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InBecoming the People of the Talmud, Talya Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions. Although the Talmud's preeminence in Jewish study and its determining role in Jewish practice are generally taken for granted, Fishman contends that these roles were not solidified until the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The inscription of Talmud-which Sefardi Jews understand to have occurred quite early, and Ashkenazi Jews only later-precipitated these developments. The encounter with Oral Torah as a written corpus was transformative for both subcultures, and it shaped the roles that Talmud came to play in Jewish life. What were the historical circumstances that led to the inscription of Oral Torah in medieval Europe? How did this body of ancient rabbinic traditions, replete with legal controversies and nonlegal material, come to be construed as a reference work and prescriptive guide to Jewish life? Connecting insights from geonica, medieval Jewish and Christian history, and orality-textuality studies,Becoming the People of the Talmudreconstructs the process of cultural transformation that occurred once medieval Jews encountered the Babylonian Talmud as a written text. According to Fishman, the ascription of greater authority to written text was accompanied by changes in reading habits, compositional predilections, classroom practices, approaches to adjudication, assessments of the past, and social hierarchies. She contends that certain medieval Jews were aware of these changes: some noted that books had replaced teachers; others protested the elevation of Talmud-centered erudition and casuistic virtuosity into standards of religious excellence, at the expense of spiritual refinement. The book concludes with a consideration of Rhineland Pietism's emergence in this context and suggests that two contemporaneous phenomena-the prominence of custom in medieval Ashkenazi culture and the novel Christian attack on Talmud-were indirectly linked to the new eminence of this written text in Jewish life.

[...]the assertion that Joseph's authority was at least equal to that of Pharaoh so that the latter is no longer called king after Joseph's assumption of power is undermined by a passage that Motzkin does not cite. In the final analysis, if one is convinced by the proposal that the king in our verse is Joseph, which renders the standard reading of the list of kings impossible, the case that Motzkin constructs for the Horite option is in my view sufficient to render that option entirely plausible. [...]it lists the kings who have already ruled in the land ofEdom and assures the reader that the rapid rise of an Edomite monarchy does not call that promise into question. [...]it was not unnatural that, when recording the eight kings who had reigned in the family of Esau up to his own time, Scripture should go out of its way to assure the Israelites that their history was not yet complete.\"

The quote above targets the historical discrepancy between women’s part in education and their roles in society. The possibility of obtaining a scholarly education has, over the course of history, been reserved for a chosen few. In a modern Western context, however, the availability of that possibility might seem obvious. It could thus be easy to forget that it has not always been that way and that access to education remains scant in many parts of the world. Factors, such as economy, nationality, and social status, are a few things that have, and still do, affect whether you qualify to acquire an education. These factors also influence what level of education you can acquire, for some people it might be harder to find the possibility to attain basic knowledge in reading and writing than it is for others to gain a Ph.D.Even in cases where these factors might have been satisfied, there is another one that often has been, and still is, able to override many of the others, and that is the question of gender. To give an example, at my alma mater (Uppsala University), it was not until 1872 that the first woman was accepted as a student,2 though the university had educated men from when it was founded in 1477. 3For me as a student of theology at a modern university, there are so many interesting things that provide focal points to dive into. Within any particular focal point, there are even more questions that could be asked, so it can be hard to decide which ones to pursue. Regarding my choice of focal point, there has never been a doubt that it is the Hebrew Bible. This has led me through studies of Biblical Hebrew, into the world of Talmud and the rabbis of late antiquity. To try and keep track of their discussions while, at the same, following the way their interpretations wander is a strenuous as well as joyful task. There are patterns to be explored that might give insights that you could never imagine, hiding in plain sight.The questions that I have chosen to pursue in this essay surfaced when I studied Bavli Sotah 21b (hereafter: b.Sotah 21b), whose text and translation are given in §2.1, below. Within the rabbinic tradition, the study of Torah is of great importance. In this part of the Talmud, however, it is questioned whether or not you should teach your daughters to study the Torah. As is customary in rabbinic tradition, both “yes” and “no” are offered as answers. This essay will argue that both arguments are built on a fear of women’s sexuality. The “yes” argument holds that you should teach your daughter so that she knows what will happen if she transgresses and becomes an adulteress. The “no” argument counsels that you should not because of an increased risk that she will fall into sexual transgression.

The discovery of low stone tables at Magdala and a few other sites in the Galilee and Golan allows us to examine, for the first time, this liturgical piece of furniture used by several communities in the late Second Temple period and the first centuries of the Common Era. This article defines the purpose of these stone tables based on analysis of the archaeological finds and examination of the literary sources associated with the Torah-reading ceremony conducted in the synagogues of ancient Palestine. The reading of the Torah throughout this long period was conducted standing with the open Torah scroll held in raised hands. Our study demonstrates that this table was not intended to be used for reading the Torah, but rather functioned as a low stand upon which the scroll was placed before the Torah-reading ceremony, during the breaks between the readers, and after completion of the ceremony.

In Israel, the High Holiday cycle marks the transition from summer to the rainy season. In Waiting for Rain, the acclaimed teacher Bryna Levy offers a compelling collection of meditations that examine the biblical and liturgical readings associated with the High Holidays, from Rosh Hashanah to Simhat Torah. Based on a series of lectures given in Jerusalem at Matan – the Women's Institute for Torah Studies, and known as The Hoshana Rabbah Lectures, Levy's readings of the traditional texts echo the natural and spiritual tenor of this season. Waiting for Rain joins the field of biblical interpretation known as parshanut ha-mikrah. It offers fresh insights into traditional rabbinic interpretation, together with the author's perspective as a modern Orthodox woman bible scholar. Levy explores the psyches of the biblical characters and addresses issues such as our connectedness to others, the tragedy of wasted opportunity, confronting evil, the denial of death, faith and doubt, personal and communal responsibility, universalism versus particularism, the challenge of leadership, sin and atonement, and the efficacy of prayer. The result is a highly personal approach to the meaning of the High Holidays that resonates with our own modern lives. Stories about heroes and heroines, love, faith, hope, and dreams make this book a moving and engaging source for study and reflection as well as an excellent companion to the traditional High Holiday prayer services.

Every tradition with a founding text must struggle with that text's significance in later generations. Does its meaning remain unchanged? Does it require reinterpretation? Have contemporary readers lost access to some of its meaning? This brief survey shows that in the works of traditional Jewish Bible commentators and thinkers there is a wide range of possible approaches to these questions, with legal, theological, and exegetical implications for later generations. Most traditional readers understood that the Biblical text spoke to them as clearly as it had spoken to its original audience and with equal relevance. This approach is widespread in part because Rashi, Judaism's most influential Bible commentator, adopted it. However, a significant minority of traditional commentators and thinkers were willing to historicize, and assume that the values and knowledge of the Bible's original readers made the text more meaningful or relevant to them than to us later readers.

This provocative new history of Palestinian Jewish society in antiquity marks the first comprehensive effort to gauge the effects of imperial domination on this people. Probing more than eight centuries of Persian, Greek, and Roman rule, Seth Schwartz reaches some startling conclusions--foremost among them that the Christianization of the Roman Empire generated the most fundamental features of medieval and modern Jewish life. Schwartz begins by arguing that the distinctiveness of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods was the product of generally prevailing imperial tolerance. From around 70 C.E. to the mid-fourth century, with failed revolts and the alluring cultural norms of the High Roman Empire, Judaism all but disintegrated. However, late in the Roman Empire, the Christianized state played a decisive role in ''re-Judaizing'' the Jews. The state gradually excluded them from society while supporting their leaders and recognizing their local communities. It was thus in Late Antiquity that the synagogue-centered community became prevalent among the Jews, that there re-emerged a distinctively Jewish art and literature--laying the foundations for Judaism as we know it today. Through masterful scholarship set in rich detail, this book challenges traditional views rooted in romantic notions about Jewish fortitude. Integrating material relics and literature while setting the Jews in their eastern Mediterranean context, it addresses the complex and varied consequences of imperialism on this vast period of Jewish history more ambitiously than ever before.Imperialism in Jewish Societywill be widely read and much debated.

The author's research conclusions in chapter 8 about the book of Samuel's king-priest are fivefold. [...]the law the royal priest was to meditate on was the book of Deuteronomy, which assumed knowledge of the Holiness Code (Lev 17-26), according to Deuteronomy 17:18-20. [...]the king-priest served because he was anointed by Yahweh to ensure the ritual obedience of the people and Levitical priesthood. [...]the king-priest in Samuel anticipates the coming of an eschatological king-priest, the Messiah (1 Sam 2:10, 35), whom the completed Christian canon identifies as Jesus.