-
served. God simply decides and gives no explanation. The story thus fails to
provide a satisfactory answer, or really any answer, to the second theological
problem it raises, that of theodicy.
We have then a pointed contrast between the way the story addresses the
two theological issues in the two halves of the story. The first half of the
story provides an elegant and creative, if paradoxical, resolution to the issue of
the expanded rabbinic Torah as opposed to its original Sinaitic form. The
second half provides no solution to the problem of theodicy. And consider
188 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

how different the depiction of God in the two halves. In the first half God
explains to Moses why he adds crowns. And God’s reason, the interpretations
that Akiba will produce, embodies a deep respect for the human intellect,
recognizing that humans participate in a type of partnership with God in
producing new Torah. In the second half, we have the unresponsive, appar-
ently arbitrary, deity who commands Moses to shut up.
This leaves us with a second paradox in that both halves of the story show
sides of the same God. How can the caring, thoughtful, respectful God who
adds the crowns be the same as the capricious and unresponsive God who
silences Moses? And what are we to make of the myriad biblical and rabbinic
passages contained in that very Torah God now reveals to Moses about God
being the God of justice, rewarding the good and punishing the evil, to say
nothing of the sources about God’s mercy, his rahamim. Yet somehow, para-
doxically, it is the same God. And this is where I see the literary structure
and poetic qualities delineated above enhancing the content. For the precise,
balanced structure and repeated language unifies the halves of the story into
a single account, emphasizing that these are two sides of the same God, two
moments in the ongoing relationship between Moses (and Moses’s people)
and the Almighty.
(5) Let me shift now to what I call biblical resonances. This story can be
seen as a midrash of sorts, a rabbinic retelling, of Exodus 33:12–23, one of
the brief conversations Moses has with God in the aftermath of the affair of
the molten calf, just before God carves the second set of the tablets.6 The
biblical verses (with some ellipses) are on the left, the corresponding parts of
the story on the right.

Textbox 13.2

(Exodus 33:12–13) Moses said... “Pray let (A) Who restrains your hand? (=why do you
me know Your ways, that I may know attach crowns?)
You and continue in Your favor.” (C1)...Show him to me!

(14) And He said, “My face will go and I (C2) God shows Moses Akiba’s academy.
will lighten your burden....”

(17) For you have truly gained My favor (C3) You have such a one in this world yet
and I have singled you out by name.” you give the Torah through me (=Moses’s
merit).

(18) He said, “Oh, let me behold (hareini) (D1) Show me (hareihu) his reward.
Your presence!”
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 189

(19) And He answered, “I will make all [D2] He saw them weighing his (Akiba’s)
My goodness pass before you, and I will flesh in the meat-market.
proclaim before you the name of the Lord,
and I will grant the grace that I will grant
and show the compassion that I will show.

(20) But, He said, you cannot see My (C4/D4) Silence, Thus I have decided.
face, for man may not see Me and live.”

(23) Then I will take My hand away and (C1/D1/D2) Turn around (literally: turn to
you will see My back (ahorai); but My your back; hazor le-ahorekha).
face must not be seen.

We are not dealing with a true exegetical narrative, that is, a rabbinic story
generated through interpretation of the biblical verses, but with a much looser
relationship to the biblical text. Yet the two narratives have many elements in
common: both are set on Mt. Sinai; in both Moses makes two requests of God:
in Exodus Moses asks, first, “Pray let me know your ways, that I may know
you” (33:12–13) and second, “Oh, let me behold (hareini) Your presence!”
In the Talmudic story Moses asks, first, about the crowns, and second, about
merit/reward: why he merits being the agent of revelation while Akiba suffers
such a death. In both accounts Moses’s second request is not answered, or at
least not in the form he would like: he does not see God’s face in the Bible
and gets no answer in the Talmud. Both stories thematize the issue of seeing/
showing: in the Bible Moses asks to see God’s face: hareini, “show me / let
me behold.” In the Talmud Moses twice asks to see Akiba: “Show him to
me” heraihu li, and “Show me his reward,” heraihu sekharo. And in both a
response to Moses mentions the “back” or “behind”: in the Bible God tells
Moses he can see God’s back (ahorai), whereas in the Talmud God thrice
tells Moses to “turn around,” literally, turn to your back, hazor le-ahorekha.
In the biblical account God also mentions that he has “singled Moses out,”
the same idea implicit in Moses’s question in the Talmudic story: “You
have such a one in your world and yet you give the Torah through me?”
that is, you singled me out for this task. So I think we have grounds to see
a type of rabbinic retelling, where the biblical text has influenced the
Talmudic storyteller, providing the skeletal framework or deep structure
of the Talmudic account.
Yet there is additional reason to see the Talmudic story as a transforma-
tion of the biblical story. For some of the direct rabbinic commentaries
(midrashim) on the biblical passage interpret Moses’s questions to relate to
theodicy. The desire to “know” God’s “ways,” (derakhekha), easily can be
interpreted as a desire to understand God’s way of governing the world, of
190 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

reward and punishment. Moreover, in verse 19, when God mentions he will
pass before Moses, he adds “and I will grant the grace that I will grant and
show the compassion that I will show”—an obscure phrase, but one that may
have to do with God’s mercy, hence theodicy.
Let us look at one of these rabbinic traditions found elsewhere in the
Talmud, in Tractate Berakhot 7b, a midrash interpreting Moses’s first request
in Exod 33:12, Pray let me know your ways:

R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Yose: Moses requested three things of the
Holy One, Blessed be He, and He [God] granted them to him. . . . . [Third,]
He requested that [God] make known the ways of the Holy One, Blessed be
He, and He [God] granted it to him, as it says, Pray let me know your ways
(Exod 33:12). He [Moses] said to Him: “Master of the Universe, Why do some
righteous prosper and some righteous suffer, some wicked prosper and some
wicked suffer?” He said to him, “Moses: A righteous man who prospers—this is
a righteous man, the son of a righteous man. A righteous man who suffers—this
is a righteous man, the son of a wicked man. . . .”
And He [R. Yose] disagrees with R. Meir. For R. Meir said, “He [God]
granted him [Moses] two, and refused one, as it says, And I will bestow the
grace that I will bestow (Exod 33:19)—even if he is not deserving, and show the
compassion that I will show (Exod 33:19)—even if he is not deserving.”

In this interpretation of the biblical account, Moses asked God three ques-
tions while on Mt Sinai, the third concerning the suffering of the righteous
and the prospering of the wicked. For R. Yose, God answered this question
by pointing to the deeds of the father as a relevant factor. The suffering of
the righteous is vicarious punishment for the sins of their fathers, and so
forth. For R. Meir, God did not answer Moses’s questions but simply stated
that he takes mercy on whomever he likes, despite the fact that the person
does not deserve such kindness. By implication God likewise punishes indi-
viduals though they do not deserve it. This response clearly has a great deal
in common with our story’s perspective: God refuses to answer Moses’s
question about reward and punishment, stating that he simply decided the
fates.
Similarly, the second question of Exod 33:18, “Oh, let me behold your
presence,” is interpreted by certain rabbinic sources in terms of theodicy.
Some rabbis, I believe, recoiled from the blatant anthropomorphism and
preferred to understand the request to see God’s face (and the vision of
God’s back) as a metaphoric “seeing” or comprehending of God’s ways.
For example, we find in Midrash Tehillim #25:6:
Thus said Moses to the Holy One, blessed be He: “Pray let me know your ways
(Exod 33:12).” And He made them known to him, as it says, He made known
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 191

his ways to Moses (Ps 103:7). [Moses said,] “Oh, let me behold your presence
(Exod 33:18). Show me the method (middah) that you direct the world.” He said
to him, “You are not able to comprehend my methods (middot).”

Moses can understand God’s ways, derakhav, as attested by another biblical

verse found in Psalms, but cannot comprehend God’s middot, his methods.
For this midrashic tradition, God denied Moses not a vision of his face, but
an understanding of the methods by which He conducts the world. These
methods (middot) in most rabbinic sources refer to middat ha-din and middat
ha-rahamim, “the attributes of justice and mercy,” and therefore to reward
and punishment.7
Our story may plausibly be seen along the lines of these traditions, as a
retelling of Exod 33:12–23. While the midrashic traditions frame the ques-
tion in general terms—for example, Moses asks why the righteous suffer
in the source attributed to R. Yose in Tractate Berakhot 7b—the story
concretizes and personalizes the question in terms of the specific reward
of Moses and suffering of Akiba: why did these individuals receive the fate
they did? In both the midrashic traditions and our story, Moses receives
no answer.
Awareness of the biblical framework, I believe, deepens our appreciation of
the Talmudic story. The biblical passage embodies the climax of the revelatory
experience. There is no more direct experience of the divine in all the Bible
than Moses’s encounter, in the cleft of the rock, when Moses asks to see God
in all his glory, and at least sees God’s back as he passes by. That the rabbis
translate Moses’s request into a request to comprehend theodicy suggests that
this was the most elusive aspect of God’s providence and embodied, for them,
the climax of the revelatory experience. In the story, then, Moses is not asking
about one of the many theological issues that may have concerned the rabbis;
rather he asks about the most critical and confounding issue that comes clos-
est at getting at the divine mind. And that he gets no answer in the rabbinic
version—he at least sees God’s back in the Bible, whereas in the story he is
basically turned back—to me indicates a deep rabbinic frustration over under-
standing theodicy.
(6) Finally, let me mention a few of the many other rabbinic passages that
share themes or ideas in common with the story. The rabbinic audience for
whom the story was intended would have had many of these traditions in
mind, and the awareness of these traditions would have enhanced their appre-
ciation, and sharpened their interpretations, of the story.
The opening to the story, “At the time when Moses ascended on high . . .”
is the same formula we find in four other stories that imagine conversa-
tions between Moses and God, sometimes with the angels, too, when Moses
192 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

received the Torah up on Mt Sinai.8 One of these stories begins almost in

identical fashion to ours, though takes quite a different tack.9

At the time when Moses ascended on high he found the Holy One, blessed be
He, tying crowns to letters <and Moses kept silent>. He [God] said to him:
“Moses, is there no peace in your land?” [I.e., why do you not greet me and
say, “Peace / Shalom?” Is there no peace where you are from?] He said before
Him, “Should a slave extend greetings to his Master?” [Rather, a slave should
wait until spoken to.] He [God] said to him, “You should have helped me” [by
wishing me success in my work]. Immediately he [Moses] said, “And now, let
the Lord’s strength be great” (Num 14:17).

Here, too, Moses ascends Mt Sinai and finds God attaching crowns to letters.
But he says nothing, explaining, when God asks after his silence, that he,
a lowly slave, has no business initiating conversation with the Almighty. A
later version of this text reads explicitly, “and Moses kept silent,” which I
have set in the pointed brackets above.10 From God’s response—“you should
have helped me”—we learn that God has a much higher opinion of Moses
than he has of himself, and Moses takes the message to heart, assisting, as
it were, in the production of the Torah. This theme of Moses’s great stature
and God’s respect for Moses runs through the other three stories in Tractate
Shabbat. In our story, however, we have a substantially different depiction
of Moses and of God’s relationship to him. The first half of the story depicts
Moses as somewhat simple, perhaps naïve, unable to understand the com-
plex discussions of Torah. He stands in contrast with the great R. Akiba and
admits his inferiority. And in the second half of the story God tells Moses
to keep silent, diametrically opposite to the tradition in Tractate Shabbat,
where God objects to Moses’s silence and encourages him to speak. In our
story Moses is the slave who has no business speaking before the Master, the
very idea that the tradition in Shabbat rejects. I believe our audience would
take note of the contrast and sense once more the highly unusual nature of
our story.
Another Talmudic tradition that our story evokes is that of the martyr-
dom of R. Akiba: the picture of Akiba’s gruesome death draws almost
directly on that account. But there is also a more subtle allusion to the
martyrdom tradition. For the Talmud’s version of Akiba’s martyrdom,
found at Tractate Berakhot 61b, concludes with the angels protesting to
God, “This is the Torah and this is its reward?” the same protest Moses
makes in our story. However, in that story God answers the angels by cit-
ing Psalms 17:14 “his portion is life,” and then a bat qol, a heavenly voice,
states, “Happy are you Rabbi Akiba, for you are invited to life in the world
to come!” This ending raises the theodicy issue but immediately resolves it
 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards 193

in a straightforward and standard way: R. Akiba indeed receives reward for

his Torah, and God makes known that fact both to the angels through his
answer to their question, and to humans through the heavenly voice. This
solution is standard rabbinic theology: rewards and punishments material-
ize in the next world; hence the suffering of the righteous and flourishing
of the wicked in this world should not occasion surprise, and perhaps
should be expected. The righteous suffer in this world to pay off their few
sins so as to receive consummate reward in the next world, and vice versa
for the wicked. How sharp the contrast presented by our story! The same
objection to R. Akiba’s unjust death receives no answer, and the problem
of theodicy remains acute. God shuts off the question and provides neither
explanation nor comfort.
Let me sum up and say that above all, I like this text because I feel it
presents an honest expression of the rabbinic bafflement at the problem of
theodicy. The rabbis can offer some insight into the theological conundrum
of the ever-expanding rabbinic Torah over against the Torah revealed to
Moses, but they can make no sense of theodicy. They don’t give us facile
solutions or stock answers, as in the tradition of R. Akiba’s martyrdom
found in Tractate Berakhot, of the sort I imagine they would have preached
to the public. Here I feel we are privy to the dark worries and inner theo-
logical crises that the rabbis would have only shared with their peers. In
fact the poetic qualities noted above—the alliterations, rhymes, and repeti-
tions—give the sense of a liturgical composition or prayer of sorts. I would
even venture to suggest that the story be seen as a type of protest, as we
find in some of the Psalms,11 perhaps the rabbis are sharing their dismay at
the suffering of the righteous to God himself. They don’t like it, and can’t
explain it, and express their perplexity in this fascinating narrative. In this
way they provide generations of rabbis and rabbinical students a way to
confront, ponder, and grapple with the problem of theodicy as they strive
to interpret this story among the other rabbinic traditions that bear on the
same issue.
Talmudic stories are extremely rich texts that provide a wonderful portal
through which to enter the world of the sages. They offer a good sense of
Talmudic ideas, values, perspectives, fears, desires, and preoccupations,
and also of the theological, moral, and political tensions with which the
rabbis grappled. These stories, as I have tried to show here, are by no means
simple or straightforward. To interpret them always poses a challenge, and
demands that one view them from several different angles and in light of
other biblical and Talmudic passages. As the rabbis say, “According to the
labor is the reward.”12 For those who rise to the challenge and engage the
stories in all their complexity, the reward is proportionately great.
194 Talmudic Stories and Their Rewards

ENDNOTES

1. This famous story has been analyzed by many scholars, and I have drawn a great
deal from these previous studies. See in particular Yonah Fraenkel, “Hermeneutic
Problems in the Study of the Aggadic Narrative,” Tarbiz 47 (1978), 139–172 (Hebrew);
Nachman Levine, “Reading Crowned Letters and Semiotic Silences in Menachot 29b,”
Journal of Jewish Studies 53 (2002), 35–48.
2. See Levine, “Reading Crowned Letters,” 37–38.
3. This issue, to a certain extent, applies to many religions that locate revelation
or foundational teaching in the distant past but inevitably have changed and devel-
oped over the course of history. Are the current teachings of the Church identical
to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, and if not, what gives contemporary pro-
nouncements their authority? Does the instruction of later clerics deviate from the
original revelation to Mohammed contained in the Koran, and how can such tensions
be explained? Of course many a reform movement throughout history has been born
out of precisely this contention and zeal to return to a way of life more consonant with
the authentic teachings of their founder.
4. See e.g. the prayer, Adon Olam, “He is, and He was, and He will be in glory”;
and the Additional Prayer (musaf amida) for Rosh HaShana: “Everything is revealed
before you, Lord our God. You perceive and foresee the generations to the end of
time.”
5. See Fraenkel, “Hermeneutic Problems,” 166.
6. In seeing the Talmudic story as a midrash on Exodus 33 I am following a
suggestion of Menahem Fisch in his book, Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic
Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 192–95.
7. The term middotai (my “methods” or “attributes”) is sometimes shorthand
for middat ha-rahamim and middat ha-din (“the attribute of mercy” / “attribute of
justice”). Thus the phrase, “to question my methods” (hirher ahar midotai), means to
question God’s justice. See e.g. Bava Batra 15b–16a.
8. Three of the stories appear within a lengthy aggadic passage in Tractate
Shabbat 88b–89a, together with a story that begins with a variation of this formula,
“At the time when Moses descended before the Holy One, blessed be He.” The
fourth story appears in Sanhedrin 111a. On the stories in Shabbat see the analysis
of Joshua Levinson, The Twice Told Tale (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005), 282–290
(Hebrew).
9. Cited by Fraenkel, “Hermeneutic Problems,” 172.
10. Midrash Aggadah to Num 14:17, ed. Salomon Buber (Vienna, 1894), 2:109.
11. See e.g. Psalms 13:2–4 “How long, O Lord: will you ignore me forever? How
long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I have cares on my mind, grief
in my heart all day.” (NJPS translation); Psalms 22:2–3; 44:10–16, etc.
12. Mishnah Avot 5:25.
 The Shiva
Barry Wimpfheimer

As a child, I secretly loved Shiva houses. From an early age my father would
take me to weekday morning minyan in synagogue. Services at synagogue
took forty-five minutes on Mondays and Thursdays and thirty minutes the
rest of the week; the extra fifteen minutes on Monday and Thursday was a
function of Torah reading and the recitation of a longer version of tahanun.
Shiva house services represented a break from the monotony of synagogue
routine, the elimination of tahanun and, invariably, a pastry secreted into my
possession by one of the relatives assigned kitchen duty. The Shiva houses of
my youth bequeathed me a perpetual passion for apricot Danish and choco-
late babka.
Shiva houses are remarkable for the intimacies they both preclude and
promote. The rituals of Shiva deny grieving mourners the familial intimacy
that loss encourages while encouraging a communal intimacy that is forced
and, sometimes as a result, uncomfortable. Shiva transforms private salons
into public spaces, in effect bringing the synagogue into the home. The meta-
morphosis of living room into synagogue exposes a family’s aesthetic taste
and displayed photographs to voyeuristic friends and neighbors. Parties to a
Shiva conversation are sometimes barely acquainted; such conversations feel
forced. And then there are the chairs. Designed to keep the mourner low to
the ground, they also situate the mourner’s ear at mouth height, encouraging
the privacy of a whisper.
In adulthood, I have found visits to Shiva houses anxiety-provoking and
stressful, fraught with concerns over my relationship with the mourner. The
intimacy provokes within me a self-examination regarding my standing in
the room: “Does the mourner want me here?”—“Why did I come?” And then
there are the complicated customs that govern all manner of interactions at a

195
196 The Shiva

Shiva. Though I am an Orthodox rabbi whose studies for ordination included

a specific exam on the laws of mourning, I visit Shiva houses with the fear
that I have forgotten one of the particulars or that I will be asked to perform
some basic rite that’s technique eludes me.
Even when I remember the rules and the rites, I often fail to appropriately
take the pulse of the room. In college, I once attended morning services at the
Shiva house of a friend who had regularly hosted me while I was a student in
Israel. Eager to repay the warmth of his hospitality, I sat down after services
to console the mourner. I failed to notice either the looks of incredulity that
graced me or my exclusive seated position. When one of the relatives leaned
over and whispered in my ear, I finally realized. As this was the last day of
the week, the mourners would be permitted to end their Shiva as soon as the
comforters, myself included, had gone.
A Shiva house was the setting for a fascinating conversation I had about
Talmud. For much of my adult life I have lived on Manhattan’s Upper West
Side and attended Congregation Ramath Orah (CRO), a synagogue that’s
name reflects its heritage as the synagogue of Luxembourg refugees. In my
college years, CRO could barely sustain its morning minyan, held in a narrow
vestibule to avoid high energy bills; the few of us in attendance tried to stay
warm while avoiding the hot air blowers that singed if you accidentally found
yourself in their paths. Around the time I graduated college, the insolvent
synagogue was forced to sell its air rights to Columbia University. During the
difficult years, CRO cycled through rabbis on a near annual basis. The new
rabbis were unable—in the eyes of the old-timers—to live up to the legacy of
founding Rabbi Serebrenick, and the synagogue was unable—in the eyes of
young rabbis to properly compensate those who took on the impossible task.
In my first year of rabbinical school, CRO hired another new rabbi—Rabbi
Steven Friedman—as its spiritual leader.
Steve was a real estate lawyer in a small law firm. A graduate of Columbia
Law School, he was trying the rabbinate while still maintaining his day job.
The demands of his schedule often forced Rabbi Friedman to extemporize in
his speeches and divre Torah. Sometimes the content was brilliant and some-
times less so, but it was always said with a smile that projects an undeniable
inner love for Judaism, Jews, and Torah. It was difficult for Rabbi Friedman
to juggle his two positions, but bachelorhood, smoking, and a fierce commit-
ment to exercise gave him boundless energy and the essential rabbinic quality
of making time for anyone who needed it—or even just wanted it. The syna-
gogue was magically transformed under Steve’s leadership and a few years
later the rabbi met and married his wife, Nechama, whose father, Rabbi Joshua
Fishman, was then the executive vice president of Torah U’Mesorah—the
Orthodox umbrella organization that promotes Jewish day schools.
 The Shiva 197

When Steve lost his mother, I paid a Shiva visit at his sister’s house in
Teaneck. I had received my Ph.D. and was on faculty at Penn State, a four-
hour drive from the Upper West Side. On Mondays, I would drive to State
College, Pennsylvania, before class in the morning, and I would return
on Wednesdays after class ended around noon. I stopped in Teaneck on a
Wednesday afternoon after having driven for three and a half hours. As my
eyes adjusted to the absence of vehicular motion, I sat quietly in the second
row listening to a conversation about the deceased; I had never met Steve’s
mother and was intrigued by stories of her charm, energy, and inner strength.
The room was not overly full, but that was to be expected on a weekday
afternoon. Most of the people in the room were unknown to me; a couple of
Ramath Orah congregants dotted the front row.
After a few minutes, most of the visitors seated in the first row uttered
the formula that functions as secret code for departing a Shiva house: “may
God comfort you among those who mourn Zion and Jerusalem.” With the
departure of the first row, conversation responsibilities fell to the second row,
where I sat next to Rabbi Fishman and one of his sons, a rabbi who teaches at
a yeshiva in the Haredi outpost of Waterbury, Connecticut. Both of the rab-
bis Fishman donned the black hat and dark blazers that signals their ultra-
Orthodox community affiliation. I was returning from lecturing at Penn State
in my black knit kippah, fashionably fitted suit, and blue oxford with no tie.
I had been raised an Orthodox Jew within an idiosyncratic German Jewish
community whose identity is torn between modern and ultra Orthodoxies.
I attended ultra-Orthodox summer camp and ultra-Orthodox elementary
school, but my high school was affiliated with Yeshiva University, the flagship
institution of modern Orthodoxy. During my two post-high school years in
an Israeli yeshiva I managed to become, after the Israeli fashion, both more
fundamentalist in all senses of personal observance, and more explicitly iden-
tified with modern Orthodoxy. Modern Orthodoxy in Israel has itself evolved
a different type of Haredism—what Israelis call “nationalist Haredism.”
Members of this group are punctiliously observant to the formal letter of the
law and are equal to their Haredi counterparts in their commitment to lerning
as one’s paramount activity. My years in Israeli yeshiva triggered within me
an obsession to study Talmud whenever possible; time not spent on Talmud
was time wasted. Bittul Torah was Bittul Zman.
During the years of my post-Israel Haredi period, I was ambivalent about
American Haredim. Obsessive Talmud study and an iconoclastic teacher had
given me an outsized confidence in both my own abilities to study Talmud and
the breadth of my scholarly knowledge. Though I often found myself drawn
to Haredim for their similar attention to observance and Talmud, I invariably
left such encounters unsatisfied, feeling as though my own commitment was
198 The Shiva

under question; I was always an outsider seeking approval and the approval I
received was never total. What disturbed me more than the failure to receive
total approval was the very notion of judgment that seemed the basis of all
such encounters; Haredi culture, as any reader of The Jewish Observer or
Jewish Press is aware, can be profoundly judgmental.
One of Steve Friedman’s remarkable traits is his refusal to judge. It is this
refusal to judge that has allowed Steve to open Ramath Orah’s doors to those
marginal folks who usually feel excluded prima facie from Orthodoxy. Women
rabbis of other denominations, intermarried couples, gay men and women
have all graced CRO’s heavily lacquered red pews over the years, and none
has been excluded (beyond the ordinary exclusion of women) from either ritual
participation or public speaking opportunities. Ever the rabbi, Steve strove to
break the silence in the Shiva house by facilitating a conversation between
his male in-laws and me. With his nonjudgmental smile and his curiosity
for all learning, Steve gleefully told his wife’s family that I was a professor
of Talmud. He recited a brief version of my vita, particularly highlighting the
Orthodox components of that list: my ordination at Yeshiva University, my
years in Yeshivat Shaalvim in Israel, my summers in Camp Munk, my time in
the rabbinate. Gone were my association with Partnership Minyanim—the latest
feminist challenge to Orthodox ritual—or the fact that I had recently ceased to
wear the “jacket and hat” Haredi uniform to synagogue.
The contours of this conversation scared me. It was avoiding these
moments that had encouraged me to shift professional course from the
rabbinate to academia. Academic life offers (at least in theory) complete
freedom from the kinds of religio-political encounters I was presently having.
Years of small cuts experienced while operating within the Orthodox world
have left deep scars, and I am fearful of entering a dialogue in which my
identity—intimately tied up with my work—can be called into question and
judged. Though the rabbis speak pluralistically of multiple divine truths and
seventy different ways to study Torah, I had rarely encountered such accep-
tance in contemporary Orthodoxy.
The conversation began, naturally, with some Jewish geography. Rabbi
Fishman knew my father, a board member of Torah U’mesorah. Connections
were made with my doctor-vater, Rabbi Dr. David Weiss Halivni, who had
long ago studied in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin, a Haredi yeshiva in Brooklyn
where Rabbi Fishman had also been a student. But the pleasantries soon gave
way to more serious conversation. The serious conversation began, naturally,
with a joke.
Rabbi Fishman asked me if I knew the difference between traditional
and academic study. Without awaiting my reply, Rabbi Fishman related the
familiar joke that “we study what Rava and Abaye said, while they study what
 The Shiva 199

Rava and Abaye wore.” The third person plural “they” was a politeness on his
part; in this conversation, the “you” was implied.
Like all joking observations, there is merit behind the comedy. Academics
take a much broader interest in rabbinic culture than traditional scholars.
There is a small subset of academics, of which Daniel Sperber is the most
notable contemporary author, who specialize in the material aspects of
rabbinic culture sometimes called by the shorthand term “realia.” The joke
accurately reflects the greater interest among traditional scholars in the ideas
of the Talmud rather than its history. The traditional disinterest in amoraic
wardrobe issues is of a piece with a widespread deliberate ignorance among
traditional readers of a host of historical questions: the respective dating of
individual scholars among the tannaim or amoraim, the cultural context of
Palestine or Babylonia, and the various lower critical concerns that compli-
cate a contemporary scholar’s relationship with any ancient text. The deliber-
ate ignorance about this last point—the problem of establishing the very text
of the Talmud itself—receives imprimatur from a well-circulated responsum
of the twentieth-century rabbinic authority Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, the
famed Hazon Ish, that justifies this refusal on theological grounds. The text of
the Vilna Shas (the dominant print edition of the Talmud), Hazon Ish claims,
is a function of divine providence; attempts to recover variant readings from
medieval manuscripts or earlier editions undermine one’s faith.
In our conversation the joke was told with a smile; it was a joke after
all. But I interpreted it as passive-aggressive and hostile. My partner in
dialogue was letting me know through the joke that my knowledge and
lerning were irrelevant to him. The joke bespeaks the palpable danger of
proximity. As any Chaim Potok reader knows, insiders can be quite fear-
ful of the knowledge just beyond communal boundaries that they refuse
to acquire.
I responded to his hostility by increasing the proximity of academic study
to traditional study. I conceded that academics take an interest in material
culture, but confessed that the joke actually oversells what we know. We
would love to know more about rabbinic wardrobe issues. The problem for
academics who study the Babylonian Talmud is that we do not have enough
external data. Almost all of our knowledge of the period comes from reading
the Talmud for its internal evidence. The upshot is that traditional scholars
and academics are basically studying the same texts. When we study those
texts, I noted, we invariably encounter many of the same problems that tra-
ditional readers, especially medieval commentators, do. While we occasionally
have different solutions available to us than those at the disposal of traditional
readers, we often draw support for our project from the questions and insights
of traditional readers and many of our works of scholarship (here I identified
200 The Shiva

the work of my two mentors, David Weiss Halivni and Shamma Friedman)
are structured as commentaries akin to traditional ones.
The joke highlights an area of Talmudic research—realia—that seems
vapid to the yeshiva student because it is antithetical to the depth of concep-
tual thought that Talmudic analysis is traditionally presumed to entail. But
even the seemingly vapid, I observed to my interlocutor, can be invaluable.
Any reading of Sperber’s scholarship—I am thinking most specifically of his
work on the historical difference in the relative markets of gold and silver
in Rabbinic Palestine that completely resolves a fundamental problem in a
Mishnah in Bava Metzia—demonstrates the degree to which understandings
of material culture can be necessary for basic understanding of certain debates
and discussions. One could struggle, as traditional scholars do, to reconcile
the Mishnah that elevates silver over gold with an opposite tradition that con-
siders gold more valuable, but without understanding historical commodity
values in the period, it is an impossible struggle to make these sources cohere.
The insights of material culture clear away distractions, enabling stronger
conceptual analysis of the Talmud. By this token, I continued, traditional
students should be interested in what Abaye and Rava wore since that assists
our understanding of the laws of Tzitzit, Shaatnez, or carrying on Shabbat.
I was familiar with Rabbi Fishman’s joke long before our conversation at
the Shiva, and had long marveled at its targeting of realia. If I could invent
my own coming-of-age-in Talmud biography I would gravitate toward a
conversion experience in which a piece of material culture opened my eyes to
Talmud criticism. Realia work is, in my mind, so game changing that it lends
itself to that kind of narrative. Unfortunately for me, my own transformation
from traditional yeshiva bohur to academic critic is a less sudden and more
circuitous story.
As a child I was a voracious reader and my literary diet consisted of an
alternating pattern of Western literary classics and Artscroll hagiographies;
Tale of Two Cities was followed by Chofetz Chaim which was followed by
Les Miserables (not the musical version) which was followed by Reb Elchonon.
The Artscroll hagiographies of great rabbis from the last generations of pre-
Shoah Europe have long been parodied for their patterned narrative: the
great rabbi is identified as brilliant in youth and becomes widely recognized
Talmud scholar by early adulthood, using that position as a platform for
community leadership. While the pattern leaves something to be desired in
terms of historical accuracy, it is a perfect vehicle for communicating cultural
values. As a child I internalized their valuing of the Talmud as the benchmark
of true knowledge and, perhaps disturbingly, true value. These were the nar-
ratives presented to us as beginner students of Talmud in primary school in
order to encourage the tedious drilling of Aramaic key phrases that helped us
 The Shiva 201

achieve the goal of reading the Talmud by our bar mitzvahs. As with much of
the content taught in Orthodox primary school, these narratives were neither
eclipsed by nor replaced with more mature fare as we grew older.
Yeshiva University High School exposed me for the first time to higher level
Talmud analysis. I had no intellectual critique of the traditional interpretations
we were fed in high school, unless boredom counts as critique. After high
school I went off to study Talmud at a yeshiva in Israel primarily because that
was expected. During most of my first year in Yeshivat Sha’alvim, I slogged
through the tedium of studying Talmud without either serious challenge,
engagement, or the plan of continuing to study after the year was over. I was
looking forward to Ivy League college and, finally, my freedom from Talmud
study.
My yeshiva in Israel had us studying Talmud three Sedarim (periods) a
day. Each period was at least two hours long and most of them were dedicated
to the study of a single passage. The older students who had stuck around the
yeshiva for a second year were inexplicably (to my mind) unsatisfied with the
mandatory study time and would stick around after closing time (10:30pm)
until they were too tired to continue. During that first week, I envied a peer
who had gotten a stomach bug upon arrival and was holed up in the dormitory
reading old novels and sports magazines.
Towards the end of my year in Israel I began studying with Rav Shmuel
Nacham, an iconoclastic teacher whose reputation for fostering insularity and
loyalty among his students preceded him. One of the central features of Rav
Nacham’s class culture was an intellectual elitism that made remaining in
the class a psychological struggle for those not specifically recruited by the
teacher; the psychological warfare Rav Nacham engaged in with a peer who
had come to the yeshiva specifically to study with him was both inexcus-
able and sadistically entertaining. Before he recruited me for his class, Rav
Nacham tested me. After inviting me to join his family for a home-cooked
dinner one Friday night, Rav Nacham pulled out tractate Bava Metzia and
asked me to make sense of the opening Rashi. When I successfully demon-
strated both careful attention to precise wording and a refusal to speak in the
patterned jargon of higher level traditional Talmud study, I was in.
For the duration of the year I began for the first time to appreciate the exer-
cise of Talmud study and to find it satisfying. The beauty of Rav Nacham’s
methodology, to my mind, was its insistence (directly connected to the
iconoclasm) of clearing the mind of preconceptions and reading the texts
on the page. This seemingly simple and even banal approach was novel in
comparison with the traditional approaches I had been fed up to that point in
both high school and yeshiva. Rav Nacham’s approach was historical not for
ideological reasons but because it makes sense to comprehend a complicated
202 The Shiva

rabbinic legal literature by beginning with the earliest and most compact of its
texts before progressing to successive levels that build on top of one another.
The use of parallel Rabbinic texts likewise makes sense as a solid way of
illuminating what an ambiguous Talmudic text means. When Rav Nacham
was able to use this approach to parse the various medieval commentaries that
form the basic fare of traditional study, I was hooked. Things that had always
seemed random, scattered, and without rigor within the traditional approach
now presented themselves to me as ordered, logical, and having a complexity
worth working to appreciate.
My satisfaction in Rav Nacham’s class encouraged my return for a sec-
ond year at yeshiva before college. While in college I attended a traditional
Talmud shiur at Yeshiva University but always studied with another Rav
Nacham student with whom I continued to approach the Talmud as I had
been taught; I was sometimes unprepared for the approach of the traditional
shiur, and sometimes the analyses proffered offended my sensibilities. After
college, I returned to study with Rav Nacham for a third year and a remark-
able convergence took place. While my wife was enrolled as an undergraduate
in Hebrew University’s Talmud department and I was studying in yeshiva I
began to notice that many of Rav Nacham’s Israeli students were the sons of
academics in Rabbinics and Mishpat Ivri (Jewish Law). These students and
other savvy Israelis were secretly reading Halivni, Friedman, and Sperber
either in the basement library or beneath their beit midrash shtenders. As
I, too, began reading these materials, I belatedly discovered that the meth-
odology which Rav Nacham claimed as the patrimony of his Haredi Rebbe,
R. Nachum Portzovitz at Yeshivas Mir in Jerusalem, overlaps considerably
with the methodology of academic Talmud critics.
My monologue about the similarities of traditional and critical study
seemed to catch Rabbi Fishman off guard. I interpreted the look on his face
as one of confusion. In the Talmud the kind of verbal jousting in which we
were engaged is ubiquitous. After pondering my comments for a moment,
Rabbi Fishman turned to me and asked a rather unexpected question: “When
you study the Talmud, and you come up with a Hiddush (insightful reading),
do you have a ‘Eureka’ moment?”
The content of the question was not the cause of my surprise; I had long
associated the moment of profound insight with the idea of studying Talmud
out of joy. The Artscroll hagiographies of my youth and Orthodox theology
elevate the notion of joyful study to one of the paramount religious experi-
ences. During my childhood and adolescence of enforced Talmud study, the
notion of study as joy mocked me. But from the moment I began, with Rav
Nacham, to achieve intellectual satisfaction from Talmud study, I began to
think of joyful study as a desideratum within reach. The “Eureka” moments
 The Shiva 203

I have experienced studying Talmud represent for me that notion of studying

out of joy.
My first “Eureka” moment happened sometime toward the end of my
first year in yeshiva. I had already begun studying with Rav Nacham, but
still spent one period a day rapidly devouring pages of Talmud in large quanti-
ties. In one such session I grasped an implicit conceptual understanding that
undergirded an extensive Talmudic discussion; the realization clarified many
of the smaller problems I had identified while reading the passage initially.
The feeling of satisfaction in the moment was exhilarating and joyful. I tried
to share the feeling by explaining it to a fellow student who comprehended
my analysis but did not share or even understand my exhilaration.
The glow of that moment was to repeat itself in my remaining time in
yeshiva. One sleep-deprived afternoon I woke up from a mid-day nap with a
new perspective on a dilemma I had been struggling with in the morning. I
was increasingly drawn to the thorny Talmudic challenges that generated the
feelings of relief and satisfaction at first comprehending and then resolving a
challenging question.
While the content of Fishman’s question did not surprise me, I was thrown
both by his choice of rhetoric and by the brazenness with which he claimed
joy as a uniquely traditional component of Talmud study. Legend has it that
Archimedes uttered “Eureka” (“I have found”) upon realizing that he could
compute the volume of irregular objects via displacement as he was step-
ping into a water-filled tub. A term of scientific discovery hardly seemed the
property of traditional Talmudists. The academic study of the Talmud origi-
nated in a nineteenth-century movement called “The Science of Judaism”
predicated on applying scientific method to Judaism. If anyone could claim a
“Eureka” moment, it would be academics.
Mathematics was the closest I came to science in college, and my experi-
ences in number theory make me question the Talmud’s exclusive claim
to joyful study. Number theory is an area of mathematics in which often
elemental mathematical theorems are proved via inductive logic. During my
freshman year, a Princeton number theorist named Andrew Wiles announced
that he had proven Fermat’s last theorem, a problem that had vexed math-
ematicians for over three and a half centuries. Homework in my number
theory course often consisted, maddeningly, of a few short proofs that one
could write in a matter of seconds but that took hours to produce if one could
produce them at all. I enjoyed the challenge of proving a given theorem, of
attempting to analyze and reanalyze a given problem from different vantage
points until—suddenly—the answer presented itself. When I was able to
solve a given problem, I was often conscious of possessing the answer long
before I had worked out the precise details. That momentary insight which
204 The Shiva

cracked the puzzle, often coming when I had taken a break from actively
thinking about the problem, was a moment of sheer intellectual joy.
But if Talmud and mathematics share in their possibilities for intellectual
joy, do they count for traditionalists equally as lerning? Rabbi Fishman never
elaborated upon his sense of the Eureka moment and its value, but for me
there is something otherworldly about that moment of insight. The moment of
realization is profoundly satisfying, and I can even understand why someone
would claim for that moment the term “spiritual.” And yet, this romanticized
notion of intellectual creativity could transpire in math, science, literature, or
any other academic discipline.
During my rabbinical school years, I taught a Talmud class to female
undergraduates at Columbia University. The subjects of the class were
chosen based on my own interests and were generally taken from the classi-
cally dominant mishnaic order of Neziqin. After a few weeks in her second
semester of torts, a student approached me and asked me why we were
studying this material. She made it clear that her participation in the course was
predicated on her commitment to the religious study of Torah, but she was
now baffled by the enterprise. Was there anyone, she asked, who made this
material—oxes goring other oxes—spiritually meaningful? I answered her at
the time that I was peripherally aware of Hasidic commentaries to the Talmud
that allegorized Talmudic torts for ethical or even mystical purposes but that I
had never studied them. I was struck by her question and attempted to convey
to her my sense of joy in studying the material and achieving new insight but I
was unsatisfied by my own answer. My personal study of the Talmud is heavily
motivated by a joy to which my students often have little access. It requires
the ability to process Talmudic data with an eye toward identifying challenges
and developing sophisticated new ways of meeting them. I can hope their
commitment does not flag before they have assimilated the necessary skills
or that they discover joy at a lower level.
Now that my primary teaching context is a university in which the vast
majority of my students have not hitherto encountered the Talmud, I often
struggle to determine goals for my teaching. The secular context of the
university makes it difficult to privilege the religious component of this
material. Many of my students are either not Jewish or have no background
or future in observance. I am unable to presume the religious value of the
Talmud or its study in the classroom. The Talmud is incredibly foreign to
most of my students and its comprehension often requires a great deal of
background preparation. Much to my surprise, I have discovered that even
with these reservations, there is something edifying in studying Talmud.
The Talmud, it turns out, provides an amazing intellectual playground. I am
perpetually surprised by the fact that my students are most engaged when
 The Shiva 205

we set about analyzing a Talmudic passage in the classroom. The style of

the Talmud’s composition and the way it forces a critical conversation to
ensue both within and around it is quite special. Remarkably, what unifies
the study of Talmud in a wide variety of settings is the way it forces reading
minds to really work. The unifying feature of Talmudic learning, it turns out,
is a pleasure of reading.
Rabbi Fishman’s question turned out to be a perfect way to end the conver-
sation, since it set out a bottom line, and one which many traditional scholars
and academics could share. When I told Rabbi Fishman that academics also
shared “Eureka” moments, he warmly nodded his head and smiled, a gesture
that indicated for me that he could concede ours as one of the sixty-nine other
paths of Torah study. I nodded back and also smiled as we simultaneously
turned to the mourners and recited together: “May God comfort you amongst
the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature:
Four Texts
Azzan Yadin

Why study Talmud in the 21st century? Though phrased in the interroga-
tive, the theme of the present collection is ultimately prescriptive, a question
that is at the same time a statement of advocacy: one ought to study Talmud
in the 21st century, and here are a few reasons for doing so. The question
reflects both the empirical rupture that has occurred within the Jewish (and
particularly Ashkenazi) world, the gap that has opened between the classical
rabbinic texts whose study was once ideologically axiomatic (though only
few did so in practice) and whoever their modern readers might be, and the
desire to somehow overcome that gap without in any way diminishing the
importance of being “in the 21st century.” I suspect some contributors to this
volume will face the broad issues head on, taking up themes such as Jewish
identity, cultural continuity, modernity versus tradition—themes that I do
not consider myself competent to address. The contribution I can offer is
more modest: a series of encounters with classical rabbinic texts drawn from
the years between my time in high school and my graduate studies. During
those years the study of rabbinics became a possibility for me, and in recount-
ing these formative textual encounters I hope to show, at the very least, why
I study Talmud in the 21st century.
I was a high school senior in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, when I began a
weekly study session with Baruch, a yeshiva bocher from nearby Telse Stone
Yeshiva. My family had lived in Israel for several years and, having attended
Israeli schools for first through fifth grade and spent the previous summer in
Israel, I had a reasonable command of Hebrew. I also attended a Jewish day
school until eighth grade. But my family was not observant, I did not belong
to a Jewish youth group, and it had been years since I attended a Jewish sum-
mer camp. Still, my father was a Jewish educator and first suggested, then

207
208 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

arranged, my meetings with Baruch. We read the Babylonian Talmud, which

seemed to be the only Jewish book of any import in Baruch’s eyes, with the
Mishnah and even the Torah brought into the discussion only to the extent
that they shed light on the Bavli’s argument. (Years later, I was working on
my dissertation in the Mt. Scopus library and met a doctoral student from
the Hebrew University Talmud Department. He asked me about my research
and, when he heard I was working on midrshei halakhah, asked: “And how
are you going to connect these findings to the Bavli?” I was not sure how to
respond since I had not mentioned the Bavli at any point, so he clarified his
question: “Look, it’s obvious that in the end you’re going to have to discuss
how this all plays out in the Bavli, and I’m wondering how you’re going to do
it.” The idea that I might be interested in thematic questions within Tannaitic
sources for their own sake—without tracing them through the Talmud—did
not occur to him). Baruch and I read the tractate Bava Qama, rabbinic laws of
damages, including the famous interpretation of Exodus’s “an eye for an eye”
as referring to monetary compensation: ‘ayin tah.at ‘ayin mammon. I was not
comfortable with this interpretation, since I felt the biblical text was fairly
explicit: “If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound,
stripe for stripe” (Exodus 21:23–25). Really, what more could the Bible say
to emphasize that the punishment meted out was to be based on the victim’s
bodily injury? Yet the Babylonian sages and my teacher alike insisted that the
punishment was a monetary fine and, moreover, that this is what the Bible
intended all along. I found the Talmudic text odd, the arguments insuperably
alien, though the cultural enterprise of Talmud study did fascinate me, if only
for its counter–counter-culture chic—the sense that I was engaged in some-
thing that transcended the concerns of my classmates. The study itself was not
ultimately meaningful, but at least it held out the possibility of meaning.
Still, “an eye for an eye” was becoming a problem. No matter how many
times I read the text or how forcefully Baruch affirmed the fundamental cor-
rectness of the Bavli’s logic, I could only accompany him part way. I had no
difficulty with the idea that corporeal punishment should be replaced by mon-
etary compensation, and found the rabbinic formulation to be quite refreshing
in what I took to be its open rejection of the biblical instruction. Baruch, of
course, did not share my sentiment and grew frustrated with my inability to
grasp the plausibility—no: the inevitability—of the rabbinic argument. As
the school year began drawing to an end, the tone of our meetings shifted.
Baruch took a persistent and eventually discomforting interest in the state of
my yiddishe neshomoh. Did I not yearn to immerse myself even more fully
in God’s commandments? Did I not feel the difference between my own soul
and the souls of the non-Jewish students in my high school? It was clear from
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 209

this line of questioning that Baruch assumed I was more observant than I was,
and more alienated from those parts of my life that did not involve the Bavli.
The situation grew awkward. I remember stating quite plainly that I did not
feel my soul was any different from those of my non-Jewish friends, but I did
not have the heart (or perhaps the spine) to tell him about Pam, my girlfriend,
who was, I believe, Episcopalian.
As part of his campaign, Baruch invited me to spend shabbos at Telse Stone.
At the Friday night services, the rabbi gave a fiery talk about the importance
of Torah (i.e. Talmud) study. The Torah, he reasoned, is the Torah of life and
from it we draw our vitality, therefore one who studies Torah—only one who
studies Torah—is truly alive. At this point, doubtless responding to some
simmering conflict of which I knew nothing, the homily grew darker: if Torah
study is life, then a person who prevents or even impedes a Torah scholar in
his studies is momesh, a murderer; the state authorities are not governed by
Torah law and so will not prosecute the murderer, but Hashem, who maintains
a precise reckoning of all merits and demerits, will most certainly do so; by
establishing the world such that the still unnamed transgressor will avoid
earthly punishment, Hashem paves the way for much harsher punishment in
the world to come. The rabbi’s voice grew shrill and his face reddened—his
fury becoming more apparent with each passing moment. It was clear that
he considered Torah study the only meaningful activity a person (or a Jew,
the distinction was never fleshed out in his homily) could perform, and that
his use of “murder” was not figurative—the criminals keeping young Jewish
men from Torah study would ultimately be punished as murderers. I glanced
over at Baruch, who was seated next to me. He was gazing at the rabbi with
rapt attention, vigorously nodding in assent. It would be several years before
I returned to Talmud study.1

II

My undergraduate studies followed a circuitous route. I had spent one year

at the Hebrew University, during which time I abandoned my original plan
to study international relations (with philosophy as a second major, “for the
soul”), having felt too strongly the draw of Jewish thought. I then took an
extended leave for my army service, returning to the university four years later
to complete my B.A. Since I had been a philosophy major from the outset,
during my final undergraduate year I had earned all my credits in that depart-
ment and was registered as a part time student while I completed my Jewish
Thought requirements. Knowing that I had some time on my hands, a friend
suggested I look into studying at the Hartman Institute (then in a much more
210 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

modest building on Rachel Imenu Street). I walked down to the Institute,

where I was interviewed and then warmly welcomed by Prof. Aharon Shem-
esh, one of the teachers in Hartman’s Bet Midrash program that year, Shelomo
Naeh being the other. Our classes, five mornings a week, began with h.evruta
study (b. Berakhot with Geoffrey Herman, who has since completed his Ph.D.
in the history department of the Hebrew University), followed by the entire
class convening and Shelomo and Aharon presenting their readings.
The Mishnah opens: “From what time does one recite the evening Shema?
From the time the priests enter to eat of their heave offerings, up until the
end of the first watch—thus Rabbi Eliezer” (m. Berakhot 1.1). According to
Rabbi Eliezer, the starting point of the evening Shema corresponds to the time
that the priests enter the temple to eat their elevation offerings, that is, the
temple offerings that are for the personal consumption of the priests and their
families. This is an interesting answer for a number of reasons. First, Rabbi
Eliezer links the Shema to the timetables of the temple cult, suggesting that
prayer is intended as a replacement for the now defunct temple cult: whereas
once the day was divided by the priestly practices of the temple, today it is
divided by (among other things) the obligation to recite the Shema. But the
link to the temple rituals makes Rabbi Eliezer’s saying potentially unhelpful
for people living after the destruction of the temple and without immediate
access to any priestly circles that might still preserve its ritual timetable. In
one sense, then, Rabbi Eliezer’s answer acknowledges that the temple no
longer exists and that new practices—here the recitation of the Shema—are
taking the place of the sacrifices. In another sense, he offers a time marker
that does not make sense for people several generations removed the destruc-
tion without precise knowledge of its cultic rhythms.
There is another, more fundamental dynamic at work here. The Shema is
generally described as a biblical commandment, based as it is on Deuteronomy
6. But consider the relevant biblical passage:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them
to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you travel
on the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. (Deuteronomy 6:4–7)

What is the plain sense of this passage? First of all, in Deuteronomy Moses
commands the Israelites to recite the words God commands to their children,
that is, to teach them to the following generations. But Moses does not instruct
them to recite a particular phrase on a daily basis. This is an important shift
in the meaning of the word “recite” that the Mishnah passes over in silence.
But there is a deeper shift at work here. Let us look closely at the religious
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 211

ideal that the Book of Deuteronomy here endorses: It commands to love God
with all one’s heart and soul and might and, moreover, to “Keep these
words . . . in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them
when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when
you rise up.” Love of God is not an abstract emotion, but active meditation
on God’s commandments. And when does this take place? At home, and
away; when you lie down in the evening and when you rise up in the morn-
ing. The plain meaning of these verses is that one should meditate on God’s
laws always—when you are at home and when you travel on the way, in the
evening they should be the last thing on your mind, in the morning the first.
The religious ideal of Deuteronomy is all-encompassing and absolute—you
should be meditating on God’s teachings at all times.
And how does the Mishnah interpret these verses? As a commandment
to recite this very passage (along with others) at fixed times during the day,
in the morning and in the evening. The irony is palpable. Deuteronomy 6 is
extolling a religious ideal of total, consuming religious devotion to God,
while the Mishnah takes these very verses and transforms them into a clearly
demarcated and altogether manageable instruction. Since we know where the
process concludes, we can recreate a hypothetical argument leading up to
it. For example, the statement “talk about them . . . when you lie down and
when you rise up” was interpreted to mean “only when you lie down and rise
up,” that is, twice daily and no more. And “Recite them to your children and
talk about them” came to mean “recite to yourself these very verses.” But the
Mishnah does not make these steps explicit. Its opening question, “From what
time does one recite the evening Shema?” assumes a religious obligation to
recite the Shema, and to do so specifically in the evening, when in fact this is
in no way obvious. (I note parenthetically that if the Mishnah were address-
ing lay readers, it would probably have to preface the question of the time of
recitation with an argument for the existence of a religious obligation to recite
the Shema as such, suggesting the Mishnah was not written for the general
public, but rather for a group that already shares these assumptions.)
Some of these questions were floating in the air of the Bet Midrash, though
it would be years before I had the tools to understand their full implications.
But alongside the intellectual experience, there was also a powerful emo-
tional component. One example stands out in my mind: Rabbi Eliezer states
that the limit for reciting the evening Shema is the first watch, a phrase that
sets the Bavli on a discussion of whether Rabbi Eliezer holds that there are
three or four watches in the course of a night. In support of the three-watch
hypothesis, the Bavli cites another tradition according to which Rabbi Eliezer
assumes the existence of three nocturnal watches, and provides markers for
each: “The first watch—the donkey brays; the second watch—dogs bark; the
212 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

third watch—a baby suckles on its mother’s breasts and a wife converses with
her husband” (b. Berakhot 3a).
I cannot give a full account of my internal response, but I was moved by
the sudden shift from the technical (and, for someone like myself who does
not recite the Shema daily, abstract) discussion of the temporal boundaries of
the evening Shema to the intimate portrait of the nursing baby and convers-
ing couple. Part of my reaction involved simple surprise. My Talmud study
with Baruch had focused on the legal minutiae of rabbinic tort law, texts
that gave scant indication of the broader human concerns of their authors. In
many ways, my study of Baba Qama had conformed to the stereotypes that
surround the Talmud—dry, legalistic,2 exasperatingly dialectical. I could not
help but wonder if I had stumbled upon a passage that was somehow irregu-
lar or nonrepresentative. Perhaps, I thought to myself, Rashi would force
the nonlegal discussion back into halakhic channels, but Rashi explains the
Bavli’s image as follows: “Daybreak is near, and people are awakening from
the night’s sleep. And those who lay down to sleep together are conversing.”
The tenderness and intimacy of these words was overpowering.
Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was living with a woman who was
an early riser and we would often lie in bed discussing the day ahead or some
other matters that we had on our minds, I cannot say for certain. But to come
across such an intimate scene in the Talmud was startling; I felt the historic
chasm that separated me from the Talmudic sages collapse. Yes, of course I
knew the rabbis were human beings, I just never thought they were human
beings so similar to me, or that this similarity would be thematized in the
Bavili’s discussion of the morning Shema. Where was that famous rabbinic
legalism? All I could see were men (always men) who were suddenly closer
than I had ever imagined.
(I experienced the same collapse of historic distance only once since that
morning. My friend and former colleague Andrea Berlin was excavating at
Tel Kedesh, a Phoenician outpost located near Kibbutz Malkia in the Upper
Galilee, and had uncovered a trove of bullae (ceramic seals) from the time
when the region served as an important border crossing between the Seleucid
empire to the north and the Hasmonean kingdom. Andrea handed me a few
of the bullae along with a powerful magnifying glass so that I could examine
the artistry of the seal, which was, indeed, exquisite. But my gaze wandered
to the back of the bulla in my hand, where the craftsman held the still soft
clay while he engraved the front. There, clearly visible, were the craftsman’s
thumbprints. More than any historical reconstruction or archaeological
report, the thumbprints of the craftsman made present for me the overwhelm-
ing community we share with those who came before us, even if they have
been dead for two millennia.)
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 213

III

As an undergraduate (and beyond), I was quite interested in literary theory, but

had some qualms about the applicability of theoretical models to premodern
texts—to what extent were these readings providing new insights into the rab-
binic world? Or were the rabbinic texts unwitting vehicles for the interpreter’s
theoretical pyrotechnics? It was with great excitement that I discovered that
some rabbinic passages give themselves freely to—almost demand—such
readings. For example, the second chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin deals with
the proper treatment of a king—essentially a list of exceptions and prohibi-
tions aimed at preserving the crown’s authority. Mishnah 5 reads:
It is prohibited to ride on [the king’s] horse or to sit on his throne; it is prohibited
to use (mishtamshin) his scepter; it is prohibited to observe him getting his hair
cut, or when he is naked, or in the bathhouse, as it is written, “you must indeed
set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose” (Deut 17:15)—i.e.,
that you be in awe of him. (m. San 2.5)

Does the modern reader even need recourse to Freud to suggest the Mishnah
is linking the king’s political authority to his distinct sexual status? The
Mishnah makes this point explicitly when it prohibits seeing the king’s naked
body and anchors this prohibition in the assertion that one is supposed to
be in awe of a king. The issue is not, then, the response—embarrassment,
most likely—of the king, but that of the viewer who, seeing the king’s naked
body, can no longer maintain the sense of awe that undergirds royal political
authority. Note that the Mishnah does not suggest that the king in question
suffers from any physical ailment or inadequacy, so presumably the gazing
(political) subject sees no more and no less than the king’s bare body—what
makes this sight a political problem? The Mishnah does not discuss this mat-
ter in detail, but it seems to me the correlation between nakedness and a loss
of the awe that constitutes political authority is best understood in light of
the distinction between the penis and the phallus. In this distinction, which
has its roots in Lacan (though it is used here in a much looser, less techni-
cal sense) the phallus is understood as the site of symbolic power, of the
mechanisms that endow the king’s reign with an air of historic or theological
inevitability by removing the person of the king from the contingent realm
of human existence and forging an essential bond between it and the royal
office the king’s body has come to occupy. The penis, on the other hand, is
the physical member that is part of the king’s irreducibly corporeal existence.
The phallus is a constant, symbolic mark of power; the penis a wayward,
sometimes uncontrollable mark of mortality. The separate existence of the
phallus can only be maintained so long as the institutional trappings of the
214 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

phallus (physical inaccessibility, royal entourage, porphyry robes, etc.) over-

power the physical reality—the limitations and vagaries—of the penis, and
here lies the political danger of the naked royal body: the political symbolism
of the phallus cannot be maintained when the all-too-human penis is in plain
view. In the language of the Mishnah, it is prohibited to see the king naked
because the Bible commands “that you be in awe of him.” This much, it
seemed to me, was clear.
Is the prohibition against seeing the naked king a singular case in which
male sexual anxiety is associated with the loss of political authority? It would
appear that, to the contrary, this anxiety permeates the mishnah in question.3
Drawing on the rabbinic principle of illuminating the obscure (satum) by means
of the explicit (meforash)—as well as the productive suspicion that animates
psychoanalytic hermeneutics—we can juxtapose the explicit case of the king’s
nakedness with the (only slightly) obscured prohibition against seeing the king’s
hair being cut. On one level, the issue has to do with the performative aspect of
kingship, the pomp and ritual that usually attend the king’s appearance serving
as what Goffman calls a “front,” that is, the fixed elements that help define the
situation for the viewers.4 Seeing the king in the intimate and very unceremoni-
ous context of a haircut is tantamount to the king “breaking character,” and thus
undermines the authority of the throne. But Freud offers another (not mutually
exclusive) interpretation, one that understands hair as representing the genitals
and hair-cutting as a symbolic representation of castration.5 On this reading, the
juxtaposition of the two prohibitions—against seeing the king’s hair cut and
against seeing the naked king—is warranted by the fact that both deal with the
connection between male sexual vulnerability and the loss of political power.
Equally obvious Freudian interpretations of the remaining prohibitions in m.
Sanhedrin 2.5 present themselves. The subjects’ awe of the king, and with it
the king’s political power, will be diminished if others use the king’s scepter—
where the verb “use,” mishtamshin, is also a standard rabbinic euphemism for
sexual relations.6 And it is similarly diminished if others ride the king’s horse
or sit on his throne, that is, seat themselves in places reserved for the king—a
reference, in Freudian terms, to intercourse with the king’s wife.7 Stepping back,
then, to examine m. Sanhedrin 2.5 as a whole, we find a series of prohibitions
that seek to elevate the standing of the king by isolating him from actions that
highlight his sexual vulnerability: seeing him naked, seeing him getting a hair-
cut, and others using his scepter, riding his horse and sitting on this throne; the
last four understood as symbolic references to castration (the haircut) and to the
king being cuckolded (the final three).
My teacher, Daniel Boyarin, has argued at length that classical rabbinic
literature offers a model of “soft” masculinity that represents a cultural
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 215

alternative (and gendered resistance) to the “hard” Roman masculinity con-

stituted by physical strength, military prowess, political domination—that
is, to “the phallus.”8 (A wonderful example of the two ideals occurs in the
Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 18b, which tells of Rabbi Meir’s journey
to Rome to redeem his sister-in-law from prostitution. There, he approaches
her disguised as a Roman cavalryman, but is later chased by the Roman
authorities and takes shelter in a brothel. In other words, in approaching
a female character defined by her sexuality Rabbi Meir is portrayed as a
“phallic” Roman, but once (authentic) Roman men, wielding political power
and presumably physical might appear on the scene, Rabbi Meir becomes
a trickster who finds shelter among the women.) What is striking about our
mishnah is that the king—who is represented as a Jewish king rather than the
Roman emperor for Deuteronomic law is applicable to him—is defined in
largely phallic terms, not as a projection of the softer rabbinic masculinity.
It may be that the rabbis so thoroughly identify power with Roman phallic
masculinity, that they have “transposed” the Jewish king into the same key,
or perhaps this represents an internal distancing from the cultural memory of
Jewish (=Hasmonean) kingship.

IV

As excited as I was about discovering these theoretically interesting texts, I

was (and remain) nervous about the fuzzy border between using theoretical
insights to shed light on rabbinic sources, and using rabbinic sources as a
backdrop against which to argue a theoretical issue, one that almost inevi-
tably encounters these texts after having its genesis and formative years
elsewhere. To be clear: the former certainly exists and the study of rabbinic
texts is better off for it—but sometimes it is hard to be sure where to clas-
sify a particular reading. Take the analysis just offered of m. Sanhedrin 2.5.
The prohibition explicitly links the king’s naked body with the loss of awe
and attendant political power, and I take the distinction between the ana-
tomical penis and the symbolic phallus to be, in some sense, the translation
of the rabbinic idiom into a more reflective and theoretically robust termi-
nology. Now, I have been working as a translator since the early nineties
and have a thorough and immediate knowledge of how difficult this task
can be, and how much changes in the process. But I am also aware that there
remains (or should remain) a mutual intelligibility of sorts: if Abraham
Joshua Heschel’s God in Search of Man were to learn Hebrew, it would
recognize ‘Elohim Mevakesh ‘et ha-’Adam as a version (albeit not the only
216 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

possible version) of itself. And I am not sure this is the case with the rest of
the Mishnah passage. Would the rabbinic prohibition against sitting on the
king’s throne recognize “do not have intercourse with the queen” as a ver-
sion of itself? Or would it have to undergo such dramatic changes in order
to do so that it could no longer be said to be a rabbinic (or late antique) text?
It is a difficult question, especially since so much of the power of Freudian
readings stems precisely from the author’s blindness to the deeper mean-
ing of his words, so perhaps mutual intelligibility is a red herring from the
outset. Be that as it may, I was uncomfortable with some of the “theory”
readings being applied to (or foisted on) the rabbinic corpus, and was very
interested in the question of rabbinic reflexivity.
Still in the last year of my undergraduate studies, and even though I had
taken all the credits I needed in Jewish Thought, I audited Moshe Halbertal’s
course on legal midrash. In one of the first classes, Moshe presented the
following text:
“And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city” (Deut 22:17):
The witnesses must make their accounts as clear as if the garment itself were
exhibited. This is one of the instances in which R. Ishmael interpreted the Torah
symbolically [as a mashal]. Another instance is: “If the sun has risen on him,
there is bloodguilt in that case” (Exod 22:2). Does the sun rise only upon him?
. . . [Rather] just as the sun has peaceful intentions toward the entire world, so,
too, if the householder knew that the thief had peaceful intentions toward him,
yet slew him nevertheless, he is liable. Another instance is: “If he gets up and
walks outdoors upon his staff [his assailant shall go unpunished]” (Exod 21:19),
meaning, if he is restored to health. Accordingly, “And they shall spread the
garment” means that they must make their words as clear as if the garment itself
were exhibited.
Rabbi Aqiva says: “And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the
city” indicates that the husband’s witnesses are shown to be false.
“And they shall spread the garment”: The witnesses for each side must come
forward and give their testimony before the elders of the city. Rabbi Eliezer ben
Jacob, however, says: The matter is to be taken literally. (Sifre Deuteronomy
§237).9

Deuteronomy 22:17 details the procedures to be followed when a groom

challenges the virginity claim of his newlywed bride. The Deuteronomic
resolution is straightforward: the woman’s nightgown is produced and dis-
played to the elders of the city: if it is bloodied the woman was presumably
telling the truth, and vice versa. There are at least two reasons the rabbis
might be uncomfortable with this procedure. The first is anatomical: what if
the woman does not bleed? After all, the Mishnah recognizes the possibility
of a woman’s hymen breaking not through intercourse and even coins a term
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 217

for such a woman—mukkat ‘etz (“one who suffered a blow of a stick”). The
second is jurisprudential: Deuteronomy’s procedure does not conform to the
rabbinic commitment to a witness-based trial.10
The derashah opens with Rabbi Ishmael, who interprets Deuteronomy
22:17 as a mashal, a term that is functionally identical with “parable” in many
aggadic contexts. Here, however, mashal is not exactly a parable, since “the
garment” does not correspond to anything in the “parabled” narrative (i.e. the
nimshal) as, say, a parable about a king and his son stands for God and Israel.
Rather, it suggests that the elders debate the matter so thoroughly as to attain
the same level of certitude they would feel if they had spread the garment,
as per the biblical injunction. In other words, the biblical garment and the
rabbinic garment are both material entities; they differ only in that the former
is an exhibit in the trial, the latter is not. The derashah then presents the view
of Rabbi Aqiva, which differs from that of Rabbi Ishmael. The difference
may be difficult to recognize, since Rabbi Ishmael refers to witnesses, as
does Rabbi Aqiva. The latter, however, interprets the garment allegorically.
For Rabbi Aqiva, then, there is no material garment and no legal procedure
employs such a garment; “garment” refers to a legal procedure by which the
husband’s witnesses are shown to be bearing false witness. Finally, the third
view of Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob is not an interpretation but a meta-interpretive
assertion: ha-devarim ki-khetavam, “the matter is to be taken literally.”
What was so striking about this passage—and this was precisely Halbertal’s
point—is the extent to which the rabbinic discourse was reflective, even “theo-
retical.” This is already apparent in the opening lines, which both provide a
technical name for Rabbi Ishmael’s interpretation (mashal) and asserts that he
strictly limits the employment of this hermeneutic approach to three instances.
The derashah does not provide the reasons for this view, but it does indicate
a reflective approach to the interpretive process on the part of Rabbi Ishmael.
Rabbi Aqiva, in contrast, is strikingly unreflective, considering the derivation
of “the husband’s witnesses are shown to be false” from “they shall spread the
garment” does not appear to have any textual or linguistic support. Indeed, I
remember being stunned by Rabbi Aqiva’s willingness to brazenly overturn
the plain meaning of the biblical text—especially in a matter of law—and to
do so with little or no hermeneutic justification: no “one of three instances,”
no technical terminology—simply the assertion that it is so.11 Perhaps most
interesting of all is Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov’s statement that “the matter
is to be taken literally”— a call for interpretive restraint and even inaction
(understood as an asymptotic ideal, not a realizable course of action). Though
yielding no new interpretation, Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov offers a clear
indication that the far-reaching readings of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Aqiva
were not culturally self-evident. This was a very important insight for me,
218 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts

because it held out the possibility of a theoretical or at least reflective perspec-

tive: to think through questions of meaning and interpretation together with the
rabbinic texts themselves.

ENDNOTES

1. A postscript to my study with Baruch: a few years later I ran into him at the
central bus station in Jerusalem as I was heading back to my army base. I had taken
Joseph Dan’s survey of Jewish intellectual history the previous year and was very
taken by the material, and was carrying a sefer I was planning on reading during my
bus ride to base. I approached Baruch and, after greeting him, told him about my
university studies and future plans. I know it’s a different approach, I said, but I think
our time together helped me to see how interesting this material is. I meant it (naively,
perhaps) as a compliment, an indication that despite the differences between us, I
was, in my own way, integrating Torah study into my life. But Baruch was visibly
dismayed. He excused himself, hurried off, and I haven’t seen him since.
2. The best statement I know of on rabbinic legalism is a throwaway comment in
Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 BCE to 64 CE (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2004) who writes (I am quoting from memory): “The only
proper response to the charge of rabbinic legalism is, ‘Yes, and what of it?’”
3. A fuller survey of this association would surely include the commands that
prevent any “compromise” in the king’s sexual freedom (e.g., by suggesting he be
forced to marry the childless widow of his brother) and deny sexual access to his
widow (m. Sanhedrin 2.2): “[The king] may not submit to h. alitzah [the ceremony
that exempts a man from levirate obligation] nor do others submit to h.alitzah at the
hands of his widow; may not contract levirate marriage nor may his brothers contract
levirate marriage with his widow . . . none may marry his widow.”
4. See Erving Goffman, The Representation of Self in Everyday Life (New York:
Doubleday, 1959), 22–30.
5. “The dream-work represents castration by baldness, hair-cutting, the loss of
teeth, and beheading,” Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, translated by
James Strachey (London: Wordsworth, 1997), 236. Freud’s comment is developed
more fully by Charles Berg, The Unconscious Significance of Hair (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1951), which posits that head hair is a universal symbol of the genitals and
so the conflict between the different parts of the psyche plays out in society’s attitude
toward hair.
6. See, e.g., m. Nedarim 2.1: “If he said to his wife, ‘Konam if I have sexual inter-
course with you (meshamshekh).’”
7. See the reference to m. Sanhedrin 2.2, above note 3, where the king’s wife
remains sexually off limits even after his death. The minority view is cited in the
name of Rabbi Judah that “the king may marry the widow of a king” further confirms
the Mishnah’s association of privileged sexual access and political power of the
monarch.
 Engaging Rabbinic Literature: Four Texts 219

8. See, inter alia, the first part of Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of
Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1997), especially chapters three (“Rabbis and their
Pals”) and four (“Feminization and its Discontents”); and Daniel’s essay “Tricksters,
Martyrs, and Collaborators: Diaspora and the Gendered Politics of Resistance” in
Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, The Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays on the Relevance
of Jewish Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
9. The translation is from Reuven Hammer, Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on
the Book of Deuteronomy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986),
245–246.
10. A view that finds biblical support in Deuteronomy 17:6 (“On the evidence of
two witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to die shall be put to death”), though
that refers specifically to capital cases. The problem of a trial (or ordeal) without
witnesses also arises in the case of the suspected adulteress.
11. I have since come to the conclusion that Rabbi Aqiva is not primarily engaged
in interpretation, but rather in the ex post facto association of already established
extra-scriptural tradition with biblical verses, though I cannot discuss this in any
detail here.
 Part IV

A PHILOSOPHER’S APPROACH
 The Talmud as a Source for
Philosophical Reflection
David Novak

The first methodological question any philosophical reflection must deal with
is: What am I reflecting on? The second is: Why am I to reflect on it? The
third is: How can I reflect on it?
Among the ancient Greeks, who were the first to designate their intellectual
discipline as “philosophy” and themselves as its practitioners—philosophers—
the proper object of the philosopher’s reflection is nature (physis), which is the
unchanging and perpetual order underlying the changing and ephemeral things
of human experience. This order is to be the object of philosophical reflection
because it alone can be understood as what is beyond the reach of anyone’s
change, control, or invention (techne). As such, it is the general object that
is alone truly worthy of human respect. It is seen as the final standard to
which everything and everyone is ultimately referred. The highest norm is to
become “like nature” (kata physin). Philosophical reflection, then, is the study
of nature, not at the level of its appearances (phainomena) inasmuch as their
changeability does not command respect, but rather at the level of its most
basic components, its “first things” (archai). They alone are sufficiently tran-
scendent so that no one can ever conceive of changing, controlling, or inventing
them. They themselves are unchangeable, uncontrollable, uncreated. They are
eternal being. They are truth itself by which anything beneath them is true only
by participation. Consequently, the only proper medium of philosophical
reflection on nature is reason (nous). It alone is considered to be the most
distinguishing capacity of humans, namely, the capacity to separate the true
from the false. And reason consistently separates humans who exercise it from
the animals. Human reason is what is truly attracted by nature per se and thus
perpetually interested in it.

223
224 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

But what happens when there are attempts to practice philosophy within a
tradition in which the primary datum for consideration is not nature per se but
the word of God? Is it possible to practice philosophy in this kind of context?
Does revelation lend itself as an object (noema) to the same kind of rational
inquiry that characterized philosophy as a meditation on the first things of
nature in its original Greek habitat? Can there be a science of revelation as
there is a science of nature?
Some students of either philosophy or religion or both have denied the
possibility of there being anything like a religious philosophy precisely
because the data of revelation seem to call for obedience, whereas the
data of nature seem to call for wonder and rational consideration. In the
case of Judaism, especially, as the original religion of revelation, they
have argued that the Bible is a decidedly non-philosophical—even anti-
philosophical—work. But other students of religion and philosophy have
argued that, although the Bible is not a philosophical book itself, its mes-
sage is so coherent and its concerns so profound that it can be the object
of philosophical reflection. In other words, like nature it both transcends
philosophical reflection as an object transcends a subject interested in
it, and yet it attracts that subject with whom it has something (but not
everything) in common. That “something in common” is “wisdom”
(chokhmah), which the Bible predicates of both God (Psalms 104:24) and
humans, especially those humans who are properly related to God (Deu-
teronomy 4:6). Without this assumption, the Bible is only the expression
of a totally inscrutable divine will, a will that calls for a similarly inscru-
table response on the part of its human addressees.
The view that emphasizes the primacy of divine wisdom in revelation,
however, is further buttressed by the teaching that the same divine wisdom
that created the world is that by which the Torah is written (Proverbs 8:22).
Thus philosophy can be the love of wisdom, whether that wisdom is natural
(sophia) or revealed (chokhmah). That wisdom can, to a certain extent, be
the subject of human speech; thus the Hebrew davar easily translated into the
Greek logos (see LXX on Isaiah 2:3). Indeed, both nature and revelation are
characterized by the wisdom inherent in them, wisdom that is discoverable
by those who are wise. Hence nature is relevant for the understanding of the
Torah, and the Torah is relevant for the understanding of nature. For both
the ancient Greeks and the ancient Hebrews, then, the wisdom that philoso-
phers love and seek, although never of their own making, nevertheless still
gives some of itself to them (see B. Berakhot 58a). Accordingly, there can
be Jewish philosophers as much as there can be Greek philosophers, despite
great differences between them as to where philosophical attention should be
primarily directed.
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 225

In the Hellenistic Jewish tradition, there were certainly philosophers of

the Bible; the name of Philo need only come to mind. But that tradition was
one that came into direct contact with Greek philosophy; Philo read and
confronted Plato and some of the Stoics. He and some others like him had
the benefit of the intellectual legacies of both Jerusalem and Athens. But
what about the other biblically based Jewish tradition, that of the rabbis?
There is no evidence that they had any real intellectual contact with Greek
philosophy, much less that they were actually influenced by it. Can they be
considered philosophers of the Bible in the same way that Philo was? Can
any philosophy be discerned in their greatest and most comprehensive work,
the Talmud? (By “the Talmud” I mean both the larger and better known
Babylonian Talmud—the Bavli (hereafter “B”)—and the smaller and lesser-
known Palestinian Talmud—the Yerushalmi (hereafter “Y”).
At first glance, the answer to this question would seem to be no. Unlike
Philo, who approached the Bible in a recognizably philosophical way by
seeing it as the datum of universal truth, the rabbis seem to have approached
the Bible (and the rest of Jewish tradition) as jurists and homilists of a decid-
edly particularistic bent. The main thrust of their legal discussions (halakhah)
is concerned with how biblical and traditional rules are to be applied to the
life of the Jewish people at various points in its history. The main thrust of
their speculative discussions (aggadah) is to expand biblical and traditional
narratives imaginatively and to draw various moral exhortations from them.
Although Jewish philosophers of later periods did use Talmudic materials in
their own recognizably philosophic discussions, this use was highly selective.
Thus, unlike the Bible which the tradition took to be the work of the one,
coherent, totally consistent divine mind, the Talmud clearly presents itself
as the edited transcript of discussions among a variety of human minds, who
often disagreed with each other more than they agreed (see B. Sanhedrin 88b).
Not only is the Talmud, like the Bible, not a philosophical work, but, unlike
the Bible, it does not even seem to lend itself to ever becoming the object of
philosophical meditation. How then can anyone make a philosophical con-
nection with it?

COMMANDMENTS AND THEIR REASONS

In order to pursue this necessary question, one must now make a further
philosophical distinction; one must distinguish between theoretical reason and
practical reason. Heretofore in our discussion of philosophy, we have seen it as
theoretical reason. Its concern is the truth and knowledge for its own sake. As
systematic rational inquiry, there seems to be very little of this type of philoso-
phy in the Talmud. However, what about practical philosophy, whose concern
226 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

is the good and knowledge for the sake of action? Is there systematic discussion
of that in the Talmud? If so, where is it to be located, and how is it to be under-
stood as influencing more recognizably philosophical reflection by Jewish
thinkers who came after the rabbis and who looked to them as authorities?
The way to locate this inquiry into practical philosophy in the Talmud,
and as a source for further philosophical reflection by Jews, is by carefully
analyzing the use and development of the term ta’am, which in later rabbinic
Hebrew came to mean “reason,” as in “ta’amei ha-mitzvot”—”the reasons of
the commandments.” Here we will see how philosophy grew up within the
Jewish tradition itself even before it came into real intellectual contact with the
philosophical tradition of the Greeks. Accordingly, Jewish philosophy can-
not be regarded as the result of a synthesis with aspects of another tradition,
however much there have been similarities and cross-influences between these
traditions (the Jewish and the Greek) that did subsequently come about.
The word ta’am is found in later biblical Hebrew and in biblical Aramaic.
It means a “decree,” as for example, “Everything that is by the decree [min ta
‘am] of the God of heaven is to be done diligently” (Ezra 7:23). In the Talmud,
however, its meaning developed. It now came to mean the reason of a decree.
Thus one of the most frequently asked questions in the Talmud is “what is the
reason” (m’ai ta’ama) of this decree? Yet this question itself is not a philo-
sophical one. For most frequently, it is an inquiry into the authoritative basis
for a decree confronted by someone in the present. That is, it is an inquiry for a
past cause of a presently normative rule. It is, then, mostly a question of where
the source of the rule is located in older and more authoritative texts, and how
the present rule was actually derived from the designated source (see, for
example, B. Qiddushin 68b on Deuteronomy 21:13). Thus, in a well-known
Talmudic legend (Menachot 28b), Moses is portrayed as being disturbed that
he could not understand the intricate legal interpretations of Rabbi Aqibah,
into whose second-century CE academy he had been miraculously transported
incognito. But, as the legend continues, he felt better after Rabbi Aqibah
answered a student’s question—“Rabbi, what is your source?”—by saying, “It
is a traditional law [halakhah] from Moses at Sinai.” Nevertheless, as this text
indicates, the student’s question was, in fact, “where is the authority of this
law?” not “why—for what reason or purpose—was it so decreed?” Only this
later question, which was not asked here, could be taken to be philosophical.

THE AQIBAN AND ISHMAELIAN SCHOOLS

The answer of Rabbi Aqibah is especially illuminating precisely because it is

quite atypical of him. For the answer is a direct reference to an authoritative
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 227

source, albeit not a written one but one from the oral tradition (torah she-b’al
peh). In this case, then, the student had to trust Rabbi Aqibah’s reliability as
an accurate transmitter of a tradition that the student himself could not verify
by referring to a written work. Much more often, however, Rabbi Aqibah’s
answer to such a question would be the result of a highly intricate exegesis of
a biblical passage. In this process, the connection between the authoritative
source (the biblical, usually pentateuchal, text) and the actual normative ruling
would be quite indirect. In fact, his exegesis was at times so intricate that it
frequently appeared contrived to many of his colleagues (see, for example, B.
Pesachim 66a), who could see no real connection at all between his conclu-
sions and the biblical text upon which he claimed it was really based.
At this point, it would seem that the exegetical methodology of Rabbi
Aqibah is counter-philosophical. For if philosophy is seen as the attempt to
discern simple order underlying complex chaos, then the methodology of
Rabbi Aqibah, appearing more intricate than the biblical text it was dealing
with, would seem to be diametrically opposed to philosophy. Nevertheless, a
careful examination of the assumptions underlying Rabbi Aqibah’s exegesis
will show how by theological means it laid the groundwork for indigenous
philosophical reflection within the rabbinic tradition itself, and this was long
before rabbinic thinkers actually studied the books of the Greek philosophers.
Furthermore, it should be emphasized here that Rabbi Aqibah was undoubtedly
the single most important and influential thinker in the rabbinic tradition in its
formative period (see B. Qiddushin 66b; B. Eruvin 46b).
Since the rabbinic tradition is so highly dialectical in substance and style,
Rabbi Aqibah’s exegetical theology is best understood when seen in contrast
with that of his most consistent intellectual opponent, Rabbi Ishmael. The most
important assumptions of Rabbi Ishmael’s exegetical theology are summed up
in two of his dicta: first, “the Torah speaks by means of the language [ke-lashon]
of humans” (B. Sanhedrin 64b; cf. Y. Sotah 8.1/22b); second, “the general prin-
ciples [kelalot] of the Torah were spoken at Sinai, but the specifics [peratot]
were spoken in the Tent of Meeting” (Zevachim 115b; cf. B. Eruvin 54b). Both
of these assumptions are seen by the editors of the Talmud as being contrary to
the views of Rabbi Aqibah. Careful examination of these fundamental theologi-
cal differences will show that the theology of Rabbi Aqibah, rather than that of
Rabbi Ishmael, lays the foundation for a philosophical approach to the Torah.
By “the language of humans” Rabbi Ishmael means that one cannot press the
verses of the Torah for any meanings that would ignore its ordinary stylistic
features, especially the repetition of words that are easily seen as being put there
in order to add emphasis to the point being made in that overall context. But
since the Torah’s ordinary sense does not seem to deal with the abstract issues
of theory and practice that one associates with philosophical reflection, it would
228 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

seem that these issues are therefore precluded from any authentic theological
interpretation of the Torah. In Rabbi Ishmael’s disputes with Rabbi Aqibah, he
often objects to Rabbi Aqibah’s interpretations of Scripture that seem to read
more into the biblical text than out of it (for example, B. Sanhedrin 51b).
For Rabbi Aqibah, however, the Torah is not comparable to a human text.
As such, each of its words—even each of its letters—must be seen as having
its own unique function. There are no words just for added effect, or for
purposes of illustration. Like nature, the object of philosophical reflection,
nothing in the Torah is seen as being superfluous or of arbitrary significance.
The Torah is wholly and consistently intelligible (ratio per se), even if that
intelligibility is only partially grasped by finite human intelligences (ratio
quoad nos). Therefore, the underlying meaning of the text must be worked
out speculatively. The ostensive meaning of the text is only its appearance;
the deeper reality of the text is what is gained by refusing to be bound by the
surface of the text with all its seeming limitations (and contradictions).
This point is even more philosophically significant in the second major
theological dispute between Rabbi Aqibah and Rabbi Ishmael. For Rabbi
Ishmael, the general principles of the Torah are clearly of greater importance
than the specifics. That is why they are given as the foundational revelation of
Sinai, whereas the specifics are worked out in the Tent of Meeting. In Rabbi
Ishmael’s exegesis, specific statements are subordinate to general statements,
whereas in Rabbi Aqibah’s exegesis no such distinction is made. For him,
there is no subordination but interaction between words of equal value (see B.
Shevuot 26a). Therefore, in the theology of Rabbi Ishmael, there is no more
generality to the Torah than the ostensive text of the Torah itself. But in the
theology of Rabbi Aqibah, questions of generality are, in effect, meta-ques-
tions, that is, they are models developed to recontextualize the text rather than
actual data located within the words of the text itself. Consequently, there is
much more latitude for the type of increasingly abstract conceptualization
that characterizes philosophical reflection. Indeed, following this line of
thought, it is evident why the whole process of the structure of the Mishnah,
which recontextualizes Jewish law according to conceptual categories rather
than following the seemingly random order of biblical verses (midrash), is
considered to have been the primary achievement of Rabbi Aqibah (see Avot
de-Rabbi Nathan, chapter 18; Y. Sheqalim 5.1/48c; cf. B. Pesachim 105b).

RABBINIC ANTI-TELEOLOGY

If the beginnings of philosophical reflection by the rabbis are seen more in

the area of practical reason than that of theoretical reason, then one must look
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 229

not only at the increasingly abstract methods of conceptualization begun by

Rabbi Aqibah, but especially at efforts to develop a teleological conceptual-
ity by the rabbis. Practical reason is primarily concerned with the ends or
purposes (tele)¯ of human action. Philosophical reflection on human action, as
both Plato and Aristotle consistently emphasized, is primarily a concern with
what are the goods that human beings seek by their actions when they are
fully aware of what they are doing and why.
For the Ishmaelian school of thought and those akin to it, there would
seem to be little prospect for developing a teleology of the commandments,
inasmuch as the Torah text itself rarely presents specific reasons for observ-
ing any of the commandments. The Torah usually only presents two general
reasons for observing any of the commandments: the authority of God and
the benevolence of God. Thus when God offers the Torah to Israel at Sinai,
the people accept it on his authority alone: “Everything that the Lord has
spoken, we shall do” (Exodus 19:8). And when Moses reiterates the Torah
to the people of Israel forty years later on the plains of Moab, he emphasizes
that it is “for our good” (Deuteronomy 6:24; see B. Berakhot 5a on Proverbs
4:2). However, the text there seems to mean that the good result of observing
the commandments of the Torah overall will be a benevolence brought about
by God as a reward. The use of the term “good” there does not seem to be an
argument for the inherent good of the respective commandments themselves.
As such, in this view, one cannot evaluate the commandments of the Torah in
relation to each other because one does not know what the final rewards will
really be (Mishnah [hereafter “M.”]: Avot 2.1; see B. Chullin 142a).
Indeed, one passage in the Talmud argues against the effort to find reason
for the commandments as follows:

Rabbi Isaac asked why the reasons of the Torah [ta’amei torah] were not
[usually] revealed. [He answered by saying that this is] because there are two
commandments whose reasons are revealed, and the greatest man in the world
was misled by them. [As for the first of them], it states [regarding the king],
“He shall not take for himself many wives [lest they turn his heart away]”
[Deuteronomy 17:17]. Solomon said, “But I shall take many and I shall not be
turned away [ve-lo asur] [from God].” Yet Scripture writes, “And at the time
of Solomon’s old age his wives turned [hitu] his heart” (I Kings 11:4).

B. Sanhedrin 21b

This rabbinic argument builds upon the text of I Kings itself, where
the prohibition of Deuteronomy that Solomon so arrogantly violated is
paraphrased (I Kings 11:2). So, in other words, the search for the reasons
of the commandments is seen as being motivated by a desire to escape the
230 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

observance of the commandments by discovering what their ends are and

then devising other means to fulfill them that are more personally attrac-
tive. The very use of reason, according to this view, seems to be based on
the desire (whether conscious or unconscious) to escape the authority and
benevolence of God and to constitute the relationship with God on one’s own
human terms. According to this view, then, God’s commandments very likely
have no other reason than to test human will by the greater will of God (see,
for example, M. Avot 2.4; Bereshit Rabbah 4.1; Bemidbar Rabbah 19.1).

THE BEGINNINGS OF RABBINIC TELEOLOGY

The prohibition of the king taking many wives, for which the Torah atypically
does give a reason, is used to make the anti-philosophical point about the reli-
gious danger of giving reasons for the commandments altogether. Yet there is
another rabbinic discussion of this biblical text that can be seen as making an
important pro-philosophical—or perhaps pre-philosophical—point. Careful
analysis of this text might show just how the theology of the Aqiban school of
thought does lay the groundwork for a Jewish philosophy. Such a philosophy,
as we have already seen, must primarily be a philosophical meditation on the
practices mandated by the Bible.
The Mishnah states:

[When Scripture prescribes] “He shall not take for himself many wives”
[Deuteronomy 17:17], that means no more than eighteen. Rabbi Judah says he
may take as many [as he desires] provided [bilvad] they do not turn his heart
away [from God]. Rabbi Simeon says that he should not marry even one were
she to turn his heart away. [But Rabbi Simeon was queried] if so, then why does
Scripture say, “He shall not take for himself many wives”? [He replied] even if
many wives were like Abigail.

M. Sanhedrin 2.4

In the Mishnah, which is the early rabbinic text upon which the subsequent
discussions in the Gemara are based (thus the Mishnah and the Gemara make
up the Talmud), there are three opinions. In the opinion of the first anonymous
authority (tanna), the number of wives, not their character, is the issue. Hence
“many wives” means more than eighteen. Here the meaning of an unclear
general statement in the Bible is simply stipulated (cf. B. Yoma 8oa), although
the Gemara does attempt to find some biblical basis for the insistence on this
number (B. Sanhedrin 21a). In the opinion of Rabbi Judah, the character of
the wives and their number is the issue. Up to eighteen wives may be taken
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 231

by the king regardless of their character, but after these eighteen, character is
the criterion for addition. Finally, in the opinion of Rabbi Simeon, the point
of the biblical proscription pertains to the preclusion of unsuitable wives for
the king (cf. B. Qiddushin 68b on Deuteronomy 7:4) among the eighteen he
may take. And no more may be taken even if they are like Abigail, the wife
of King David, whose great virtue is praised by Scripture (I Samuel 25:3).
The discussion of this mishnaic text in the Gemara (B. Sanhedrin 21a)
concentrates on the difference of opinion between Rabbi Judah and Rabbi
Simeon. The point of difference between them is located at the question of
how one interprets the reasons given in the Bible itself (ta’ma de-qra) for the
restriction of the king’s marriages.
Rabbi Judah is seen as holding that the reason explicitly given in the
biblical text, itself an unusual procedure, should be interpreted literally
because such an unusual addition is in the text for a definite function. That is
an opinion with strong affinities to the Ishmaelian school of thought (see B.
Sotah 3a). The function of the reason added to the biblical text is to qualify
teleologically the rule concerning the number of wives the king may marry.
Since the reason for the proscription of a limitless number of royal wives is
that they will very likely turn the king’s heart away from God (as did the
wives of King Solomon), the explicit mention of the reason overrides the
numerical limitation of eighteen if it can be shown that the additional wives
are indeed of good character and, therefore, they will not turn the king’s heart
away. (Such, of course, was not the case with the women whom Solomon
married, inasmuch as his interest in them seems to have been lust or for the
purpose of cementing relations with foreign powers by dynastic means, as the
text in I Kings 11:1 implies; see Y. Sanhedrin 5.6/20c.)
But Rabbi Simeon is seen as holding that this reason could have been
inferred without any explicit mention of it in the biblical text. Therefore,
the “reason” given in the text is not a reason at all, for we could already infer
the reason ourselves (see, for example, B. Pesachim 18b for a similar premise
and its exception). What ostensibly appears to be a reason is really an addi-
tional rule instead. That additional rule is that even one extra wife, one even
as virtuous as Abigail, will in effect turn the king’s heart away. The implica-
tion is that it is not the character of the wives that is at issue but their number;
too many wives will be too distracting to the king as the moral leader of the
people (see Deuteronomy 17:18–20). As for the first eighteen wives being
morally suitable, that is hardly a requirement only for kings (cf. B. Qiddushin
70a). In the view of Rabbi Simeon, the Bible does not have to waste its words
by giving reasons for commandments; rather it leaves that task to the human
intellect of its interpreters. Not encumbered by a reason already given, the
human intellect of the interpreter has wider range to speculate. This wider
232 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

range for speculation can certainly be seen as a precondition for philosophical

meditation, which in the area of practical reason is teleological. For within
the biblical text itself, there is very little teleology given for the specific com-
mandments themselves. Outside the biblical text, however, much teleology
can be proposed. And to make this process applicable throughout the interpre-
tation of Scripture, even the little teleology within the biblical text has to be
reinterpreted deontologically precisely so that teleological interpretation will
not be confined to these exceptional cases alone (cf. B. Qiddushin 24a). All
this is conceptually akin to the thought of the Aqiban school. Furthermore, it
should be noted that Rabbi Simeon [ben Yochai] was one of Rabbi Aqibah’s
closest disciples (see B. Pesachim 112a).

AQIBAN ONTOLOGY

The discernment of the reason for a commandment cannot be the means for
its elimination. That would only be the case if we were absolutely sure that
the reason we have discerned is in truth the original intent of the divine law-
giver. However, the Talmud indicates that all interpretation of the command-
ments is secondary to the normative status of the commandments themselves
(see B. Berakhot 19b on Proverbs 21:30). Human wisdom cannot usurp
divine wisdom.
On the surface, this might seem to be a dogmatic limitation placed on
human reason and thus be anti-philosophical. Yet, when seen in the light of
the theological premises of the Aqiban school of thought, it has considerable
philosophical value. In the Aqiban point of view, the words of the Torah
are to be taken as data rather than dicta. In other words, precisely because the
Torah does not speak by means of human language, its words must be seen
as one would see the entities of nature. Being given rather than devised, the
entities of nature can only be explained by humanly devised theories, theories
that are always only about them, never above them. Therefore, they cannot
be eliminated by these theories and replaced by something else in their stead.
Such would only be the case in humanly devised projects in which means are
subordinate to ends and thus contingent upon them for their very existence.
In other words, in the Aqiban way of understanding the nature of the Torah,
the words—even at times the letters—of the Torah have an ontological status
that they do not have in the Ishmaelian way of understanding.
The Ishmaelian view strikes one as being somewhat akin to the type
of ordinary language analysis so prevalent in Anglo-American analytical
philosophy since the later work of Wittgenstein. Conversely, the Aqiban
ontology of the Torah and its connection to human action have some
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 233

intriguing similarities to Plato’s constitution of a bilateral relation between

theoretical reason and practical reason, that is, that practical reason has
theoretical intent and theoretical reason has practical application. As such,
it is dissimilar to Aristotle’s constitution of the ultimate transcendence of
ethics by metaphysics.
In the Aqiban view, the Torah is a perfect harmony with nothing lacking
and nothing superfluous in it. This comes out in the following interpretation
of a younger contemporary of Rabbi Aqibah, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, of
the verse “The sayings of the wise are like goads, like nails [u-khe-masmerot]
planted in prodding sticks. They were given by one shepherd” (Ecclesiastes
12:11): “They are like nails that are planted, which are neither too little
nor too much” (Tosefta:Sotah 7.11). But then this rabbinic interpretation
emphasizes the word “planted” (netu’im) in the biblical text: “Just as what is
planted is fruitful and multiplies, so are the words of the Torah fruitful and
multiplying” (cf. B. Chagigah 3b). By “multiplying” he does not mean that
the original text of the Torah is subsequently augmented; rather he means
that the words of the Torah are intelligible and thus they stimulate humans
to devise continually new and satisfying interpretations and applications of
them. This emphasis on expanding interpretation was the hallmark of Rabbi
Aqibah and his disciples. With this theological stimulus to intellectual specu-
lation, it is not surprising that the historical preconditions for the emergence
of philosophy were being simultaneously prepared.

NORMATIVE TELEOLOGY

Throughout the Talmud one finds numerous examples of the rabbis’

speculating on what the reason for a commandment is (see, for example,
Niddah 32b). Nevertheless, these interpretations can usually be seen as
functioning ex post facto, namely, they are subsequent, imaginative specula-
tions on the value of the commandments. But as such, they do not play any
real constitutive role in the normative interpretation of the commandments
themselves. In other words, they do not function as essences that determine
the structure and application of the specific commandments at hand. They
are “reasons” in the sense of the other etymology of the word ta’am that
means “taste” (see Job 34:3). Just as taste is not part of the essential nutri-
tional function of food but only attracts us to eat it, so are these “reasons”
given only to attract us to the commandments. In other words, they are like
homilies (aggadah) that are attractive to the masses (see B. Shabbat 87a),
but which themselves do not function normatively (see Y. Pe’ah 2.4/17a).
234 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

Therefore, it is difficult to see these interpretations as having import for a

philosophy of Jewish practice.
Occasionally, however, one does find interpretations of the reasons of the
commandments that do have a determinative function in the legal reality of
the commandments themselves. Thus they can be taken as examples of phi-
losophy of law and not just surmisals about the law. This comes out in the
following later rabbinic text:

Mar Zutra and Rav Adda Sabba the sons of Rav Mari bar Isur were dividing
his estate among themselves. They came before Rav Ashi and said to him that
the Torah prescribes “by the testimony of two witnesses” [yaqum davar—“a
legal matter shall be established”] [Deuteronomy 19:15]. Does this apply only
to cases where one person wants to back out of a legal agreement he made
with another person, and he may not do so [because the witnesses will testify
to the original agreement]? [If that is the reason], then we would not do so. Or,
perhaps, no legal matter whatsoever is valid without the presence of witnesses.
Rav Ashi answered them that witnesses are selected only when there is concern
about the parties denying [an agreement].

B. Qiddushin 65b

The sons of Rav Mari bar Isur are asking a fundamental question about
the purpose of the law requiring witnesses at a contractual proceeding. Are
the witnesses only a requirement if there is the likelihood that there will be
contesting claims by the two parties involved in an agreement, or are the wit-
nesses a requirement for there to be any legally valid agreement at all, irre-
spective of the likelihood or unlikelihood of contesting claims? Rav Ashi’s
answer, then, is his judgment about the purpose of the biblical commandment
requiring witnesses, at least as regards commercial proceedings. This judg-
ment of the why of this commandment determines how it is to be applied and
how it is not to be applied. And following Rav Ashi’s conclusion here (for the
great authority of Rav Ashi in Talmudic jurisprudence, see B. Bava Metzia
86a), the important twelfth-century Franco-German authority Rabbenu Tam
made the general conclusion that commercial proceedings have no inherent
requirement for the presence of two witnesses, although such presence is cus-
tomarily the case (Tosafot on B. Qiddushin 65b, s.v. la ibru sahaday).
The question raised in this Talmudic case is of philosophical import since
it ultimately involves the larger question of the relationship of the individual
to society. (Certainly since the seventeenth century, this has been the central
question of political philosophy in the West.) In this particular context the
question is about what the role of witnesses, being the agents of society itself,
is to be in the private agreements between individuals. If, on the one hand,
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 235

individual persons are essentially defined as being the constituents of society,

then it would seem that society in the person of witnesses should be present
in any agreement made between two parties. After all, both the status of the
persons agreeing and the very value of the commodities that are the subject of
the agreement are themselves socially determined. But, on the other hand, if
persons are essentially defined as individuals even before they have any rela-
tionship with society (what Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau called “the state
of nature”), then the role of society is only that of a mediator in the case of
disputes between the parties themselves. For these persons are in society but
not of it. So, if they can mutually agree among themselves, then the presence
of society in the person of witnesses is unwarranted. And, furthermore, unlike
many social contract thinkers who see the usual relationship of individuals
among themselves to be a predatory one (homo homini lupus), this Talmudic
text seems to regard the usual social situation to be one of mutual cooperation
and trust (cf. M. Avot 3.2).
Following this type of philosophical analysis, it would seem that the opin-
ion of Rav Ashi as to the essential function of witnesses is basically in accord
with the view that restricts the role of society to that of adjudication in the
event, or the likely event, of disputes. At least in the realm of commercial
activities, individuals are not to be burdened with unnecessary social interfer-
ence (see B. Sanhedrin 32a). Society itself must trust the basic integrity of
its citizens. Indeed, without such trust, ultimately the only remaining options
are either anarchy or tyranny, that is, society has to become either absent or
ubiquitous. On the other hand, though, when it comes to marital covenants
the same Talmudic text we have just looked at insists upon the presence of
witnesses in a foundational capacity. There the Talmud distinguishes between
marital relationships that have greater meaning for the rest of society and
commercial transactions that have less meaning for it. This, of course, reflects
the view that the family is a more basic component of society than individuals
as property holders and traders, indeed, that persons themselves are more
interested in familial relationships than they are in commercial transactions.
The society that the Talmud deals with and intends to preserve and enhance
is more concerned with status than with contract.

LAW AND SOCIETY

The question we have been examining about the role of society in human
disputes also comes out in an early rabbinic debate about the legitimacy of
arbitration in lieu of formal legal litigation. Here again, the philosophical
import of the debate concerns the fundamental purposes of civil law:
236 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Yose the Galilean said that it is forbidden to
arbitrate . . . but let the law [ha-din] pierce the mountain, as Scripture says, “for
the judgment [ha-mishpat] is God’s” [Deuteronomy 1:17]. Rabbi Joshua ben
Korhah said that it is meritorious [mitzvah] to arbitrate as Scripture says, “a true
and harmonious judgment [u-mishpat shalom] you shall judge in your gates”
[Zechariah 8:i6]. But is it not so that where there is justice [mishpat] there is no
harmony [shalom] and where there is harmony there is no justice? So, what kind
of justice contains harmony? That is arbitration [bitz’ua].

B. Sanhedrin 6b

The philosophical point being debated here seems to concern the relation
of law and society. Is society for the sake of the law, or is law for the sake
of the society? The answer seems to depend on what one sees the essential
function of society to be. If society is simply to reflect a higher order and
implement it on earth, then one will agree with Rabbi Eliezer in the above
debate. However, if society is to be a communion of persons, a covenantal
entity not just implementing divine authority but participating in the har-
mony of divine care for the universe, then one will agree with Rabbi Joshua
ben Korhah in the debate. Moreoever, it is clear that arbitration involves
more independent human reasoning than formal adjudication based on
written law (see Y. Sanhedrin 1.1/18b). The tendency of the later Jewish
legal tradition was to follow this latter view of the relation of law and soci-
ety. And that tendency has some important philosophical affinities to Aristo-
tle’s insistence on the priority of friendship (philia) over strict justice in the
truly human community (koinonia), although the theological component in
the rabbinic view makes for essential differences from Aristotle’s view. This
affinity helps explain why Aristotelian ethical and political concepts became
so attractive to a number of medieval Jewish philosophers who were rooted
in the rabbinic tradition before they approached the work of Aristotle and
the Aristotelians.

THE LATER EMPHASIS ON HUMAN LAW

In the early rabbinic sources, there is no real distinction made between

divine law and human law. The Torah is the divine law that is given to be
interpreted by humans. It is from God, but not in heaven, that is, its mean-
ing is determined by exegesis and learned consensus, not by any further
oracular revelation (see B. Bava Metzia 59b on Deuteronomy 30:12). This
proved to work out quite well as long as the rabbis were convinced that any
new problem that arose could be related to the authority of the Torah by
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 237

exegetical means. The exegetical bridge between the Torah and the human
situations it is to judge was constituted through a number of hermeneutical
principles.
In the earlier rabbinic sources, it seems that conclusions derived by means
of these principles are logically compelling, especially the principle called
qal va-chomer, which is an inference a fortiori. Yet already in these sources
there are questions that suggest that even this type of reasoning is more
analogical than deductive, hence not totally compelling after all (see, for
example, M. Bava Qamma 2.5; M. Yevamot 8.3). By the time of the later
rabbinic sources, the logical weakness of even qal va-chomer reasoning had
been further exposed (see B. Qiddushin 4b).
What growing dissatisfaction with the complete sufficiency of formal
exegetical reasoning accomplished was to make room in the realm of rabbinic
normative discourse for more teleological reasoning. As we have already
seen, that opens the door for practical philosophy. The rabbinic authority
who did more in this area than anyone else is the fourth-century Babylonian
sage Rava.
By the time of Rava, the distinction between the divine law of the Torah
(d’oraita) and the human law of the rabbis (de-rabbanan) was already in
place. The human law of the rabbis is not seen as independent of the divine
law of the Torah; rather it is seen as being mandated by that law (B. Shabbat
23a on Deuteronomy 17:11). In this theological view of the nature of the
Torah, the rabbis are given authority by the Torah itself, not only to inter-
pret its law and adjudicate cases based on their interpretation, but also to
augment the law of the Torah with their own legislation. The formal distinc-
tion between these two kinds of law, however, was constantly emphasized
in the later rabbinic texts to distinguish between direct revelation and human
wisdom (albeit seen as inspired), and to give normative priority to divine law
over human law (see B. Berakhot 19b; B. Betzah 3b).
What, then, is the essential difference between the earlier and the later
rabbinic views of the relation between the divine and the human in the realm
of law? The difference seems to be as follows. In the earlier view, all law
is seen as coming from God, however tenuous the exegetically constituted
relation between divine ground and normative consequent in fact is. But in
the later view, there is a considerable body of Jewish law that is not seen
as specifically coming from God, but only the general authority to make
it is seen as coming from God. Instead, its essential methodology is that it
is made for the sake of God. Its function, then, is to enhance the quality of
human life, the pinnacle of which is the covenantal relationship with God
(see M. Makkot 3.16 on Isaiah 42:21; B. Bava Qamma 6b). Thus its very
nature is teleological.
238 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

How does one know what is for the sake of God? In the narrower sense,
of course, that was discovered by justifying human legislation as an enhance-
ment of specific laws of the Torah so that the usual careless violation of
the law would more likely be violation of the humanly constructed “fence
around it,” rather than the divinely given core within that fence (M. Avot
1.1; M. Berakhot 1.1; M. Betzah 5.2). But this explains only the function of
restrictive rabbinic decrees (gezerot). When it comes to the more innovative
rabbinic enactments (taqqanot), where the rabbis devised new legal institu-
tions, then what is for the sake of God involves a philosophical reflection on
what are the more general overall ends of the Torah itself.
It is in the area of these positive rabbinic enactments that the legal phi-
losophy of Rava is most evident. For example, the rabbis were interested in
what is the actual scriptural warrant for including the book of Esther in the
canon. Prima facie, the story told in this book is a secular one. In fact, the
name of God is not mentioned anywhere in the book. Nevertheless, the book
had long been accepted by the Jews as Scripture, and it became the basis
for the popular holiday of Purim. Earlier rabbis had tried to find a specific
scriptural text from which to deduce a warrant for the inclusion of this book
in the biblical canon and thus justify the religious celebration of Purim. After
reviewing various early attempts to locate such a specific scriptural warrant,
the second-century Babylonian authority Mar Samuel stated, “Had I been
there, I would have been able to give a much better interpretation than any of
them [of what it] says [about the introduction of Purim] in the book of Esther
[9:27], ‘They upheld it and accepted it,’ [namely,] they upheld in heaven what
had already been accepted on earth” (B. Megillah 7a). Rava then states that
all of the earlier interpretations could be refuted, but that the interpretation of
Samuel is irrefutable. The reason is that Samuel’s interpretation is not derived
from a biblical verse at all. Instead, it takes a biblical verse as a description of
a human enactment that is for the sake of God because it celebrates an event
perceived to be especially providential. The reasoning described in the verse
is teleological. The divine approval it receives is not ab initio but ex post facto
(cf. B. Shabbat 87a). In order for such approval to be won, the enactment
itself had to be based on a consideration of the purposes of the Torah in gen-
eral. These purposes are explicated by a process of philosophical reflection.
Rava’s emphasis on teleology appears in numerous of his opinions recorded
in the Talmud. In one text, he explicitly rejects earlier exegetical reason-
ing and insists that the reasoning involved in the interpretation of a rabbinic
law be conducted according to “the canons of reason” (be-torat ta’ama),
that is, by teleological rather than by deductive logic (B. Berakhot 23b). In
another text, he accepts one earlier rabbinic legal opinion over a rival opinion
because the first opinion is more rational (mistabra), even though the biblical
 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection 239

exegesis used in the second opinion is sounder (B. Arakhin 5b). The rational-
ity of the first opinion consists of its better grasp of the original purpose of
the law under discussion. Thus even though Rava did not himself develop
what we would call a “systematic” philosophy of Jewish practice, he did lay
the groundwork for a teleological approach to the Jewish tradition. Without
his achievement, teleological analysis by Jewish thinkers who came after
him could be attributed to their exposure to Greek, especially Aristotelian,
philosophy. The truth is, however, that by the time these Jewish thinkers were
exposed to Greek philosophy they were already prepared for teleological
thinking by the Talmud. Hence they could not only appreciate the insights of
Greek philosophy but critically appropriate them as well.
Rava’s achievement was possible because of the later Talmudic recognition
that large portions of Jewish law were really rabbinic decrees and enactments.
In fact, in a number of these later texts, even laws supposedly based on biblical
exegesis are judged to be rabbinic laws in essence and only biblical by sub-
sequent association (asmakhta—see, for example, Chullin 64a–b). That being
the case, teleological analysis of rabbinic laws is at a considerable advantage
over similar analysis of biblical laws. The advantage is that in the case of
biblical laws the reasons of the divine lawgiver for prescribing or proscribing
as he did are more often than not unknown. The assumption is “My thoughts
are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). Therefore, teleological analysis here can
only be speculative, although, as we have seen, it can sometimes have norma-
tive effect. In the case of rabbinic law, conversely, the reasons for the humanly
made law are almost always explicitly stated (see B. Gittin 14a); and, in fact,
when they are absent, subsequent commentators were quick to surmise what
they are. Human minds are much more able to understand the reasons of other
human minds than they are able to understand the reasons of the divine mind.
As such, the more law that is considered rabbinic the more room there is for
the teleological analysis that characterizes practical reason. Thus rabbinic law,
at least in principle although rarely in practice, was subject to repeal, unlike
biblical law for which the suggestion of overt repeal would be considered blas-
phemous (see M. Eduyot 1.5; B. Avodah Zarah 36a–b; cf. B. Sotah 47b).
All this might well be why the Mishnah designates Jewish civil law as the
discipline one should engage in if one “wants to become wise” (she-yahkim—
M. Bava Batra 10.8). For even in early rabbinic times, Jewish civil law was
already based on a minimum of biblical verses and a maximum of rabbinic
decrees and enactments (see, for example, M. Gittin 4.3 and the extensive
discussion thereof in both Talmuds; also B. Yevamot 89b on Ezra 10:8).
Rava’s emphasis on the importance of human reason in the religious life
itself is most succinctly expressed in his statement that, when a person is
brought before the throne of divine justice after one’s life is over, one will be
240 The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection

asked (among other things), “Did you reason wisely [pilpalta be-chokhmah]?
Did you infer [hevanta] one thing from out of another?” (B. Shabbat 31a).
It seems that Maimonides, the most important Jewish philosopher to emerge
out of the rabbinic tradition, basing himself on this text and another in the
Talmud (B. Qiddushin 3oa), located an actual religious duty to philosophize
(Mishneh Torah: Talmud Torah, 1.12)—of course, for those both able and
inclined to do so.
 Bibliography

TEXTS

Babylonian Talmud (1935–48), translated by I. Epstein (London: Soncino).

Mishnah (0933[ce1]), translated by H. Danby (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Montefiore, C. G. and H. Loewe (eds) (1963) A Rabbinic Anthology (New York:
Meridian).

STUDIES

Halivni, D. W. (1986) Mishnah, Midrash, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for
Justified Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
———. (r99i[ce2]) Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic
Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press).
Lieberman, S. (1962) Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 2nd ed. (New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America).
Schechter, S. (1936) Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (New York: Behrman).
Urbach, E. E. (1971) The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, translated by I. Abra-
hams, z[ce3] vols. (Jerusalem: Magnes).
Wolfson, H. A. (1929) Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press), esp. pp. 24–9[ce4].

241
 Biographies

Elizabeth Shanks Alexander is an associate professor of Talmud and rab-

binics in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia,
where she has taught since 2008. Prior to coming to University of Virginia, she
taught at Smith College and Haverford College. She received her Ph.D. from
Yale University in 1998. Her first book, Transmitting Mishnah: The Shaping
Influence of Oral Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2006), examines
how contemporary theories on oral tradition illuminate ancient transmission
of rabbinic tradition. Her current work explores how rabbinic law becomes a
vehicle for articulating and affirming differences between men and women.

Judith R. Baskin, Knight Professor of Humanities, head of the Department

of Religious Studies, and director of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program
in Judaic Studies at the University of Oregon, grew up in Hamilton, Ontario.
She received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1976. Her books include
Pharaoh’s Counsellors: Job, Jethro, and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic
Tradition (1983), Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rab-
binic Literature (2002), and the edited collections Jewish Women in Historical
Perspective (2nd Edition, 1998) and Women of the Word: Jewish Women
and Jewish Writing (1994). Dr. Baskin, who is the subeditor for post-bibli-
cal commentary for The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, Union for Reform
Judaism Press (2007), served as president of the Association for Jewish
Studies, the learned society for scholarly researchers and academic teachers
of the Jewish experience, from 2004–2006.

Tsvi Blanchard is director of organizational development at CLAL—The

National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Blanchard is an expert

243
244 Biographies

in community and leadership development, and helps steer the organiza-

tion programmatically. An early leader in the Jewish healing movement,
he directs CLAL’s prestigious Internship Program. An ordained Orthodox
rabbi, he holds Ph.D.s in psychology and philosophy, has taught philosophy
and Jewish studies at Washington, Northwestern, and Loyola Universities
and Jewish and comparative law at Humboldt University School of Law in
Berlin and Fordham Law School. He is the author of academic articles ad-
dressing contemporary problems using Talmudic sources, a participant in
Psychoanalytic Perspectives: A Journal of Integration and Innovation’s 2006
roundtable discussion on psychoanalysis, spirituality, and religion, and the
2003 Reisman Award winner for “Article of the Year” (Journal of Jewish
Communal Service), co-author of Embracing Life & Facing Death: A Jewish
Guide to Palliative Care (CLAL, 2003), and writer of the introduction for
photographer Frederic Brenner’s acclaimed book, Diaspora: Homelands in
Exile (Harper Collins, 2003).

Rabbi Michael Chernick is Deutsch Professor of Jewish Jurisprudence and

Social Justice at the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion.
He received his ordination from the R. Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary
of Yeshiva University and his doctorate in Talmud from Yeshiva Univer-
sity’s Bernard Revel Graduate School. His scholarly work has centered
on rabbinic methods of interpreting Scripture, the history of the Halakhah,
and the interface between the Talmudic tradition and contemporary issues.
Rabbi Chernick has lectured widely in the United States, Israel, and Europe
to both scholarly and lay audiences. His most recent work is A Great Voice
that Did Not Cease: The Growth of the Rabbinic Canon and its Interpreta-
tion (Hebrew Union, 2009). Rabbi Chernick is an Orthodox Jew who firmly
believes that Torah belongs to anyone who wishes to study it. His conviction
that halakhah guides all aspects of his Jewish life has provided the impetus
for his active support and teaching of the Jewish tradition and his pursuit of
social justice.

Shaye J. D. Cohen is the Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and

Philosophy in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
of Harvard University. Before arriving at Harvard in July 2001, Prof. Cohen
was the Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of
Religious Studies at Brown University. Prof. Cohen began his career at the
Jewish Theological Seminary where he was ordained and for many years was
the dean of the Graduate School and Shenkman Professor of Jewish History.
He is perhaps best known for his From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (1987;
second edition 2006), which is widely used as a textbook in colleges and adult
 Biographies 245

education. More recently he is the author of The Beginnings of Jewishness

(1999) and Why aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? Gender and Covenant
in Judaism (2005), which won a National Jewish Book Award. He has also
appeared on educational television, including From Jesus to Christ and Nova
on PBS and Mysteries of the Bible on A&E. He and his wife Miriam May are
the parents of Ava, Jonathan, Ezra, and Hannah.

Yaakov Elman is professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University and an

associate at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies. He is the author
of Authority and Tradition, Living Torah, the editor of other volumes, and
of dozens of studies in Jewish intellectual history, from Talmudic times to
nineteenth-century hasidic and nonhasidic thought.

Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Hayman Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1952,

Rabbi Dr. Hayman received his undergraduate degree from the University
of California, Los Angeles in classics, semitic civilizations and Philosophy,
graduating Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude. After preparatory studies in
rabbinics at Yeshivat Hakotel, Jerusalem from 1973 to 1975, he completed
rabbinical ordination at the Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Theological Seminary
of Yeshiva University, New York in 1978 and, concurrently, a Master of Arts
in Talmudics and semitic languages from the Bernard Revel Graduate School
of Yeshiva University. He completed his doctoral degree with honors from the
Revel Graduate School, specializing in comparative studies of Babli-Yerush-
almi. His dissertation, “Development and Change in the Teachings of Rabbi
Yohanan ben Nafha through Transfer from Israel to Babylonia,” focused on
the controversial issue of the “fictitious sugya,” and shed new light on the
thesis of Tzvi Dor regarding the integration of Israeli Amoraic material in
Babylonian academies. After serving as Rabbi of Congregation House of
Jacob, Mikveh Israel in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, from 1980 to 1987, Dr.
Hayman came on aliyah to Israel, and lectured in the Department of Talmud
and the School of Education at Bar Ilan until 2005. From 1989 to 1994 he
served as the University’s dean of students, and from 1994 to 1997 as director
of the Joseph H. Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora. Af-
ter intensive research into the difficulties in the teaching of Mishnah and Tal-
mud, Dr. Hayman founded a consulting firm named “Bonayich Educational
Services, Ltd.” which is engaged in the production of curricula and teaching
and learning materials for the teaching of Mishnah and Talmud in primary,
secondary, and post-secondary educational institutions. He is now engaged
full time in consultation with over 150 educational institutions in Israel and
around the world. He resides in Elkana, Israel, with his wife, Shoshana, and
they are proud parents of six children and grandparents of eight.
246 Biographies

Richard Kalmin holds the Theodore R. Racoosin Chair of Rabbinic Litera-

ture at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1982. He
is the author of several books and numerous articles on the interpretation of
rabbinic stories, ancient Jewish history, and the development of rabbinic
literature. His most recent book, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and
Roman Palestine, was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press.

Jane Kanarek received her rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is an
alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship. Dr. Kanarek is currently Assistant
professor of rabbinics at Hebrew College in Boston.

Ephraim Kanarfogel is the E. Billi Ivry Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva

University. He teaches at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies
and at Stern College for Women. A recipient of the National Jewish Book
Award and a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, his
latest book is The Intellectual History of Medieval Ashkenazic Jewry: New
Perspectives.

David Novak holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish
Studies as professor of the study of religion and professor of philosophy
at the University of Toronto since 1997. He is a member of University
College, the Centre for Ethics and the Joint Centre for Bioethics there.
From 1997 to 2002 he also was director of the Jewish Studies Programme.
In 2006 he received the Deans Award for Excellence. From 1989 to 1997
he was the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the
University of Virginia. Previously he taught at Oklahoma City University,
Old Dominion University, the New School for Social Research, the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Baruch College of the City
University of New York. From 1966 to 1969 he was Jewish chaplain to
St. Elizabeths Hospital, National Institute of Mental Health, in Washington,
D.C. From 1966 to 1989 he served as a pulpit rabbi in several communities
in the United States.
David Novak was born in Chicago in 1941. He received his A.B. from the
University of Chicago in 1961, his M.H.L. (Master of Hebrew Literature)
in 1964 and his rabbinical diploma in 1966 from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown
University in 1971.
David Novak is a founder, vice president, and coordinator of the Jewish
Law Panel of the Union for Traditional Judaism, and a founder and faculty
member of the Institute of Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey. He
 Biographies 247

serves as secretary-treasurer of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in

New York City and is on the editorial board of its journal First Things. He
is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy
for Jewish Philosophy, and a member of the Board of Consulting Scholars of
the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton
University. In 1992–93 he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In 1995 he was Distinguished Vis-
iting professor of religion and Business Ethics at Drew University. In 1996
he delivered the Lancaster/Yarnton Lectures at Oxford University and at
Lancaster University. In the fall of 2004 he was the Charles E. Test, M.D.
Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Princeton University. In the spring of 2006
he was Visiting Professor of Religion at Princeton. In 2007 he was appointed
a member of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, a federal agency by
Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
David Novak is the author of thirteen books, the last two being The
Jewish Social Contract: A Essay in Political Theology (Princeton University
Press, 2005), and Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian
(Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005). His book Covenantal Rights: A Study in
Jewish Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000) won the award of
the American Academy of Religion for best book in constructive religious
thought in 2000. He has edited four books and is the author of over 200
articles in scholarly and intellectual journals.
Since 1963 David Novak has been married to Melva Ziman. The Novaks
have two grown children and four grandchildren.

Jeffrey L. Rubenstein is a professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew

and Judaic Studies of New York University. He received his B.A. in reli-
gion from Oberlin College, his M.A. in Talmud from the Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary, where he also received rabbinic ordination, and his Ph.D.
from the Department of Religion of Columbia University. He has taught
at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Jew-
ish Theological Seminary in addition to New York University. His first
book, The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods,
was published in the Brown Judaica Series (1995). In 1999 he published
Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture with the Johns
Hopkins University Press. Rabbinic Stories was published in the Classics
of Western Spirituality Series in 2002, and The Culture of the Babylo-
nian Talmud was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2003.
Dr. Rubenstein has written numerous articles on the festival of Sukkot,
Talmudic stories, the development of Jewish law, and topics in Jewish
liturgy and ethics.
248 Biographies

Paul Socken (Ph.D., University of Toronto) has been on the faculty of the
University of Waterloo (Canada) since 1973 and is a former Chairman of
the Department of French Studies. He is the author of nine books, including
Myth and Morality in Alexandre Chenevert by Gabrielle Roy, The Myth of
the Lost Paradise in the Novels of Jacques Poulin, The French They Never
Taught You and Intimate Strangers: The Letters of Margaret Laurence and
Gabrielle Roy. He has published numerous scholarly articles on French-Ca-
nadian literature in journals in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He is
the founder of the Jewish Studies program at Waterloo and serves as Chair-
man of the Dean’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Studies.

Devora Steinmetz has authored articles about Bible, rabbinic literature,

and Jewish education as well as two books: From Father to Son: Kinship,
Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis and Punishment and Freedom: The
Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law. She has taught at the Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary, Drisha Institute, and Havruta: A Beit Midrash at Hebrew
University. Dr. Steinmetz is the founder of Beit Rabban, a day school in
New York City that is profiled in Daniel Pekarsky’s book, Vision at Work: A
Portrait of Beit Rabban.

Barry Scott Wimpfheimer is director of undergraduate studies in religion

and assistant professor of religion and law at Northwestern University.
Wimpfheimer received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan
Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University and a doctorate from Columbia
University’s Department of Religion. Wimpfheimer’s doctoral dissertation,
“Legal Narratives in the Babylonian Talmud,” received the Salo and Jeanette
Baron Prize in Jewish Studies. A book derived from that research is forth-
coming in the Divinations Series of the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Azzan Yadin is associate professor of rabbinic literature at Rutgers University.

He earned his B.A. at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his Ph.D. at the
University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the relationship
between scriptural interpretation and oral tradition in early rabbinic literature.
In addition to his work on rabbinics, Prof. Yadin has published on the relation-
ship between the Hebrew Bible and Homeric epic, Nietzsche’s influence on
the Hebrew poet Bialik, and Ronald Dworkin’s jurisprudence. He is currently
working on a book-length study of Rabbi Akiva. He serves on the editorial
board of the book series Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism (Mohr Siebeck)
and heads the rabbinic division of the Association for Jewish Studies. His first
book is Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash.
 Biographies 249

Devorah Zlochower is Rosh Beit Midrash and Talmud and halakha instructor
at Drisha Institute in New York. Ms. Zlochower is a graduate of the Scholars
Circle, the institution’s 3 year advanced program in Talmud and halakha.
Ms. Zlochower has published a number of articles related to halakha as
well as articles related to Jewish women’s leadership. She is a member of the
board of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. She is also on the editorial
advisory board of Sh’ma.
 Index

Abaye, 14, 17–18, 51, 58, 69, 139, Daf Yomi, 47, 62, 67, 129, 134
142–143, 147, 152, 154, 198–199, Deuteronomy/Devarim, 83, 91, 100,
200 130, 133–134, 172, 174, 210–211,
Aggadah, 94, 109, 120–121, 140, 143, 216–217, 219, 224, 226, 229–231,
194, 225, 233 234, 236–237
Aggadic, 25, 39, 40, 98, 101, 109,
120–121, 124–125, 137, 142, 194, R’Eliezer/Eleazar, 41, 51, 81, 210–211,
217 216–217, 233, 236
R’Akiva/Akiba, 26, 51, 57, 60, 153, Erubin/Eiruvin, 28, 30–32, 40, 142
248, 180–183, 185–189, 191–193 Exodus, 15–17, 65–66, 173, 188–189,
Amoraic, 65, 96–97, 101–102, 109, 118, 194, 208, 229
121, 199, 245
Amoraim, 43, 101, 139, 141–143, Gittin/Gitin, 51, 66, 69, 100, 143, 146,
145–146, 163, 166, 199 163, 166, 173–174, 239
Aristotle, 12, 132, 229, 233, 236, 241
Ashi, Rav, 101, 140–141, 148, 234–235 Hagiga/Chagigah, 69, 79, 173, 176, 233
Hillel, 70, 129, 153–154
Baba Kamma/Bava Kamma/Qamma, Hulin, 143–144
46, 85, 88, 124, 138, 146, 237
Baba Metzia/Bava Metzia, 18, 24, 67, Isaiah, 16, 26, 224, 237, 239
134, 200–201, 234, 236
Berakhot/Bekhorot, 5, 26, 41, 46, Jeremiah, 35, 44–45, 50
57–58, 66, 117, 123, 155, 173, Job, 29, 32, 60, 172, 196, 233, 243
190–193, 210, 212, 224, 229, 232, R’ Judah, 32, 36, 88, 132, 165, 173,
237–238 218, 230–231

251
252 Index

Kant, 78, 97 Tanna/Tannaim/Tannaitic, 43, 48–49,

Ketubot/Ketubah, 116, 121 65, 86, 94, 96–102, 118, 155–156,
Kiddushin/Qiddushin, 44, 46, 79, 113, 159, 199, 208, 219, 230
122, 143, 168, 173–176, 226–227, Tosafot, 46, 53, 124, 133, 144, 146,
231–232, 234, 237, 240 153–154, 167–168, 172–175, 234
Tosafists, 45, 145, 165, 167, 174
Leviticus, 27, 70–71, 111, 133–134 Tosefta, 98, 100, 123, 125, 141, 233

Maimonides/Rambam, 5, 65, 92, R’ Yehuda/Yehudah Ha Nasi, 98, 100,

118–119, 138, 172–173, 240 139
Makkot, 133, 143–144, 237 Yevamot/Yebamot, 64, 114, 124, 146,
R’ Meir, 27, 51, 117, 134, 172, 174, 237, 239
184, 190, 215 R’ Yochanan, 50–51, 60–61, 80–81
Menachot/Menahot, 6, 146, 173, 179, R’ Yosi/Yose, 70–71, 101, 190–191,
194, 226 236
Mo’ed Katan/Qatan, 117, 143, 172
Moses, 15–16, 29, 83, 132, 165, 167,
180–189, 190–194, 210, 226, 229

Nedarim, 143, 173, 218

Plato, 12, 83, 123, 225, 229, 233

Psalms, 172, 191–194, 224

Rabbeinu Tam, 69, 234

Ramban/Nachmanides, 48–50, 65, 145
Rashi, 53, 62–63, 69, 127, 133, 142,
153–154, 164, 166, 173, 201, 212
Rav, 57, 163–164, 180, 183
Rava, 14, 17–18, 43, 51, 61–63, 69,
109, 110, 121, 139, 142–144, 146,
152, 154–158, 163–164, 198–200,
237–239
Ravina, 101, 117, 140, 148, 155–156

Sanhedrin, 48, 65, 89, 97, 109–110,

142–143, 158–159, 194, 213–215,
218, 225, 227–231, 235–236
Shabbat, BT, 26, 37, 43, 61, 66, 76,
78, 137, 142, 144, 192, 194, 233,
237–238, 240
Shammai, 70, 129, 153–154
Sotah, 24, 60, 143, 174, 227, 231, 233,
239