Like Israelites wandering a desert, a good Talmudic translation apparently can’t be rushed. After more than four decades of work, Israeli Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz finally released a new Hebrew translation of the Talmud this week, a project he’s worked on since the Johnson administration. Begun in 1965, the work is intended to make the Talmud…
The story goes that a certain heathen approached the Jewish sage Shammai and asked to be converted, on the condition that he is taught the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Indignant at receiving such a ludicrous request, Shammai chased the man away. Undeterred, the heathen then approached the sage Hillel with the same…
How badly do women want to be married? This is a question that has been asked from the Talmud to The New York Times, and the answers can be counterintuitive. Tav l’metav tan du m’lmetav armelu. “It’s better to lie with another body than to lie as a widow.” (Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 7a) This Talmudic…
Remember your old Hebrew school curriculum: Jewish ethics, Jewish history, Jewish laws and customs, Talmud Studies, Jewish sex? …Jewish sex? Right, there was no Jewish sex. But this past weekend, Houston-area high schoolers had the rare opportunity to talk shop — that is, talk sex — from a Jewish perspective. The overnight retreat, “There’s Only…
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