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Migrating Tales situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, much of it Christian in origin. In this nuanced work, Richard Kalmin argues that non-Jewish literature deriving from the eastern Roman provinces is a crucially important key to interpreting Babylonian rabbinic literature, to a degree unimagined by earlier scholars. Kalmin demonstrates the extent to which rabbinic Babylonia was part of the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and part of the emerging but never fully realized cultural unity forming during this period in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and western Persia. Kalmin recognizes that the Bavli contains remarkable diversity, incorporating motifs derived from the cultures of contemporaneous religious and social groups. Looking closely at the intimate relationship between narratives of the Bavli and of the Christian Roman Empire, Migrating Tales brings the history of Judaism and Jewish culture into the ambit of the ancient world as a whole.

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmudoffers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed the older traditions on which they drew. Nevertheless, it has been assumed that the ancient rabbis were committed to maintaining continuity with the past. Moulie Vidas argues on the contrary that structural features of the Talmud were designed to produce a discontinuity with tradition, and that this discontinuity was part and parcel of the rabbis' self-conception. Both this self-conception and these structural features were part of a debate within and beyond the Jewish community about the transmission of tradition. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, produced in the rabbinic academies of late ancient Mesopotamia, Vidas analyzes key passages to show how the Talmud's creators contrasted their own voice with that of their predecessors. He also examines Zoroastrian, Christian, and mystical Jewish sources to reconstruct the debates and wide-ranging conversations that shaped the Talmud's literary and intellectual character.

تعالج هذه الدراسة موضوع الجنة في التلمود البابلي وفق منهجية مقارنة في ضوء القرآن الكريم. تناولت الدراسة التعريف بالتلمود البابلي وأقسامه، وأسماء الجنة ومعانيها، وخلق الجنة ومكانها ومساحتها، ونعيم الجنة وأشكاله في كل من التلمود البابلي والقرآن الكريم، وأثر عقيدة الجنة في التلمود البابلي على الشخصية اليهودية ورؤية العالم. توصل البحث إلى وجود تشابه كبير بين أسماء الجنة ومعانيها بين كل من نصوص التلمود البابلي والقرآن الكريم، بالإضافة إلى اتفاقهما على خلق الله للجنة قبل خلق الانسان، وإلى وجود تشابه كبير في أشكال النعيم الأخروي، سواء المادي منه أو الروحي، ولا سيّما اعتبار رؤية الله في الجنة أعظم نعيم يناله أهل الفردوس. ويؤكد هذا التشابه ما ذكره القرآن الكريم عن إيمان أنبياء بني إسرائيل بالجنة ونعيمها.

Last Decemher, at Limmud: A Festival of Jewish Learning and Culture, he offered a Jewish take on John Lennon's song \"Imagine.\" He noted that \"Imagine\" raises \"many issues that our sages dealt with. They came up with completely different solutions and ideas, but the questions and the discussion are important, and [students] should know that there are people who think differently.\" He added that such issues are an adjunct to the school's main focus of teaching Torah. A lesson from the teacher: \"I wouldn't be afraid to take any text or any value from the outer world and to confront it with our [Jewish] values, and maybe to learn something good... Torah values are going to be confronted in the future, and to ignore this confrontation might be disastrous, if students are not prepared to answer and to criticize and to think.\"

Second-year defensive lineman Le Kevin Smith drew praise from [Belichick] for his performance in Friday night's 27-24 loss to the Titans. Smith started at left end in place of Ty Warren (sprained elbow) and had four tackles, two quarterback hits, and a sack. He played in just three games last year. \"I think Le Kevin Smith has made a jump from last year to this year, in his offseason training, strength and conditioning, quickness, explosion,\" said Belichick. \"I don't think last year I would have expected him to play at a position that he hadn't practiced at very much. He still has a long way to go, but he's improved quite a bit.\" ... Stephen Gostkowski was 10 for 10 on field goals in the preseason until he pushed a 33-yard attempt wide left against Tennessee. Gostkowski rebounded by nailing a 32-yarder before the half. \"There are things we all have to work on. He is certainly in that group,\" said Belichick ... The Patriots' goal-line stand before the intermission, when they stuffed the Titans four times from the 3-yard line, was heartening to Ellis Hobbs. \"We were great in the red area last year, but our goal line was kind of stinking it up, so we knew we needed to really focus on that,\" said Hobbs.