Talmud - First Page
I take a deep breath and leap into the rabbit hole of an ancient legal system....
The first piece of Talmud is "Tract Sabbath", Chapter 1, "Regulations Regarding Transfer on Sabbath".
The Talmud starts with a ruling on when transferring something from one person to another on the Sabbath makes you guilty, and when you are free of guilt for transferring on the Sabbath.
The Mishnah posits 2 people: one outside a house and one inside a house, with a window between them. The translation calls them mendicant and master of a house.
This is not what I was expecting at all.
I immediately realize that I've done a lot of supposing about the Talmud.
I've supposed that it's like a modern, user-friendly reference work. I've supposed that it's been arranged in chapters and sections that were designed to transmit learning as effectively as possible. Knowing that it's a collection of law, I've supposed that it's just like the casebooks and codes I used in law school. I've supposed that, because every Jew should study it, it's been built in a way to make it easy to study.
The Talmud is none of these things.
The Talmud is not a user-friendly guide to Jewish law--"this is why we do this", "this is when we do that": The Talmud is neither a guide to Jewish law nor is it user-friendly.
The Talmud is a millenia-old conversation conducted by legal experts over the space of centuries and throughout the then-known world. It examines how the minutiae of daily life may hew to or turn from the requirements of Torah law. It's a compendium of legal argument and rulings by the world's leading experts and it's designed for use by experts. It presupposes that you know the law--no spoon-feeding here.
And it is certainly a conversation. It is clearly a collection of conversations and not a compendium of writings. Discussions roam through numerous topics, whether broadly or tangentially applicable, before bringing newly generated insights back to the subject under discussion.
And then I come along and want to read it. I know only the barest whisper of Jewish law. I have no idea who all the ancient rabbis are. I bring my clumsy tools of modern law, modern literary criticism, and modern expectations to the task of excavating this exquisite, ancient prize.
But rabbi said I could read it, and I burn to know the whole of it.
So I'll make a clumsy start. And I'll expect my expectations to be upended throughout the task.
This is going to be SO MUCH MORE FUN than law school--and law school was a whole lot of fun!
The first piece of Talmud is "Tract Sabbath", Chapter 1, "Regulations Regarding Transfer on Sabbath".
The Talmud starts with a ruling on when transferring something from one person to another on the Sabbath makes you guilty, and when you are free of guilt for transferring on the Sabbath.
The Mishnah posits 2 people: one outside a house and one inside a house, with a window between them. The translation calls them mendicant and master of a house.
- If the mendicant reaches through the window AND puts something into or takes something from the master's hand, the mendicant is guilty--he has performed an illegal act of transfer on the Sabbath.
- If the mendicant reaches through the window and the master puts something into or takes something from his hand, both are innocent--"free" of the guilt of transfer on the Sabbath.
This is not what I was expecting at all.
I immediately realize that I've done a lot of supposing about the Talmud.
I've supposed that it's like a modern, user-friendly reference work. I've supposed that it's been arranged in chapters and sections that were designed to transmit learning as effectively as possible. Knowing that it's a collection of law, I've supposed that it's just like the casebooks and codes I used in law school. I've supposed that, because every Jew should study it, it's been built in a way to make it easy to study.
The Talmud is none of these things.
The Talmud is not a user-friendly guide to Jewish law--"this is why we do this", "this is when we do that": The Talmud is neither a guide to Jewish law nor is it user-friendly.
The Talmud is a millenia-old conversation conducted by legal experts over the space of centuries and throughout the then-known world. It examines how the minutiae of daily life may hew to or turn from the requirements of Torah law. It's a compendium of legal argument and rulings by the world's leading experts and it's designed for use by experts. It presupposes that you know the law--no spoon-feeding here.
And it is certainly a conversation. It is clearly a collection of conversations and not a compendium of writings. Discussions roam through numerous topics, whether broadly or tangentially applicable, before bringing newly generated insights back to the subject under discussion.
And then I come along and want to read it. I know only the barest whisper of Jewish law. I have no idea who all the ancient rabbis are. I bring my clumsy tools of modern law, modern literary criticism, and modern expectations to the task of excavating this exquisite, ancient prize.
But rabbi said I could read it, and I burn to know the whole of it.
So I'll make a clumsy start. And I'll expect my expectations to be upended throughout the task.
This is going to be SO MUCH MORE FUN than law school--and law school was a whole lot of fun!
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