The term ma’aseh is the intrusion of real life events into the largely theoretical in hypothetical discourse of the Mishnah. It introduces an event that happened in the past which has halakhic implications or ramifications[…]
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Tag: Rabbinic Literature
“Unparallel parallels which feed a partisan ego scarcely represent good scholarship…”
Unparallel parallels which feed a partisan ego scarcely represent good scholarship, whether the dabblers are Christians or Jews. How should a serious student assess the statement of a modern writer that “in many ways the[…]
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“…archeologists of late antiquity should not just naively stuff mishnayot in their rucksacks…”
…archeologists of late antiquity should not just naively stuff mishnayot in their rucksacks to guide their digs any more than biblical archeologists should follow their 19th-century predecessors in setting out to excavate with a Bible[…]
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“Rabbinic and Roman texts create the impression of a clear dichotomy between slaves and free people…”
Rabbinic and Roman texts create the impression of a clear dichotomy between slaves and free people. Just as free male Roman citizens were eager to distinguish themselves from slaves (servi), rabbis emphasized their distinction from[…]
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“For the rabbis, breastfeeding offers a fascinating set of variables for academic investigation”
For the rabbis, breastfeeding offers a fascinating set of variables for academic investigation. First, breast milk is produced by women and for infants, both of which are non-normative rabbinic categories of people. Second, it is[…]
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“In addition to the biblical distinction between normal and abnormal discharges, the rabbis developed two more categories…”
Leviticus 15 is concerned with normal and abnormal, male and female genital discharges. As scholars have noted, the chapter is structured chiastically: (A) Verses 2-15 describe males with abnormal (gonorrhea) discharges (zav), (B) verses 16-18[…]
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“The practice of waiting seven blood-free days following the end of a regular menstrual period is variously described in the Talmud as heḥemiru al atzman, minhaga, and halakhah pesukah, indicating that a variety of attitudes existed as to the severity of the requirement”
Zimmerman is correct in saying that a seven-day wait after any bleeding has become standard practice, almost never dispensed with. However, she gives the incorrect impression that the seven-day wait after a menstrual period of[…]
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“…the true Jewish ethos of modesty does not exclusively pertain to sexuality…”
The topic of “tzniut” or “modesty” has recently become a prominent point of discussion in the Jewish community, mostly in response recent incidents of religious violence in Israel…. But the common theme … and indeed[…]
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“It is the Babylonian Talmud that collects the traditions on Hanukkah and creates a lengthy, detailed and coherent discourse on the holiday…”
The rabbinic sources on Hanukkah, which are not numerous, are unevenly dispersed among the classical legal compendia. The earliest rabbinic legal works, the Mishna and Tosefta, that contain tractates on many of the festivals lack[…]
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“It is exceedingly difficult to differentiate on formal or stylistic grounds among the layers of the Mishnah…”
It is exceedingly difficult to differentiate on formal or stylistic grounds among the layers of the Mishnah, which is the document of rabbinic Judaism first brought to redaction. The two Talmuds then lay matters out[…]
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