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Shabbat as framed by the opening mishnah of Tractate Shabbat is not something that...This gallery contains 1 photo.
The Rabbinic Shabbat, as found in the Mishnah and in the Bavli is not...While most Amoraim were familiar with the mishnayot of the sedarim which formed the curriculum of Amoraim study, such familiarity was not universal. … Even when a relevant mishnah is cited, it is not always verbatim. …
The difference between the Bavli’s citation of mishnayot and those of Toseftan baraitot is that the text of the Mishnah has been transmitted along with that of the Bavli from the earliest times.
Yaakov Elman, Authority and Tradition: Toseftan Baraitot in Talmudic Babylonian (New York: The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva University Press; Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 1994), 48.
…I contained — a void. I did not know how to fill that void, but when I first encountered the Talmud and became completely enamored with it — its language, its humor, its profound thinking, its modes of discussion, and the practicality, humanity and maturity that emerge from its lines — I sensed that I had found the love of my life, what I had been lacking.
Ruth Calderon, “‘The Time Has Come To Re-appropriate What Is Ours’”, Israel Now: A Special Supplement to the Jewish Week, trans. Elli Fischer (31 May 2013), 13.
I think that חז”ל saw the questions. One of the things I find interesting about studying Biblical critics nine times out of ten, or even ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the questions that Biblical critics are asking are typically anticipated by מדרשים.
חז”ל’s answers are very different from the answers that modern Biblical scholars give, but the fact that Jews have been aware of these questions for two thousand years is something that I find very comforting, that, somehow, they were able to go on.
Rabbi Jeff Fox, “Joshua’s Farewell Speech“, YCT Yom Iyun (New York City: 13 January 2014).
God proclaims, “I will utterly annihilate Amalek from under heaven.” We meet Amalek again later in the Torah, where God commands the Jewish people to kill the entire tribe of Amalek: “When the Lord your God grants you safety from your enemies around you… completely destroy the memory of Amalek from under heaven” [Deut. 25:19]. And the imperative to annihilate Amalek refers not only to the tribe’s male combatants, but also to innocent Amalekite women and children: “Attack Amalek and destroy all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and assess alike!” [I Samuel 15:3].
This biblical imperative became codified Jewish law, as did the commandment to exterminate all members of the seven Canaanite nations: “You shall not let a soul remain alive” [Deut. 20:16]. Not relegated to ancient history, these commandments apply in principle forever — even today.
The call to kill all members of the Amalekite and Canaanite nations violates the norms of a moral, just war, which dictate that innocent civilians cannot be legitimate targets. And as a people, we know tragic horror of genocide that seeks to exterminate all people of a group or the same genetic background.
Could the Jewish people ever become “a holy people” when obeying the commandments to commit genocide against the Amalekites and Canaanites?
This troubles us moderns, but it also vexed the Talmudic and medieval rabbinic authorities. None of them could live with the Torah commanding Jews to act immorally, and they showed remarkable creativity in shaping the correct way for us to understand these imperatives.
These rabbis believed that the entire Torah text was Divine, but they did not hesitate to engage in bold interpretation. Because they had keen moral sensitivities, the rabbis of the Talmud solved the problem of Jews killing innocent Amalekites or Canaanites by declaring that the ancient Assyrian ruler Sennacherib “co-mingled the nations that he vanquished” [Yadayim 4:4/Berachot 28a]. If so, it is impossible to identify anyone positively as a Canaanite or Amalekite. This effectively rendered the problematic commandments inoperative, telling Jews not to act according to their plain meaning.
Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn, “The Angst Over Annihilating Amalek”, The Jewish Week (10 January 2014), 45.
A devout non-believer, Edgar said his favorite book was the Babylonian Talmud, whose hero is not God but the argumentative and cunning human scholar. The paradigm of the Talmudic scholar requires a rigorous knowledge of foundational texts and a sharp wit, mixed with a healthy dose of competitiveness, a thirst for justice, an appreciation of one’s own fallibility… and a great sense of humor.
Rabbi Mishael Zion and Rebecca Voorwinde, “Edgar M. Bronfman: A Modern Talmudic Jew”, The Jewish Week (10 January 2014), 29.