Welcome to The Oral Talmud!
Below you will find 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!
Here are some questions to ask yourself and/or a chevruta as you encounter this conversation:
- What do quality study partners recognize in each other?
- How do they decide how and what to learn together?
- What makes a learning journey exciting, possible, and loving?
Teachers & Friends
(ו) יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן פְּרַחְיָה אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת:
(6) Joshua ben Perahiah says: "Make for you a teacher, and acquire for you a friend; and be judging all people with the scale weighted in their favor."
Further Learning
- Benay Lappe's CRASH Talk "An Unrecognizable Jewish Future: A Queer Talmudic Take" (on YouTube)
- "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Elliott Friedman ( 1997, on Archive.org)
- "Galloping Gertie - The Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge" (on YouTube)
- The Chevruta of Rabbi Yochanan & Resh Lakish (Bava Metzia 84a)
- Widening the Doors to the Study Hall (Berakhot 28a)
- "The Secrets of Friendship and Torah" written for SVARA by Mónica Gomery, about Pirkei Avot 1:6 (on SVARA's website)
- A classical commentary on Avot called Avot D'Rabbi Natan 8:3, which is referenced in Noam Sienna's book, A Rainbow Thread (pg. 46): "'And acquire for yourself a haver.' How [is this to be done]? This teaches that a [person] should acquire for [themself] a companion and that [they] should eat with [them], drink with [them], read with [them], study with [them], sleep with [them], and reveal to [them] all their secrets: the secrets of Torah and the secrets of worldly matters [derekh eretz]."
- From "The Illustrated Pirkei Avot" by Jessica Tamar Deutsch (2017, from Print-O-Craft Press). Image: two vertical cartoon panels, with the words "Zug [Pair] #2" between them, for the sages Yehoshua son of Perachyah (nice eyebrows, Pirkei Avot 1:6) and Nittai of Arbel (wiggly beard, Pirkei Avot 1:7) Each column illustrates their teaching: "Appoint for yourself a teacher" has a student and teacher arguing, "Acquire a friend" has friends with arms around each other; "& judge all favorably" has scales labeled "bad" with a skull and "good" with a heart. -- Nittai's teaching goes "stay away from a bad neighbor, a person with long hair running from a spiky monster wearing a collar that says "evil"; "Don't associate with a wicked person" has the spiky monster yelling at the person from before on a park bench; and "& don't despair in the face of trouble" features our same person sitting cross legged on a mat meditating with thumb and forefinger circle mudra hands, and a star on their forehead. Illustration is in black and white, cartoony and peppy.
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