Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz - The essential Talmud: an introduction

Contents

Preface to The Essential Talmud xi

Part one: History

Chapter one

What Is the Talmud? 3

Chapter two

Life in the Talmudic Period 9

Chapter three

The Oral Law the First Generations 33

Chapter four

The Oral Law the Era of the Zugot (Pairs) 41

Chapter five

The Tannaim 47

Chapter six

The Compilation of the Mishna 55

Chapter seven

The Amoraim in Babylonia 61

Chapter eight

The Amoraim in Palestine 69

Chapter nine

The Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud 77

Chapter ten

Talmudic Exegesis 85

Chapter eleven

The Printing of the Talmud 95

Chapter twelve

The Persecution and Banning of the Talmud 101

Part two: Structure and Content

Chapter thirteen

The Structure of the Talmud 109

Chapter fourteen

The Layout of a Talmud Page 115

Chapter fifteen

The Subject Matter of the Talmud 137

Chapter sixteen

Prayers and Benedictions 143

Chapter seventeen

The Sabbath 149

Chapter eighteen

The Festivals 157

Chapter nineteen

Marriage and Divorce 169

Chapter twenty

The Status of Women 177

Chapter twenty-one

Civil Law 185

Chapter twenty-two

Criminal Law 201

Chapter twenty-three

Sacrifices 211

Chapter twenty-four

Dietary Laws 219

Chapter twenty-five

Ritual Purity and Impurity 227

Chapter twenty-six

Ethics and Halakha 233

Chapter twenty-seven

Derekh Eretz (Deportment) 239

Chapter twenty-eight

The World of Mysticism 245

Part three: Method

Chapter twenty-nine

Midrash (Halakhic Exegesis) 255

Chapter thirty

The Talmudic Way of Thinking 261

Chapter thirty-one

Strange and Bizarre Problems 267

Chapter thirty-two

Methods of Study 271

Chapter thirty-three

The Talmud and the Halakha 277

Chapter thirty-four

Aggada in the Talmud 281

Chapter thirty-five

What Is a Scholar? 289

Chapter thirty-six

The Talmuds Importance for the People 295

Chapter thirty-seven

The Talmud Has Never Been Completed 301

Appendix 305

Index 315

About the Author 333

Preface to The Essential Talmud

This slight book is not so much a preface to the Talmud as it is an overview of it. For many, many years, the Talmud has been terribly maligned by those who do not know it. It needed some kind of explanation, an introduction from several perspectives of its basic parameters.

The Talmud is a very hard book to define. From content to style, every definition is incomplete or contradictory. The Talmud is completely unique a book that has no parallel anywhere. By way of an oxymoron and paradox, the Talmud may be called a book of holy intellectualism.

Because there is nothing quite like the Talmud, it is helpful to have not just one perspective, but two or three, so that one can have a sense of the multifaceted and often contradictory sides of this large, very complex work. This book, then, tries to provide a comprehensive view on the Talmud in its many aspects, as much as one can from the outside.

The first view is more or less a complete historical background of the Talmud from its very beginning to modern times, because as mentioned in the book itself the creation of the Talmud began at the same moment with the written law and it will never really be finished. A second way to look at the Talmud is to describe the way it is structured and the subjects it deals with; this includes the many different areas of Jewish law, as well as philosophy, biology, psychology, legends, proverbs, and wisdom. The third is to discuss the methodology of the Talmud, to reveal its way of thinking.

Preface to The Essential Talmud

This edition contains some new material that was not in the first edition that sheds light on life during the Talmudic period and describes the layout of the Talmud page.

It is my hope that this book will continue to be used to understand the significance of the Talmud and as a guide to entering the world of the Talmud itself for anyone who is interested in seeking its knowledge.

Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz
Jerusalem
March 2006

Chapter one

What Is the Talmud?

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 influence 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 Mishna, a book of halakha (law) written in Hebrew; and the commentary on the Mishna, known as the Talmud (or Gemara), in the limited sense of the word, a summary of discussion and elucidations of the Mishna written in Aramaic-Hebrew jargon.

This explanation, however, though formally correct, is misleading 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 harnessing 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 application. And although the Talmud is, to this day, the primary source of Jewish law, it cannot be cited as an authority for purposes of ruling.