Welcome to The Oral Talmud!
Below you will find the original video recording of this episode, the core Talmud sources from the conversation (click their citation hyperlinks to find the texts in their fuller context), and a section of Further Learning (links to books, articles, and additional resources mentioned by our hosts).
And remember, the most fulfilling way to deepen your learning is to find a chevruta (a study partner) to share it with!
This week: Talmudist Barry Wimpfheimer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. Barry is the author of The Talmud: A Biography (2018) and Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories (2011).
Here are some questions to ask yourself and/or a chevruta as you encounter this conversation:
While our last guest, David Kraemer, focused on the motivations of the sages in constructing the Talmud, this week’s guest, Barry Wimpfheimer turns the focus onto how Talmud has influenced Jewish life, and how and why different communities have utilized Talmud.
- What kinds of truth are at play when encountering Talmud?
- Barry Wimpfheimer discusses how the narratives of the Talmud changed in redactions. How might they continue to change as we continue to tell them?
- What can the interplay of story with legal statements tell us about how Talmud was supposed to be read?
Further Learning
- Moses in Rabbi Akiva's classroom is on Menahot 29b
- The story of the Lovesick Man is on Sanhedrin 75a
Books & Articles recommended & mentioned:
- Jeffrey Rubenstein's various books on the ways the stories in the Talmud changed over the hundreds of years of its construction (especially connecting historically solo women with men): "Talmudic Stories" and "Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, Stories of the Talmud"
- Aharon Shemesh's book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, "Halakhah in the Making"
- Robert Cover's "Nomos and Narrative"
- The movie "Trembling Before G-d" (2001)
- Alan Dundes's book "The Shabbat Elevator and other Sabbath Subterfuges: An Unorthodox Essay on Circumventing Custom and Jewish Character"
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