The latest cycle began on Jan. 5, 2020, and to mark the occasion My Jewish Learning launched a groundbreaking effort to make this global project of Jewish learning available to a wide audience. Each day, subscribers to A Daily Dose of Talmud receive an email with an accessible, easy-to-understand insight from that day’s page of Talmud.

Click here to subscribe to A Daily Dose of Talmud

Not familiar with Talmud study? Click here for an introduction to this central Jewish text.

Each Thursday at 9:30 a.m. ET, a familiar Daily Dose writer hosts Highlights from Daf Yomi: The Week in Review, a live Zoom recap of the Talmud studied that week. Register here.

And if you’re joining late, not to worry. All our previous daily emails are archived below by tractate.

Tractate Berakhot

Tractate Shabbat

Tractate Eruvin

Tractate Pesachim

Tractate Shekalim

Tractate Yoma

Tractate Sukkah

Tractate Beitzah

Tractate Rosh Hashanah

Tractate Taanit

Tractate Megillah

Tractate Moed Katan

Tractate Chagigah

Tractate Yevamot

Tractate Ketubot

Tractate Nedarim

Tractate Nazir

Tractate Sotah

Tractate Gittin

Tractate Kiddushin

Tractate Bava Kamma

Tractate Bava Metzia

Tractate Bava Batra

Tractate Sanhedrin

Tractate Makkot

Tractate Shevuot

The post Daf Yomi appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

But if the carburetor goes out or the fuel pump fails or a part is recalled, you’ll probably need to bring the car to a shop, where a mechanic will pull out a different thick paperback book, called a repair manual. Unlike the operator’s manual, which goes to great lengths to conceal the inner workings of the car, the repair manual shows its reader exactly how the car works in all of its complexity, with detailed drawings of each system and expanded views of every screw, washer, pin, and gear assembly.

Jewish tradition works the same way. The Jewish owner’s manual consists of those texts that help us use the tradition in everyday life. They are meant for consumers. These include the prayer book, the Passover haggadah, the High Holiday machzor, and even the Bible.

The Jewish repair manual are those texts that help us fix the tradition when it stalls on the side of the road. Like all technical manuals, these were initially intended not for the masses, but for the relative few who would devote their careers to getting under the hood of the tradition. For Judaism, that repair manual is the Talmud.

The Talmud is not a code of Jewish law, though there’s plenty of law in it. Nor is it a collection of Jewish wisdom, though there’s a lot of wisdom in it, too. Nor is it a compendium of Jewish lore, though it’s chock full of stories. The Talmud is a manual for repairing, modifying, upgrading, and improving the Jewish tradition when components of it are no longer serving us well.

The Talmud’s creators understood that religious traditions exist to answer our basic human questions and to help us create frameworks to fulfill our basic human needs — the most important of which is the need to grow into the fully human beings we have the potential to become. They also understood that people grow and change faster than traditions do, so our traditions will inevitably stop working unless we have ways of tweaking them along the way — sometimes radically.

The Talmud is a curriculum for educating and empowering those who will do this kind of upgrading in every generation. It is the gift of the sages of the past to the sages of subsequent generations. “Listen,” they’re saying. “This is how we took the parts of the tradition we inherited that no longer worked for us and made them better. We don’t know what parts of the tradition will stop working in your generation, but we trust you to know that. Stand on our shoulders. Use our methodology. Be courageous and bold, like we were, and know that what you are doing may seem radical, but is deeply Jewish — and deeply traditional.”

This is the meta-message on every page of the Talmud. But to access it, you have to learn how to read deeply. Much of the discussion in the Talmud revolves around intricate cases of Jewish law, but that’s just the surface content. What’s being pointed to is not the details of the cases, but the legal principles and methodologies derived from them.

The Talmud, in fact, is no different from any legal casebook. In law school, students are required to buy casebooks — thick anthologies, elegantly bound, with gold lettering on their covers, that contain hundreds of historic, precedent-setting cases. There’s the well-known case in which a locomotive struck and killed a pedestrian at an uncontrolled street crossing, and the case of the tugboat that broke free of a dock and killed a sailor. But the point isn’t to teach about locomotives and tugboats, and no law student would think that it is. The particulars of these cases aren’t what ultimately matters. What matters are the legal principles derived from the cases. The goal is to teach the lawyers of the future how to think like lawyers — how to deduce principles that can be used in new cases, how to think in complex ways about new complex problems. The Talmud is doing exactly the same thing.

That might lead to the conclusion that the Talmud is the product of religious insiders, but in fact the Talmud records the voices of those who were on the margins of Jewish life during the late Second Temple and post-Temple periods — those who were both critiquing a Judaism that was failing and creating one that would work better. To do so, they invented and put into practice a system of mechanisms, principles, and rules-of-change that would guide them and future generations in the project of upgrading the tradition according to their new insights and lived experiences, one which might better serve the world of the future.

The core innovation that made this new system possible was the concept of svara — moral intuition. The sages of the Talmud named svara a source of Jewish law equal to the Torah in its power to overturn any aspect of the received tradition that violated their moral intuition or that caused harm that they could no longer justify, rationalize, or tolerate — even if it was written in black-and-white in the Torah itself. The sages’ trust in svara is what drives the evolution of the entire tradition and can be found on every page of the Talmud — if you know to look beneath the particulars of the locomotives and the tugboats.

And it is the refinement of the Talmud learner’s svara which is the Talmud’s ultimate goal. To paraphrase the philosopher Moshe Halbertal, the Talmud is not a normative document, but a formative document. It is designed not to tell us what our behavioral norms should be, but rather to form us into a certain kind of human being.

The text of the Talmud is intentionally pieced together in such a way that the very act of learning it becomes a spiritual practice unto itself, one which was designed to shape the learner into a morally courageous, empathic, resilient, flexible human being, one with the capacity to tolerate contradiction, paradox, complexity, and uncertainty. The act of learning Talmud is the Jewish tradition’s core spiritual technology designed to help the learner become this kind of person.

For two millennia, only Judaism’s mechanics and engineers had access to this technology. Only a small fraction of our community was empowered to utilize the spiritual, moral, and intellectual resources of Talmud study to become the kinds of people the Jewish tradition would have us be, and to bring our insights and life experiences to bear on the project of upgrading the tradition itself.

Today, for the first time in Jewish history, we have the opportunity, every one of us, to roll up our sleeves and participate in the creation of the Jewish future. The Talmud is a gift entrusted to every one of us by our Jewish ancestors who hoped we would find within it the tools to make ourselves, our tradition, and the world around us, better. So consider this an invitation to take a seat at the table where the tradition of the future will be created. By all of us.

Join in on the ongoing Daf Yomi cycle. Sign up here for an accessible daily Daf Yomi email from My Jewish Learning!

The post How to Read the Talmud appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Daf yomi (pronounced dahf YOH-mee)  is an international program to read the entire Babylonian Talmud — the main text of rabbinic Judaism — in seven and a half years at the rate of one page a day. Tens of thousands of Jews study daf yomi worldwide, and they are all quite literally on the same page — following a schedule fixed in 1923 in Poland by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the founder of daf yomi, who envisioned the whole world as a vast Talmudic classroom connected by a global network of conversational threads.

The current Daf Yomi cycle began on January 5, 2020. Sign up here for an accessible daily Daf Yomi email from My Jewish Learning!

A page a day doesn’t sound too daunting, until you consider that each Talmudic page is actually a double-sided folio comprised of multigenerational conversations among the rabbis of the first few centuries of the Common Era, dealing with everything from what to do if your camel knocks over a candle and sets a store on fire  to the consequences of embarrassing another person while he is naked.

The Talmud is divided into 37 volumes, known as tractates, each of which deals with different aspects of Jewish law, from vows to marriage to the logistics of offering sacrifices in the ancient Temple. But the subjects of the tractates are in part only nominal, because the Talmud is a highly discursive text, proceeding by association rather than by any rational scheme. Every page presupposes knowledge of other pages, which is why it is difficult to start learning without prior background. But every page connects to conversations on other pages, and so once you have started learning, it’s almost impossible to stop.

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions by those who are thinking about embarking on this wild seven-and-a-half year journey through one of the most quirky, irreverent, surprising and intriguing works in the Jewish literary canon:

Do I need to be religious — or Jewish — to study Talmud?
Can I study Talmud even if I have little or no Hebrew background?
What version of the Talmud do you recommend I use, and where can I find it?
What resources and study aides are most helpful?
Does it make sense to start in the middle of a daf yomi cycle, or should I wait for the next cycle to begin?
One page a day, seven days a week, is quite a relentless pace. Do you have any tips for staying on schedule? What if I fall behind?
What keeps you going on days when you have no motivation to learn or begin to lose interest?
How do you keep track of everything you learn?
What might I get out of studying daf yomi?

1. Do I need to be religious — or Jewish — to study Talmud?

Absolutely not! The Talmud deals with all aspects of Jewish life, but you don’t need to be a practicing observant Jew to appreciate the subjects under discussion, many of which have broader and more universal resonance, such as what our obligations are when we chance upon an object that someone else has lost. Although the Talmudic rabbis followed the Torah’s commandments, their theological orientation was often so bold and heretical that some of their statements may be best appreciated by those who are not themselves devout. And unlike later works that followed from it, the Talmud is not a law code intended to tell Jews how to behave but a record of rabbinic legal conversations in which many of the questions are left open and unresolved. It is a text for those who are living the questions rather than those who have found the answers. And so if you are a thinking, questioning person who does not take anything at face value, then Talmud study may be for you.

2. Can I study Talmud even if I have little or no Hebrew background?

Yes. The Talmud is actually written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic, which was the lingua franca of Jews living in Babylon (now Iraq) during the first few centuries CE. But it is available in multiple English translations, both in print and online. Many passages in the Talmud involve Midrash (rabbinic interpretations of biblical passages) and a close reading of biblical sources; certainly knowledge of Hebrew is helpful in appreciating the linguistic connections the Talmud frequently draws. But Talmud can be studied on many levels – it is often compared to a sea because of its vastness and depth, and as with a sea, you can skim the surface, swim underwater, or become a deep-sea diver and learn about all the flora and fauna on the ocean floor. You can learn superficially or deeply, and yes, some of that depends on your level of Hebrew.

3. What version of the Talmud do you recommend I use, and where can I find it?

The version of the Talmud that has become most standard and most widely studied in traditional settings is the Vilna Shas, first printed in 1835. This is what people commonly imagine when they picture a page of Talmud — a block of Hebrew text in the center of the page surrounded by marginal commentaries. But there are also more accessible versions of the text, such as the modern Hebrew edition published with the very helpful commentary of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, which is currently being translated into English as the Koren Talmud Bavli and available for free online at Sefaria.org. (Sefaria also offers a direct link to the current day’s page of Talmud from its homepage.) Artscroll publishes a translation that will be best suited to traditional Jews, and the Soncino commentary—available for free online at www.halakhah.com — is readable if somewhat archaic.

4. What resources and study aides are most helpful?

There is a vast array of English-language daf yomi podcasts consisting of recordings of daf yomi classes taught by rabbis and other scholars ranging in length from the five-minute daf yomi shiur (lesson) to lessons that are well over an hour long. The standard daf yomi podcast is probably about 45-50 minutes. One very accessible, clear explication of the daily page, is Michelle Farber’s dafyomi4women, which, though taught by a woman to a group of women in Raanana, Israel, is as valuable for men as for women. A number of websites, such as the Orthodox Union’s Daf Yomi Resources Page, offer various supplemental materials, such as summaries and commentaries, for the daf yomi.

And finally, if you are interested in reading secondary sources that will introduce you to the world of the rabbis and the nature of Talmud as a literary genre, you might consider such books as Ruth Calderon’s A Bride for One Night, a collection of fictional tales based on Talmudic narratives; Binyamin Lau’s The Sages, a collection and interpretation of stories about various Talmudic figures, organized chronologically; and my own book, If All the Seas Were Ink, a memoir of seven and a half years of daf yomi study that is at once a guided tour of the Talmud and a deeply personal tale of love and loss.

5. Does it make sense to start in the middle of a daf yomi cycle, or should I wait for the next cycle to begin?

A new daf yomi cycle begins only once every seven and a half years — the next cycle begins on June 8, 2027. But we begin a new tractate covering a new topic every few months, and so you can start at the beginning of a tractate without feeling lost. Numerous daf yomi calendars, such as this one, are available online, and you can also download daf yomi calendars to your phone.

6. One page a day, seven days a week, is quite a relentless pace. Do you have any tips for staying on schedule? What if I fall behind?

The key to sticking with daf yomi is to find a way to incorporate a bit of learning into your schedule every day, but this learning can take many forms. The rabbis in Tractate Taanit teach that “a person should always be pliable like a reed, and not rigid like a cedar” (Taanit 20a). It helps to be flexible about what it means to learn the page. Some days you may be able to sit down and read the page itself, along with related commentaries and study aides; other days you may have time to listen to a podcast while driving to work or folding the laundry. The point is learning every day, not how you do it. If you fall behind, it helps to have a specific day of the week designated for catching up. It also helps to learn with a study partner or as part of a class, because then you are accountable to someone else. Of course, you are always accountable to the schedule of daf yomi, which is sort of like a treadmill — it just keeps moving forwards, and you need to keep running. It is exhausting at times, but it also keeps you on your toes.

7. What keeps you going on days when you have no motivation to learn or begin to lose interest?

A commitment to learning daf yomi is sort of like a marriage — you’re in the relationship for the long haul, even if most days there are no passionate sparks. Sometimes it’s hard to find anything meaningful or relevant on the page, but perhaps it helps to imagine those pages as the context for the more exciting material that will follow a few days later. Without the context, you cannot fully appreciate that fabulous story about the man who mistakes his wife for a prostitute, or the unicorns that could not fit into Noah’s ark. On pages where the topics seems less interesting, it sometimes it helps to pay attention not just to what the rabbis are saying, but to how they transition from one subject to the next, such that a discussion of sex with a virgin suddenly morphs into a discussion of how to avoid hearing something untoward by sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears—as if to suggest that all acts of penetration are one and the same. To learn daf yomi, you have to allow yourself to be carried along for the ride — and while it’s almost never smooth sailing, some days are certainly bumpier than others.

8. How do you keep track of everything you learn?

Learning daf yomi is a bit like zooming through a safari on a motorcycle – there is so much to take in, and yet you are moving ahead at a rapid clip. There are many ways to take stock without slowing down. You might write about something you’ve learned (see, for instance, my own daf yomi limericks), or draw a picture summarizing something on the daf (see these incredible sketches). You may simply write notes in the margins, summarizing what you have learned. In my case, many years of marginal notes scribbled in my volumes of Talmud became the basis of a memoir, If All the Seas Were Ink.

9. What might I get out of studying daf yomi?

When I first started learning, I didn’t think the Talmud could possibly have anything to say to me personally. But I discovered that when you learn deeply and allow yourself to listen carefully to what the text has to say, you find yourself living against the backdrop of the Talmud — such that the text is a commentary on life, and life is a commentary on the text. The rabbis teach in Tractate Eruvin (54a) that “one who is walking alone his way and has no companion should occupy himself with the study of Torah.” At first the Talmud was my companion during a rather lonely stretch of life. But through my study of Talmud, I overcame a difficult period in my life and found a way forward. And so I followed the Talmud, but the Talmud has also followed me through the various twists and turns my life has taken — through divorce, dating, aliyah (immigration to Israel) marriage, pregnancy and motherhood. I invite you to join me in this journey.

The post 9 Things to Know About the Daf Yomi (Daily Page of Talmud) appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

However, many Jews have never heard of it. If you are one of them, know that you are not alone! Despite the Mishnah’s immense importance to Jewish life in the past and present, it often flies entirely under the radar, such that many Jews who are deeply engaged in synagogue life never crack open a page of its teachings.

Why the Mishnah Gets So Little Attention

The reasons for this are numerous and varied. First, it is written in terse, fragmented Hebrew that can be ambiguous in its meaning. That reality can make reading the text (even in English translation) a challenge. Second, it devotes substantial time to many subjects that seem quite distant from 21st-century concerns, such as temple sacrifices and ritual purity laws. Third, many rabbis and educators present it primarily as a book of esoteric laws – and for most people, the idea of sitting down to read a bunch of legal jargon from the year 200 feels downright ridiculous.

Despite all that, I find that the Mishnah can be genuinely transformational. For anyone looking to engage more deeply in the study of Judaism – past, present, or future – it is a great place to start.

But before arguing why this 63-tractate, 500+ chapter, 1,800-year-old document is worth your time, let’s explore its content.

The Mishnah’s Structure: Six Books

The Mishnah is organized into six books:

• Zera’im (Seeds) provides an overview of the agricultural world inhabited by ancient Jews. It also outlines key elements of Jewish liturgy’s structure.

• Mo’ed (Seasons) examines the yearly calendar of Jewish holidays, including Shabbat, introducing many of the details that today we take for granted. As one prominent example, the Mishnah codifies the idea of a Passover seder, which now serves as one of the bedrock experiences of Jewish life all over the world.

• Nashim (Women) looks at Jewish family life. Without it, we would have almost no conception of what a Jewish wedding or divorce would entail, as the Torah leaves such subjects almost entirely unexplored.

• Nezikin (Damages) looks at civil disputes between Jews, along with related questions of crime and punishment. It also brings us the Mishnah’s only tractate concerned primarily with ethical issues: Pirkei Avot, which is the best-known section of the Mishnah today).

• Kodashim (Holy Things) discusses the practice of sacrifices at the Temple

• Taharot (Purities) elucidates the complex laws of ritual purity and impurity.

Minority Opinions and Other Mishnah Features

The Mishnah provides the framework to Rabbinic Judaism as we know it today. Without it, Jews would have no conception of a thrice-daily Amidah prayer recitation, no ritual of asking the Four Questions on Passover, and no connection to the world-renowned quotation, “If not now, when?”

One small collection of rabbis, over the course of several generations and a couple hundred years, laid out entire systems of holiday observance, civil and criminal law, and taxation, among many others.

It’s not just the rituals and customs introduced in the Mishnah that are fascinating, though. The structure of it is at the core of what we think of as Jewish tradition today: a rich collection of arguments that, most importantly, preserves minority viewpoints.

The decision to include losing perspectives alongside winning ones is by no means intuitive. Many legal texts, ancient and modern, simply delineate rules and regulations. But the Mishnah’s crucial decision of presenting a wide spectrum of thoughts (and occasionally doing so without indicating the debate’s victor) laid the groundwork for the rich tradition of Jewish debate that all contemporary denominations hold dear. In many ways, the Mishnah created the foundation for a tradition in which the refrain “Two Jews, three opinions” would hold true.  It set the tone for a religion in which deep and holy disagreement with one another (and even with ourselves) is at the very core.

Is the Mishnah Still Relevant?

One of the most frequent critiques of  the Mishnah is that its  final two books focus on content that is, in most measurable ways, not directly applicable to our lives today. Kodashim focuses almost entirely on the different forms of sacrificial offerings that took place at the Temple in Jerusalem, and Taharot discusses what a rabbi of mine once colloquially (and not inaccurately) termed “Jewish cooties” – the system of laws regarding objects that are deemed ritually pure (tahor) or ritually impure (tamei).

While these texts can seem archaic or even offensive to some readers, some beautiful principles can be gleaned from them. For example, we learn in one section that the daily offering (tamid) at the Temple takes precedence over those offerings that are sacrificed on a special occasion (such as a holiday). Later commentators expound from this that those moments that happen most regularly – those that might feel mundane or repetitive – are often the most holy.

These sections also provide a unique opportunity to live out the value of Torah Lish’ma (learning for its own sake). While the particulars of tum’ah (ritual impurity) might not matter much today, the discussion of it is surprisingly stimulating, largely due to the rigorous logic and attention to detail that the rabbis bring to the table.

The Mishnah may not be the best-known text in our tradition. In the Orthodox world, it is seen largely as a prelude to the Gemara (the second and more expansive section of the Talmud), and in many Jewish communities it is barely discussed at all. When explored deeply, however, it can add richness and texture to Jewish lived experience today, over 1,800 years after its initial publication.

How To Study Mishnah

So how can you jump into the Mishnah and experience it for yourself? It is, after all, an intimidating text. Here are a few recommendations.

1. Enroll in this Introduction to Mishnah class, available through Darshan Yeshiva.

These seven short podcasts (one introductory, and one for each book of the Mishnah), provide a general taste of what the Mishnah has to offer. This should help give you some confidence to feel ready to jump into the text yourself. (Other Jewish course providers, both online and bricks-and-mortar, also sometimes offer introductory Mishnah classes. You may want to inquire at local synagogues, Jewish community centers and universities.)

2. Listen to free #YourTorah podcasts produced by JOFA UK.

These 18-minute podcasts, each taught by a female scholar, are designed to give an overview of each tractate of the Mishnah. The podcasts include “Why Study Mishnah” and “What Is Mishnah.”

3. Choose one tractate of the Mishnah that particularly interests you, such as B’rachot (on blessings), Pesachim (on Passover), or Kiddushin (on marriage).

Then purchase the volume of the Kehati Mishnah (Hebrew-English edition) that contains that tractate. Or download it for free to read on an iOS mobile device. The Kehati translation is the only one we know of  that provides detailed explanatory notes for beginners. While it lacks explanatory notes, Sefaria contains the entire Mishnah in translation for free. In addition to being affordable, an advantage of reading on Sefaria is that the site hyperlinks to numerous other related Jewish texts.

4. Find a study partner.

This person might be located in your neighborhood, but he or she  could also be a friend from afar, with whom you can study via Skype or another video-conferencing platform. Some programs, such as Project Zug (a partnership of Mechon Hadar and Panim, two nondenominational Jewish educational institutions) and Partners In Torah (an Orthodox outreach program), will help you find a knowledgeable partner/tutor. Study together, and slowly! There will be elements of the text that seem confusing. Work through them as best as you can, and as you progress through a few chapters, certain elements will become easier to understand.

5. Embrace both the challenge and the reward.

This text is a hidden gem of the Jewish tradition. Wishing you nothing but joy as you journey your way through it!

The post Why the Mishnah Is the Best Jewish Book You’ve Never Read appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

About the Talmud

Although Talmud is largely about law, it should not be confused with either codes of law or with a commentary on the legal sections of the Torah. Due to its spare and laconic style, the Talmud is studied, not read. The difficulty of the intergenerational text has necessitated and fostered the development of an institutional and communal structure that supported the learning of Talmud and the establishment of special schools where each generation is apprenticed into its study by the previous generation.

Want to learn Talmud with us? Daf Yomi is a program of reading the entire Talmud one day at a time, and My Jewish Learning is offering a daily dose of Talmud in your inbox. Sign up for it here!

The Mishnah

In the second century, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch published the Mishnah in six primary sections, or orders, dealing with agriculture, sacred times, women and personal status, damages, holy things, and purity laws. By carefully laying out different opinions concerning Jewish law, the Mishnah presents itself more as a case book of law. While the Mishnah preserved the teachings of earlier rabbis, it also shows the signs of a unified editing. Part of that editing process included selecting materials; many of the traditions that did not “make it” into the Mishnah were collected in a companion volume called the Tosefta (appendix, or supplement).

The Gemara (“learning”)

After the publication of the Mishnah, the sages of Israel, both in the land of Israel, and in the largest diaspora community of Babylonia (modern day Iraq), began to study the both the Mishnah and the traditional teachings. Their work consisted largely of working out the Mishnah’s inner logic, trying to extract legal principles from the specific statements of case law, searching out the derivations of the legal statements from Scripture, and relating statements found in the Mishnah to traditions that were left out. Each community produced its own Gemara which have been preserved as two different multi-volume sets: the Talmud Yerushalmi includes the Mishnah and the Gemara produced by the sages of the Land of Israel, and the Talmud Bavli includes the Mishnah and the Gemara of the Babylonian Jewish sages.

Commentaries

In some ways, the Talmud was never completed; the Tosafist commentators during the middle ages extended to the whole of the Gemara the same kinds of analysis that the sages of the Gemara had performed upon the Mishnah. Other commentators, like Rashi, sought to explain the text in a sequential manner.

Modern Study

Many modern scholars have begun applying the tools of literary and linguistic analysis to the text of the Talmud. Some have used these tools to focus on the underlying uniformity and consistency of the text, while others have done sophisticated analysis of the sources and alleged history of the text. Still others have examined the literary artistry of the Talmud. Many scholars have, with varying degrees of success, tried to use the Talmud as a source for historical inquiry.

The post What Is the Talmud? appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

The Talmud, a huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains in fact no less than seven gender designations including: 

1. Zachar, male.
2. Nekevah, female.
3. Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
4. Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
5. Aylonit, identified female at birth without developing secondary female sexual characteristics at puberty.
6. Saris hamah, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual
   characteristics at puberty.
7. Saris adam, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual characteristics because of castration.

The rabbis did not use the word gender as we do today, as referring to a cultural construct distinct from biological sex. The seven genders they describe are distinguished by physical and biological realities, not culturally conditioned categories. But because gender has many implications in Jewish law, how the rabbis understood these categories has consequences for the rights and responsibilities such individuals enjoy in the community.

The rabbis also had a tradition that the first human being was both male and female. Versions of this midrash are found throughout rabbinic literature, including in the Talmud:

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar also said: Adam was first created with two faces (one male and the other female). As it is stated: “You have formed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.” (Psalms 139:5)

Eruvin 19a

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar imagines that the first human was created both male and female — with two faces. Later, this original human being was separated and became two distinct people, Adam and Eve. In contemporary parlance, we might then say the first human being was nonbinary. Genesis Rabbah 8:1 offers a slightly different version of Rabbi Yirmeya’s teaching:

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created him as an androgynos (one having both male and female sexual characteristics), as it is said, “male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Said Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created for him a double face, and sawed him and made him backs, a back here and a back there, as it is said, “Behind and before, You formed me” (Psalms 139:5).

Genesis Rabbah 8:1

In this version of the teaching, Rabbi Yirmeya is not focusing on the first human’s face (or rather, faces) but on their sex organs — they have both. The midrash imagines this original human looked something like a man and woman conjoined at the back so that one side has a women’s face and a woman’s sex organs and the other side has a man’s face and sex organs. Then God split this original person in half, creating the first man and woman. Ancient history buffs will recognize this image as similar to the character Aristophanes’ description of the first humans as both male and female, eventually sundered to create lone males and females forever madly seeking one another for the purposes of reuniting to experience that primordial state. (Plato, Symposium, 189ff)

For the rabbis, the androgynos wasn’t just a thing of the mythic past. The androgynos was in fact a recognized gender category in their present — though not with two heads, only both kinds of sex organs. The term appears no less than 32 times in the Mishnah and 283 times in the Talmud. Most of these citations are not variations on this myth, but rather discussions that consider how Jewish law (halakhah) applies to one who has both male and female sexual characteristics.

That the androgynos is, from a halakhic perspective, neither male nor female, is confirmed by Mishnah Bikkurim 4:1, which states this explicitly:

The androgynos is in some ways like men, and in other ways like women. In other ways he is like men and women, and in others he is like neither men nor women.

Mishnah Bikkurim 4:1

Because Hebrew has no gender neutral pronoun, the Mishnah uses a male pronoun for the androgynos, though this is obviously insufficient given the rabbinic descriptions of this person. Reading on we find that the androgynos is, for the rabbis, in many ways like a man — they dress like a man, they are obligated in all commandments like a man, they marry women and their “white emissions” lead to impurity. However, in other ways, the androgynos is like a woman — they do not share in inheritance like sons, they do not eat of sacrifices that are reserved only for men and their “red discharge” leads to impurity.

The Mishnah goes on to list ways in which an androgynos is just like any other person. Like any human being, “one who strikes him or curses him is liable.” (Bikkurim 4:3) Similarly, one who murders an androgynos is, well, a murderer. But the androgynos is also unlike a man or a woman in other important legal respects — for instance, such a person is not liable for entering the Temple in a state of impurity as both a man and woman would be.

As should now be clear, the rabbinic interest in these gender ambiguous categories is largely legal. Since halakhah was structured for a world in which most people were either male or female, applying the law to individuals who didn’t fall neatly into one of those two categories was challenging. As Rabbi Yose remarks in this same chapter of the Mishnah: “The androgynos is a unique creature, and the sages could not decide about him.” (Bikkurim 4:5)

In many cases, the androgynos is lumped together with other kinds of nonbinary persons as well as other marginalized populations, including women, slaves, the disabled and minors. For example, concerning participation in the three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot) during which the Jews of antiquity would travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, the mishnah of Chagigah opens:

All are obligated on the three pilgrimage festivals to appear in the Temple and sacrifice an offering, except for a deaf-mute, an imbecile, and a minor; and a tumtum, an androgynos, women, and slaves who are not emancipated; and the lame, the blind, the sick, and the old, and one who is unable to ascend to Jerusalem on his own legs.

Chagigah 1:1

As this mishnah indicates, it is only healthy, free adult men who are obligated to appear at the Temple to observe the pilgrimage festivals. People who are not adult men, and men who are enslaved or too old or unwell to make the journey, are exempt.

As we have already stated, the androgynos was not the only person of ambiguous gender identified by the rabbis. Similarly, the rabbis recognized one whose sexual characteristics are lacking or difficult to determine, called a tumtum. In the mishnah from Bikkurim we cited earlier, Rabbi Yose, who said the androgynos was legally challenging for the sages, said the tumtum was much easier to figure out. 

The rabbis also recognized that some people’s sexual characteristics can change with puberty — either naturally or through intervention. Less common than the androgynos and tumtum, but still found throughout rabbinic texts, are the aylonit, who is born with organs identified as female at birth but develops no secondary sexual characteristics at all (or male characteristics), and the saris, who is born with male-identified organs but develops no secondary sexual characteristics at all (or female characteristics). These changes can happen naturally over time (saris hamah) or with human intervention (saris adam). 

For the rabbis, what is most significant about the aylonit and the saris is that they are presumed infertile — the latter is sometimes translated as “eunuch.” Their inability to have offspring creates legal complications the rabbis address, for example:

A woman who is 20 years old who did not grow two pubic hairs shall bring proof that she is twenty years old, and from that point forward she assumes the status of an aylonit. If she marries and her husband dies childless, she neither performs halitzah nor does she enter into levirate marriage.

Mishnah Niddah 5:9

A woman who reaches the age of 20 without visible signs of puberty, in particular pubic hair, is deemed an aylonit who is infertile. According to this mishnah, she may still marry, but it is not expected that she will bear children. Therefore, if her husband dies and the couple is in fact childless, his brother is not obligated to marry her, as would normally be required by the law of levirate marriage. 

A nonbinary person who does not have the same halakhic status as a male or female, but is something else that is best described as ambiguous or in between, presented a halakhic challenge that was not particularly foreign for the rabbis, who discuss analogs in the animal and plant kingdoms. For example, the rabbinic texts describe a koi as an animal that is somewhere between wild and domesticated (Mishnah Bikkurim 2:8) and an etrog — yes, that beautiful citron that is essential for Sukkot — as between a fruit and a vegetable (Mishnah Bikkurim 2:6, see also Rosh Hashanah 14). Because they don’t fit neatly into common categories, the koi and the etrog require special halakhic consideration. The rabbinic understanding of the world was that most categories — be they animal, vegetable or mineral — are imperfect descriptors of the world, either as it is or as it should be.

In recent decades, queer Jews and allies have sought to reinterpret these seven genders of the Talmud as a way of reclaiming a positive space for nonbinary Jews in the tradition. The starting point is that while it is true that the Talmud understands gender to largely operate on a binary axis, the rabbis clearly understood that not everyone fits these categories.

Rabbi David Seidenberg contributed to this article.

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Like the Talmud Bavli, the Talmud Yerushalmi consists of two layers — the Mishnah and the Gemara. For the most part, the Mishnah of the two Talmuds is identical, though there are some variations in the text and in the order of material. The Gemara of the Yerushalmi, though, differs significantly in both content and style from that of the Bavli. First, the Yerushalmi Gemara is primarily written in Palestinian Aramaic, which is quite different from the Babylonian dialect. The Yerushalmi contains more long narrative portions than the Bavli does and, unlike the Bavli, tends to repeat large chunks of material. The presence of these repeated passages has led many to conclude that the editing of the Yerushalmi was never completed. Others, however, have argued that these repetitions represent a deliberate stylistic choice, perhaps aimed at reminding readers of connections between one section and another.

Comparing the Two Texts

While the Bavli favors multi-part, complex arguments, Yerushalmi discussions rarely include lengthy debate. For instance, both the Bavli and the Yerushalmi discuss the following Mishnah:

“For all seven days [of Sukkot], one should turn one’s Sukkah into one’s permanent home, and one’s house into one’s temporary home. . .”(Sukkah 2: 9).

The Bavli Gemara embarks on a long discussion of the validity of this statement in the Mishnah:

. . .The rabbis taught, ‘You shall dwell [in booths on the holiday of Sukkot]’ (Leviticus 23:42) means ‘you shall live in booths.’ From this, they said ‘for all seven days, one should make the Sukkah [temporary booth or hut] one’s permanent home, and one’s house temporary home. How should one do this? One should bring one’s nice dishes and couches into the Sukkah, and should eat, drink and sleep in the Sukkah.’ Is this really so? Didn’t Rava say that one should study Torah and Mishnah in the Sukkah, but should study Talmud outside of the Sukkah? (This statement appears to contradict the Mishnah’s assertion that during Sukkot, one should do everything inside the Sukkah.) This is not a contradiction. [The Mishnah] refers to reviewing what one has already studied, while [Rava’s statement] refers to learning new material [on which one might not be able to concentrate while in the Sukkah]” (Talmud Bavli Sukkah 28b-29a).

As proof of this resolution, the Bavli goes on to relate a story of two rabbis who leave their Sukkah in order to study new material. Finally, the Gemara suggests an alternate resolution of the apparent conflict–namely, that one learning Talmud is required to stay in a large Sukkah, but may leave a small Sukkah.

In contrast, the Yerushalmi offers very little discussion of the Mishnah:

“The Torah says, ‘You shall dwell in booths.’ ‘Dwell’ always means ‘live,’ as it says, ‘you will inherit the land and dwell there’ (Deuteronomy 17:14). This means that one should eat and sleep in the Sukkah and should bring one’s dishes there” (Talmud Yerushalmi Sukkah 2:10).

After this brief definition of terms and law, the Yerushalmi moves on to a new discussion.

Parallels Between the Two Talmuds

As might be expected, the Bavli quotes mostly Babylonian rabbis, while the Yerushalmi more often quotes Palestinian rabbis. There is, however, much cross-over between the two Talmuds. Both Talmuds record instances of rabbis traveling from the land of Israel to Babylonia and vice versa. Many times, the rabbis of one Talmud will compare their own practice to that of the other religious center. Early midrashim and other texts composed in Palestine appear more frequently in the Yerushalmi, but are also present in the Bavli.

Both the Bavli and the Yerushalmi follow the Mishnah’s division into orders, tractates, and chapters. Neither contains Gemara on all 73 tractates of the Mishnah. The Bavli includes Gemara on thirty-six and a half non-consecutive tractates. The Yerushalmi has Gemara on the first 39 tractates of the Mishnah. Some scholars believe that the differences in the Gemara reflect the different priorities and curricula of Babylonia and of the Land of Israel. Others think that parts of each Gemara have been lost.

Within the Yerushalmi, quoted sections of the Mishnah are labeled as “halakhot” (laws). Citations of the Yerushalmi text usually refer to the text by tractate, chapter, and halakhah. Thus, “Sukkah 2:10” (quoted above) means “Tractate Sukkah, Chapter 2, halakhah 10.” Some editions of the Yerushalmi are printed in folio pages, each side of which has two columns. Thus, Yerushalmi citations also often include a reference to the page and column number (a, b, c, or d). In contrast, the Bavli is printed on folio pages, and is referred to by page number and side (a or b). These differences result from variations in early printings, and not from choices within the rabbinic communities of Babylonia and the land of Israel.

In most editions of the Yerushalmi, the Talmud text is surrounded by the commentary of the 18th-century rabbi, Moses ben Simeon Margoliot, known as the P’nai Moshe. The P’nai Moshe clarifies and comments on the text of the Yerushalmi, in much the same way that Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, 11th century) explains and discusses the text of the Bavli.

Medieval sources credit Rabbi Yohanan, a third-century sage, with editing the Yerushalmi. However, the fact that the Yerushalmi quotes many fourth and fifth-century rabbis makes this suggestion impossible. From the identities of the rabbis quoted in the Yerushalmi, and from the historical events mentioned in the text, most contemporary scholars conclude that this Talmud was edited between the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth century CE. The codification of the Bavli took place about a hundred years later.

Cultural Concerns

The discussions of the Bavli and the Yerushalmi reflect the differing concerns of the cultures from which the texts emerged. A comparison of the narrative elements of the two Talmuds suggests that the rabbis of the Yerushalmi had more interaction with non-rabbis–both Jews and non-Jews–than the rabbis of the Bavli did. The Yerushalmi, produced in a place under Hellenistic control, reflects Greek influences, both in its language and in its content.

Traditionally, the Bavli has been considered the more authoritative of the two Talmuds. This privileging of the Bavli reflects the fact that Babylonia was the dominant center of Jewish life from talmudic times through the beginning of the medieval period. The first codifiers of halakhah (Jewish law), based in Baghdad in the eighth through 10th centuries, used the Bavli as the basis of their legal writings. Reflecting the prevalent attitude toward the Yerushalmi, the Machzor Vitri, written in France in the 11th or 12th century, comments, “When the Talmud Yerushalmi disagrees with our Talmud, we disregard the Yerushalmi.”

Today, there is renewed interest in studying the Talmud Yerushalmi. This interest reflects the current academic emphases on tracing the development of the Talmudic text, and on understanding the cultures that produced these texts. Many scholars attempt to learn about the history of the talmudic text by comparing parallel passages in the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. Comparisons between the two Talmuds also yield new information about the relative attitudes and interests of Babylonian and Palestinian rabbis.

The traditional approach to learning Talmud, which emphasized the legal elements of the text, tended to dismiss the Yerushalmi as incomplete and non-authoritative. Today, interest in the literary, cultural and historical aspects of traditional texts has prompted a rediscovery of this Talmud, and a willingness to reconsider its place in the Jewish canon.

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Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Rabbi-in-Residence for the Jewish FundS for Justice.

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The Mishnah is the earlier work, compiled from the teachings of sages living at the end of the Second Temple period and in the century following the destruction of the Temple.

A study book of laws and value statements that express the classical rabbis’ vision of Judaism, the Mishnah’s preoccupation is promotion of a religious and legal tradition both continuous with the past and practical for life in the post-destruction Diaspora. The Mishnah contains multiple opinions on many laws and does not often suggest which is the most authoritative. The plurality of Jewish practice is preserved in the text.

Gemara

Sages in both Babylonia (modern-day Iraq) and the Land of Israel continued to study traditional teachings, including the Mishnah, describing the teachings as having been passed down from Moses at Sinai (either literally or figuratively). The oral discussions were preserved, either by memorization or notation, and later edited together in a manner that places generations of sages in conversation with one another. These teachers were interested in bringing greater harmonization between biblical and rabbinic traditions, largely by providing proof-texts for known laws and explaining differences between the biblical and rabbinic versions of laws. This is the origin of the Gemara.

Babylonian vs. Palestinian

There are actually two works known as “Gemara” — the Babylonian Gemara (referred to as “Bavli” in Hebrew) and the Palestinian (or Jerusalem) Gemara (referred to as “Yerushalmi“). The term “Gemara” itself comes from the Aramaic root g.m.r (equivalent to l.m.d, in Hebrew), giving it the meaning “teaching.”

Although the Yerushalmi was completed earlier (with material spanning roughly 200-500 C.E.), it was eclipsed by the much longer Bavli (200-600 C.E.). The Bavli’s popularity may be due to the work of the Gaonim of Babylonia, who cited that work in the legal judgements (responsa) that they sent to communities throughout the Diaspora. Both Gemaras were written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic dialects and share the teachings of sages known by the term Amoraim (in the singular, Amora).

Both Broad and Deep

Gemara encompasses several literary genres, and subject matter ranges from the sacred to the profane. While it is often misrepresented as merely a commentary on the laws of the Mishnah, the Gemara has an intricate relationship with the Mishnah and a far greater scope. Although it is organized in accordance with the structure of the six orders of the Mishnah, mishnaic teachings are, for the Gemara, the launch pad for diverse topics: prayer, holy days, agriculture, sexual habits, contemporary medical knowledge, superstitions, criminal and civil law.

The Gemara contains both halakhah (legal material) and aggadah (narrative material). Aggadah includes historical material, biblical commentaries, philosophy, theology, and wisdom literature. Stories reveal information about life in ancient times, among Jews and between Jews and their neighbors, and folk customs. All of these genres are blended together with the halakhic material, in what is sometimes described as a stream-of-consciousness fashion filled with meaningful tangents and digressions.

The Relationship of Gemara to Mishnah

In dealing with the teachings of the Mishnah, the Gemara has multiple functions. It explains unclear words or phrasing. It also provides precedents or examples to assist in application of the law and offers alternative opinions from sages of the Mishnah and their contemporaries (known as Tannaim). Whereas the Mishnah barely cites biblical verses, the Gemara for nearly every law discussed introduces these connections between the biblical text and the practices and legal opinions of its time. It also extends and restricts applications of various laws, and even adds laws on issues left out of the Mishnah entirely (for example, the key observances of Hanukkah). Multiple opinions of sages are weighed against one another, often without presenting a conclusion.

How the Gemara is Studied

Talmudic teachings have been most often studied in groups or pairs– among masters and students and/or between two partners in learning. A pair of study partners is called a havruta. The havruta-style provides a challenging, lively, and intimate environment in which to explore the rich spiritual and intellectual depths of the Talmud.

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Aggadah – Pronounced Ah-gah-DAH, this word literally means “telling” and is a catch-all referring to the non-legal (e.g. non-halachic) writings in the Talmud and other classical rabbinic literature. It includes biblical interpretation, narratives and folklore, parables, historical anecdotes, practical advice, and moral wisdom.

Amora – Pronounced ah-MORE-ah (plural Amoraim) this word refers to rabbis in both the Land of Israel and Babylonia in the third through fifth centuries who are quoted in the Gemara.

Bavli – Pronounced BAHV-lee, this refers to the version of the Talmud produced in Babylonia (in English, the “Babylonian Talmud”). It is one of two Talmuds (the other is the Yerushalmi), and it is the more complete, the more studied, and the more sacred of the two. When people refer simply to “The Talmud” they usually mean the Bavli. The Bavli is the foundational text of Judaism.

Beit Midrash – Literally “house of study,” the beit midrash is the place where rabbis come together to learn, lecture, and debate.

Beraita – Pronounced BRY-tah, this refers to a teaching by a Tanna (first-third century rabbi) that is not in the Mishnah. Many though not all beraitas are collected in the Tosefta.

Gemara – Pronounced ge-MAH-rah, this is the bulk of the text of the Talmud and it is the sum of all the various commentaries on the Mishnah. Sometimes the word “Talmud” refers to the Gemara alone, though it usually refers to the combination of the Mishnah and the Gemara.

Geonim — Singular: Gaon. Pronounced: geh-OH-neem. The geonim were the heads of the talmudic academies in Babylonia, situated in Sura and Pumbedita, from the time that the Talmud was completed (late 6th century) until the 10th century. In their day, they were the highest authorities on Jewish law. They were also among the earliest talmudic commentators, and authored the first siddurim. The most famous is Saadiah Gaon.

Gezerah Shavah – Pronounced get-ZAY-reh SHAH-vah, this literally means “equivalent ruling.” It refers to an argument that a rule that applies in one case applies to another based on an equivalence between the two cases, either similar circumstances or similar language.

Halacha — Pronounced hah-lah-KHAH, from the Hebrew word for “walking” or “path,” is the rabbinic interpretation of Jewish law.

Havruta – Pronounced khav-ROO-tah, this word refers to a partner with whom one studies Talmud.

Kal va’homer – Pronounced kahl vah-KHOH-mare, this literally means “easy and hard” or “lenient and strict.” It refers to deductive arguments in which a less obvious case is used to prove a more obvious one, or a less stringent case is used to prove a more stringent one.

Machloket – Pronounced makh-LO-ket, this means dispute or argument and refers to a legal disagreement between sages in the Talmud.

Massechet – Pronounced mah-SEH-khet, this word means “tractate.” The Babylonian Talmud is composed of 63 massechets.

Mishnah/mishnah – Pronounced MISH-nah, the Mishnah is a third-century compilation of rabbinic law. It is the core of the Talmud, which is a collection of commentaries on the Mishnah. The world “mishnah” (small “m”) refers to a single teaching in the Mishnah.

Rashi – Rashi, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, was one of the greatest expositors and commentators on the Talmud. He lived in 11th-century France and also wrote a classic commentary on the Bible.

Rishonim — Singular: rishon. Pronounced: ree-SHONE-eem. The rishonim were the leading rabbis between the 11th and 15th centuries CE, coming after the geonim and before the creation of the most significant talmudic law code, the Shulchan Aruch. Famous rishonim include Rashi, Nahmanides, Moses Maimonides, Yehuda HaLevy and the Tosfaot, among many others.

Shas – Pronounced SHAHS, this is actually an acronym for the Hebrew term shisha sidrei, meaning “six orders” referring to the six orders of the Mishnah. The term is used, however, as a shorthand for “Talmud.”

Siyyum – Pronounced see-YOOM, this is a celebration that one makes when one has completed a certain defined set of study, often one massechet, or tractate, of the Talmud.

Sugya – Pronounced SOOG-ya, this refers to a set of arguments in the Talmud that together discuss a particular issue or mishnah. A sugya is a kind of sustained argument on a subject. These are the building blocks of the Talmud (almost like unmarked chapters).

Tanna – Pronounced TAH-nah (plural Tannaim), the Tannaim were teachers who flourished in the Land of Israel in the first two centuries CE and whose views appear in the Mishnah.

Tosafot – A set of commentaries to the Talmud that add to Rashi’s commentary, primarily composed by his grandchildren.

Tosefta – Pronounced toe-SEF-tah, this refers to a collection of Tannaitic teachings (from first–third century rabbis) that follows the same structure as the Mishnah. The teachings that appear in the Tosefta are called beraitas.

Yerushalmi – Pronounced yeh-roo-SHAHL-mee, this refers to the version of the Talmud produced in the Land of Israel, and it is less complete, less studied, and less authoritative in Jewish tradition, though still holy.

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Akiva’s wife, who one source refers to by the name Rachel (according to Reuven Hammer’s 2015 biography Akiva: Life, Legend and Legacy ) was an instrumental force in his development as a scholar. While earlier sources in the Jerusalem Talmud (third to fifth centuries CE) have little to say about Akiva’s wife, other than that she suffered in order to support his Torah study (even going so far as to sell her hair in order to do so), the Babylonian Talmud (sixth century CE) fills in the gaps by crafting a portrait of a woman devoted to her husband and determined to cultivate his innate intellectual talents. Akiva married the daughter of his wealthy employer, Kalba Savua, for whom he worked as a shepherd. In response to their marriage, Savua disowned his daughter and cut her off financially, presumably objecting because of Akiva’s lowly economic status. Although the two were impoverished, Akiva’s wife encouraged him to study Torah (one source relates that his studying Torah was a condition she insisted upon in order to marry him), and through a combination of his own gifts and volition and her support he educated himself and grew to become a recognized scholar.

What we know of Rabbi Akiva is more legend than historical fact, and these legends serve to fill in the outlines of a character who represents the quintessential scholar and lover of Torah. An oft-cited source in Avot de-Rabbi Natan relates the following story:

What was the beginning of Rabbi Akiva? They say that he was 40 years old and had not learned a thing. One time, he was standing at the mouth of the well and said, “Who carved this rock?” They said to him, “The water that consistently falls on it every day.” They said to him, “Akiva, did you not read water wears away stones (Job 14:19)?” Immediately Rabbi Akiva ruled… : Just as the soft sculpts the hard, words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, will all the more so carve my heart/mind, which is but flesh and blood! Immediately he returned to learn Torah. (Avot de-Rabbi Natan, commentary on Pirkei Avot 1:4, translated by Rabbi Kelilah Miller)

The Mishnah relates the following story that demonstrates Akiva’s deep commitment to Torah:

The Sages taught: One time, after the Bar Kochba rebellion, the evil empire of Rome decreed that Israel may not engage in the study and practice of Torah. Pappos ben Yehuda came and found Rabbi Akiva, who was convening assemblies in public and engaging in Torah study. Pappos said to him: “Akiva, are you not afraid of the empire?”

Rabbi Akiva answered him: “I will relate a parable. To what can this be compared? It is like a fox walking along a riverbank when he sees fish gathering and fleeing from place to place. The fox said to them: ‘From what are you fleeing?’ They said to him: ‘We are fleeing from the nets that people cast upon us.’ The fox said to them: ‘Do you wish to come up onto dry land, and we will reside together just as my ancestors resided with your ancestors?’ The fish said to him: ‘You are the one of whom they say, he is the cleverest of animals? You are not clever; you are a fool. If we are afraid in the water, our natural habitat which gives us life, then in a habitat that causes our death, all the more so.’

The moral is: So too, we Jews, now that we sit and engage in Torah study about which it is written: “For that is your life, and the length of your days” (Deuteronomy 30:20), we fear the empire to this extent; if we proceed to sit idle from its study, as its abandonment is the habitat that causes our death, all the more so will we fear the empire.” (Berakhot 61b, Translation from the William Davidson Talmud via Sefaria.org)

Rabbinic Achievements

Akiva developed as a sage during the period after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), a time of transformation for the Jewish community as Rabbinic Judaism began to take shape. Since the Temple no longer served as the focal point of Jewish life, the Sages (who later became known as rabbis) reconstructed Judaism with Torah study at its center. The rabbinic academy at Yavneh, near what is now the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, became the new center of Jewish life, while other academies sprung up across the land of Israel. Akiva studied with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus and Rabbi Joshua at a rabbinic academy in Lod for 13 years. He was ordained in 93 CE by Rabbi Joshua and then became a teacher in his own right, founding his own academy in B’nai Brak. Rabban Gamliel II, the nasi (“prince” or leader) of the Jewish people, who, according to Hammer, treated Yavneh as “a semi-autonomous Jewish government,” appointed Akiva as an organizer and representative of the Jewish people and also as a judge in the rabbinic court.

Akiva, Hammer notes, was the first rabbi to assert that the Torah in its entirety (not just the Ten Commandments) came directly from heaven. His methodology in interpreting the Torah was highly meticulous and detailed; one legend relates that the reason God placed “crowns” on the letters of the Torah, a calligraphic detail, was so that Akiva would later find meaning in these ornamental marks. He was also known to have been well versed in mystical studies and practice, as exemplified by the famous legend of the Pardes, in which four rabbis enter the so-called mystical paradise and Akiva is the only one to survive the experience unscathed.

Akiva helped to systematize the Mishnah, which was still in development at the time. “The Mishnah as we know it is ascribed to the work of Akiva as interpreted by his students,” notes Hammer in Akiva: Life, Legend and Legacy. Akiva organized and categorized these uncollected oral teachings in order to make them easier to memorize and pass down. His work, and that of his disciples, would help to establish Rabbinic Judaism as the new normative version of Judaism that would last to this day. Considering he accomplished this task at the same time that Christianity was evolving from a fringe Jewish sect into a competing religion, Akiva’s work was a major achievement in this history of Judaism.

Martyrdom

Though Rabbinic Judaism would ultimately take the place of the Temple, during the period after the destruction of the Second Temple Jews still hoped and prayed that the Temple might be rebuilt. This hope eventually took the form of military resistance to the Roman Empire’s oppressive anti-Jewish laws. Shimon bar Kosiva, also known as Bar Kochba, led the rebellion. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Akiva believed that Bar Kochba was the Messiah. However, there is no historical evidence of Akiva taking part in the revolt. Akiva was eventually imprisoned for publicly teaching Torah, a practice the Romans forbade. There are multiple accounts of his death. The Jerusalem Talmud relates that when Akiva stood before the Roman judge Tineius Rufus, the time to recite the Shema prayer (another forbidden practice) had arrived. Akiva recited the Shema with a smile. When Rufus asked him why he smiled, Akiva replied that all his life he had read the verse, “And you shall love your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your possessions,” but was never able to fulfill the obligation to love God with all his soul — that is, his life — until now. Other accounts relate a similar dialogue taking place while Akiva was being tortured to death, thereby establishing the legend that Akiva was a martyr who died while standing up for his right to practice Judaism in the face of oppression. Whichever account is accurate, Akiva became a legendary figure who represents the love of Torah and devotion to Jewish identity and practice against all odds.

Books About Rabbi Akiva

Holtz, Barry W. Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud (2017)

Hammer, Reuven. Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy (2015)

Nadich, Judah. Rabbi Akiba and his Contemporaries (1998)

The post Who Was Rabbi Akiva? appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

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Often, a havruta chooses to learn in the beit midrash, a study hall, together with other havrutot. Together, havrutot (plural for havruta) create the atmosphere of the beit midrash where the sounds of discussion and debate fill the air.

How and why did study in havruta become such an integral part of the Jewish tradition? The Jewish tradition has always valued learning with others, whether with teachers or other students. Recent historical research, however, suggests that learning in pairs — havruta — only became the predominant mode of learning in the last century.

Some of the earliest references to learning in groups, and particularly in pairs, occur in the Talmud. The Talmud asserts that the Torah is only acquired in a group, haburah (Babylonian Talmud [BT], Berakhot63b). The word haburah derives from the same root as havruta — haver, or, in English, friend. The Talmud also particularly extols the value of learning in pairs: “Two scholars sharpen one another” (BT Ta’anit 7a)–two scholars, through discussion and debate, help to sharpen each other’s insight into the text.

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The most frequently quoted saying in the Talmud relating to havruta is: “o havruta o mituta” (BT Ta’anit 23a), translated provocatively by Jacob Neusner as “Give me havruta or give me death.” Many Jewish scholars cite this phrase to illustrate the centrality of study in havruta. In context, however, the phrase has nothing to do with learning in pairs. Rather, the phrase means that the individual needs society and the respect of others, and without them life is not worth living. Still, the very fact that so many Jewish scholars take this phrase out of context and interpret it as referring to study in pairs shows the importance of havruta in the Jewish tradition.

Havruta in Medieval Sources

In addition to these Talmudic discussions, medieval Jewish commentators also address the benefits of study in havruta. Ovadiah Seforno, a 16th-century Italian rabbinic commentator, interprets the following verses in Ecclesiastes as referring to study in pairs:

Two are better off than one, in that they derive greater benefit from their efforts. For if they should fall, the one will raise up the other, as opposed to if one falls when there is no one to raise him. (Ecclesiastes 4:10-11)

He explains that two people learning together are better than one learning alone, because if one makes a mistake, the other will correct him, whereas if one learns alone there will be no one to correct him. Seforno’s interpretation does not emerge from the plain meaning of the text, which does not mention study, but his insistence on interpreting the verses in this creative manner shows the value he ascribes to study in pairs.

Don Yitzhak Abravanel, a 15th-century Spanish rabbinic commentator, discusses another benefit of havruta study. Abravanel interprets the saying “Make for yourself a rabbi and acquire for yourself a friend” (Mishnah Avot1:6) as meaning that one should learn both with a teacher and with another student. He explains that everyone has doubts at times or is confused regarding how to interpret the text.  However, sometimes one is embarrassed to bring his questions to his rabbi. At these times, one can bring these questions to another student. Another student can clarify and sharpen one’s understanding of the text and can provide a different valuable perspective on that text.

The Emphasis on Havruta Is of Recent Vintage

Despite these early references to study in pairs, Shaul Stampfer, a contemporary Israeli historian, argues that study in havruta was not the prevailing mode of learning until the beginning of the last century. Even in the great 19th century yeshivot (Jewish academies of higher learning) of Eastern Europe, havruta was only one among many possible modes of study. These yeshivot sought to create a scholarly elite who would not need a havruta in order to understand the text. They saw havruta as only a means of helping weaker students who could not keep up with the class.

Yet today, study in havruta has become so widely accepted that two contemporary rabbinic scholars (Rabbi Menashe Klein in Mishneh Halakhot and Rabbi Shammai Gross in Shevet Kehati) address the question: If one cannot learn in havruta, should one learn at all? Although both rabbis answer in the affirmative, the fact that this question was even raised shows how predominant study in havruta has become.

How did study in havruta become so predominant in recent years? Stampfer, in an interview with Aliza Segal for her article “Havruta Study in the Contemporary Yeshivah” (in Havruta Study: History, Benefits, and Enhancements, published by the Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions), hypothesizes that study in havruta became predominant during the World War I period. At this time, yeshivot opened their doors to all Jewish men. Once yeshivot were no longer only for the elite, the students needed to learn in havruta in order to understand the difficult texts, and this mode of learning spread.

Today, learning in havruta is an integral part of traditional Jewish study. One yeshiva student sums up the importance of havruta:

It played a central role. You really needed it. To get the most out of a shiur (lecture) you had to prepare and review, because often, even the rebbe himself was very vague. It was very complicated stuff. If you tried to prepare by yourself, you’d be fooling yourself because you’d be limited by your own abilities. On the other hand, another’s viewpoint is always a little different and this way it would be much richer, almost like a third viewpoint, a combined result. As far as choosing a chavrusa [the word is a dialect variant of “havruta”] goes, it’s like choosing a wife. There are so many things involved. (from William B. Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva, p.111)

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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 62a expresses the basic rabbinic conviction that “women are a separate people.”

Despite the egalitarian vision of human creation found in the first chapter of Genesis, in which both male and female appear to share equally in the divine image, Rabbinic tradition is far more comfortable with the view of Genesis 2:4ff., that women are a secondary conception, unalterably other from men and at a further remove from the divine.

This certainty of woman’s ancillary place in the scheme of things permeates rabbinic thinking, and the male sages who produced rabbinic literature accordingly apportioned separate spheres and separate responsibilities to women and men, making every effort to confine women and their activities to the private realms of the family and its particular concerns.

Women in the Public Sphere

These obligations included economic activities that would benefit the household, so that undertaking business transactions with other private individuals was an expected part of a woman’s domestic role. Women also participated in the economic life of the marketplace, worked in a number of productive enterprises, trades, and crafts, brought claims to the courtroom, met in gatherings with other women, and attended social events.

But whatever women did in public, they did as private individuals. Not only by custom but as a result of detailed legislation, women were excluded from significant participation in most of rabbinic society’s communal and power‑conferring public activities. Since these endeavors had mostly to do with participation in religious service, communal study of religious texts, and the execution of judgments under Jewish law, women were simultaneously isolated from access to public authority and power and from the communal spiritual and intellectual sustenance available to men. […]

Women and Family Life

As long as women satisfied male expectations in their assigned roles, they were revered and honored for enhancing the lives of their families and particularly for enabling their male relatives to fulfill their religious obligations.

As [the Babylonian Talmud, or BT, in] Berakhot 17a relates, women earn merit “by sending their children to learn in the synagogue, and their husbands to study in the schools of the rabbis, and by waiting for their husbands until they return from the schools of the rabbis.”

This remains the case even as rabbinic jurisprudence goes beyond biblical precedents in its efforts to ameliorate some of the disadvantages and hardships women faced as a consequence of biblical legislation, devoting particular attention to extending special new protections to women in such areas as the formulation of marriage contracts that provided financial support in the event of divorce or widowhood and, in specific circumstances, in allowing a woman to petition a rabbinic tribunal to compel her husband to divorce her. […]

Negative Traits Ascribed to Women

Woman’s otherness and less desirable status are assumed throughout the rabbinic literature. While women are credited with more compassion and concern for the unfortunate than men, perhaps as a result of their nurturing roles, they also are linked with witchcraft (Mishnah Avot 2:7; Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4, 66b), foolishness (BT Shabbat 33b), dishonesty (Genesis Rabbah 18:2), and licentiousness (Mishnah Sotah 3:4, and BT Ketubot 65a), among a number of other inherent negative qualities (Genesis Rabbah 45:5).

Sometimes the secondary and inferior creation of women is cited as explaining their disagreeable traits (Genesis Rabbah 18:2); elsewhere Eve’s culpability in introducing death into the world accounts for women’s disabilities in comparison to male advantages (Genesis Rabbah 17:8). Aggadic [narrative] exegeses of independent biblical women tend to criticize their pride and presumption. Thus, the biblical judge Deborah is likened to a wasp, and the prophetess Huldah to a weasel (BT Megillah 14b); other biblical heroines are similarly disparaged, and women who display unusual sagacity often meet early deaths (BT Ketubot 23a).

Women do utter words of wisdom in rabbinic stories, but generally such stories either confirm a rabbinic belief about women’s character, such as women’s higher degree of compassion for others (BT Avodah Zarah 18a; BT Ketubot 104a), or deliver a rebuke to a man in need of chastisement (BT Eruvin 53b; BT Sanhedrin 39a).

The Case of Beruriah

Both qualities are present in traditions about Beruriah, the wife of the second century C.E. rabbi, Meir, known for her unusual learning and quick wit (BT Pesahim 62b, BT Erubin 53b‑54a). Yet Beruriah’s scholarship was a problem for rabbinic culture, and in later rabbinic tradition she is shown to reap the tragic consequences of the “lightmindedness” inherent in woman’s makeup: in his commentary on BT Avodah Zarah 18b, Rashi ([the pre-eminent] eleventh-century [Bible and Talmud commentator]) relates that Beruriah was seduced by one of her husband’s students and subsequently committed suicide.

Contemporary scholars have shown that the scholarly Beruriah is a literary construct with little historical reality, yet they agree that the traditions about her articulate profound disquiet about the role of women in the rabbinic enterprise.

Rachel Adler suggests that Beruriah’s story expresses rabbinic ambivalence about the possible place of a woman in their wholly male scholarly world, in which her sexuality was bound to be a source of havoc. Daniel Boyarin writes that for the amoraic sages of the Babylonian Talmud, Beruriah serves as proof of “R. Eliezer’s statement that ‘anyone who teaches his daughter Torah, teaches her lasciviousness’ (Mishnah Sotah 3:4);” in rabbinic culture, he writes, “The Torah and the wife are structural allomorphs and separated realms…both normatively to be highly valued but also to be kept separate.” […]

The Problem of Female Sexuality

Women constitute an additional source of danger in rabbinic thinking, because their sexual appeal to men can lead to social disruption.

A significant argument for excluding women from synagogue participation rests on the talmudic statement, “The voice of a woman is indecent” (BT Berakhot 24a). This idea emerges from a ruling that a man may not recite the Shema while he hears a woman singing, since her voice might divert his concentration from the prayer. Extrapolating from hearing to seeing, rabbinic prohibitions on male/female contact in worship eventually led to a physical barrier (mehitzah) between men and women in the synagogue, to preserve men from sexual distraction during prayer.

Indeed, viewing women always as a sexual temptation, rabbinic Judaism overall advises extremely limited contact between men and women who are not married to each other. This is to prevent inappropriate sexual contact, whether adulterous, incestuous, or simply outside of a married relationship.

The Autonomy and Ownership of Women

In her detailed study of the legal status of women in the Mishnah, Judith Wegner points out the role of women’s sexuality. She demonstrates that in all matters that affect a man’s ownership of her sexuality-‑whether as minor daughter, wife, or levirate widow–woman is presented as belonging to a man. In nonsexual contexts, by contrast, the wife is endowed with a high degree of personhood. Her legal rights as a property holder are protected, and she is assigned rights and privileges that are denied even to non‑Israelite males.

Notably, mishnaic legislation always treats as an independent “person” a woman on whose sexuality no man has a legal claim. Such an autonomous woman–who might be an emancipated daughter of full age, a divorcee, or a widow–may arrange her own marriage, is legally liable for any vows she may make, and may litigate in court. Free from male authority, she has control over her personal life and is treated as an independent agent.

Wegner emphasizes, however, that while the autonomous woman has some latitude in the private domain of relationships between individuals, mishnaic rules governing women’s relationship to the public domain tell quite a different story. Here, all women are systematically excluded from the religiously prestigious male domains of communal leadership, collaborative study, and public prayer.

Excerpted and reprinted with permission of The Continuum International Publishing Group from The Encyclopedia of Judaism, edited by Jacob Neusner, Alan Avery-Peck, and William Scott Green.

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Torah She’b’al Peh, or Oral Torah

Nevertheless, Jews sought to determine from the Torah all of the details of a complete legal system. As tradition describes it, from the time of the very giving of the written Torah, Moses already had received a companion Torah she’b’al peh (oral Torah), which he proceeded to teach to the people of Israel during their travels in the desert. It is clear that from the very beginning, Jews needed additional authoritative law, or halakhah (“going,” or “path”), to govern regular life. These halakhot (plural) were passed on through the generations, and during the period of the Second Temple (fifth century BCE-first century C.E.), halakhot, both those developed through custom and those derived from interpretation of the Torah, were collected and transmitted. Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the earliest rabbis gathered and transmitted the laws learned from earlier sages.

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During the first two centuries, the rabbis apparently worked out how, as an educated leadership, they were to transmit and develop new law through agreed upon rules of interpretation. Much of our understanding of this period comes from later texts which were not intended as histories and which probably should not be relied upon for history. Nevertheless, it is clear that by the close of the second century, the rabbis had agreed on enough of the basics that their various opinions could be compiled and compared to each other.  At this point, around the year 200 C.E., Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, used his unique position as a leader of the Jewish people who actually got along with the Romans to publish the first major Jewish work following the Bible, a study book of rabbinic law called the Mishnah (literally, teaching or repeating).

The Mishnah

The Mishnah defined the basic contours for later discussion of Jewish law. The name, which means “repeating,” reflects that the book was designed for oral transmission and memorization, as a rabbi would repeat each tradition for his student. But the orality of the Mishnah is not just a matter of its form; the content is composed almost entirely of the statements of different rabbis, juxtaposed against and in conversation with the varying opinions of other rabbis. From the Mishnah onward, all of the literature of the Torah she’b’al peh is more than just “oral Torah”; in fact, a more descriptive translation of the term might be “conversational Torah,” because it is the conversation and the interaction of different ideas that defines the essence of what eventually became known as the Talmud (study).

During the three or four centuries following the Mishnah’s publication, the rabbinic sages whose work was eventually compiled in the documents which we call Talmud, analyzed  each halakhah in the Mishnah. They compared the various statements of a rabbi to determine how his different positions could be seen as parts of a consistent legal theory. They harmonized the opinions in the Mishnah to other early opinions that were not included in the Mishnah. They tried to show the relationship between the various opinions in the Mishnah to their presumed derivations from Scripture.

Everywhere and throughout the Talmud, the rabbis worked with several basic assumptions. Given a controversy between two early sages, the goal was not to determine according to whom was the practical law; the goals was to make sense of each opinion. This underlying assumption that opinions are not simply fickle choices but the rational decisions of sages confronting differing ways of describing legal reality, is the hallmark of the Talmudic process.  The rabbis expressed this concept succinctly: “both these and those are the words of the living God” or, as it may also be translated, “both these and those are the living words of God.”

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This question appears, seemingly out of nowhere, in the midst of a rabbinical discussion about kindling the Hanukkah lights. But shouldn’t it have been obvious to the Rabbis what Hanukkah was? People were presumably celebrating it already in commemoration of the Maccabean victory, and one might think that the Rabbis simply needed to clarify the legal and ritual requirements.

It turns out, however, that the Rabbis were uncomfortable with the existing rationale for Hanukkah, namely the Maccabean victory; and their answer to the question “What is Hanukkah?” provided an entirely different source for the holiday, the miracle of the single cruse of oil that lasted for eight days. The Rabbis taught:

On the 25th day of Kislev begin the eight days of Hanukkah, on which lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils in it, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed over them and defeated them, they searched and found only one bottle of oil sealed by the High Priest. It contained only enough for one day’s lighting. Yet a miracle was brought about with it, and they lit with that oil for eight days. The following year they were established as a festival, with Hallel (prayers of praise) and Thanksgiving (Shabbat 21b).

The historical story of Hanukkah — as it is related in First and Second Maccabees, ancient works that the Rabbis decided not to include in the Jewish biblical canon — is of the Maccabees’ military victory over Antiochus’s Syrian Greek armies and their Hellenist sympathizers. That being the case, why do the Rabbis decide to focus entirely on this miracle of the oil?

The 16th-century Maharal of Prague, Rabbi Judah Loew, offers a concise answer to this puzzling rabbinical emphasis on the miracle of the oil:

The main reason that the days of Hanukkah were instituted was to celebrate the victory over the Greeks. However, so that it would not seem that the victory was due only to might and heroism, rather than to Divine Providence, the miracle was denoted by the lighting of the Menorah, to show that it was all by a miracle, the war as well.

The longer answer about why the Rabbis changed Hanukkah’s meaning in midstream has to do with the Rabbis’ historical context, their lives under Roman rule, their attitudes toward the decadence of the Hasmonean dynasty, and their rabbinic theology, which celebrated learning and prayer over physical strength.

Historical Circumstance

For the Rabbis, the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and the devastation following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 135 C.E. were historically too close for comfort. They knew that Jewish attempts to challenge mighty powers by military means had failed dismally, and they feared the repercussions of celebrating the military victory of the underdog Maccabees against the powerful Syrian Greeks and the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in Judea.

They may have worried about potential Roman reprisals, but certainly did not want to encourage Jews to engage in a suicidal rebellion against their Roman rulers. They may have also been concerned about the possibility of harsher religious restrictions being imposed by the Romans.

Hasmonean Decadence

The Rabbis also had little admiration for the Hasmonean dynasty, which descended from the Maccabean heroes. First of all, the Hasmoneans had illegitimately usurped both the priesthood (which belonged to the descendants of Zadok, one of the High Priests during the time of King David) and the kingship (destined for descendants of King David).

Worse yet, they had combined the priesthood and the kingship, nullifying the separation between religious and political power that had been traditional in Israel. Ultimately, the Hasmoneans became the very Hellenists against whom the Maccabees had fought. Eventually, they invited the Roman Empire to be protectors of Judea, paving the way for the Roman conquest. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the Hasmoneans had supported the Sadducees, the priestly party, against the Pharisees, the spiritual progenitors of the Rabbis. Indeed, the Pharisees suffered a period of intense persecution during the late Hasmonean period.

Rabbinic Ambivalence and the Transformation of Hanukkah

Given their ambivalence about the Maccabean victory, the Rabbis had a problem: What could they do about the popular holiday established by the Maccabees and celebrated each year on the 25th of Kislev? They could get rid of it, as they had done with other holidays instituted by the Maccabees and their descendants — after all, Hanukkah was not a holiday of biblical origin. Or they could transform the meaning of Hanukkah in line with their own theology, which is what they did.

The Rabbis’ first tack seems to have been to try to suppress the holiday altogether. The books of the Maccabees, which recount the historical events surrounding the genesis of Hanukkah, were not included in the biblical canon. (The books of First and Second Maccabees are still accessible today only because they were incorporated into Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles.) Among the Jews, these books are called sefarim hitzonim, external books, or in Greek, apocrypha, and the Rabbis expressed their opinions about such books in no uncertain terms in Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1. Following a list of several categories of individuals “who have no share in the world to come,” Rabbi Akiva adds, “Also one who reads the external books….” Otherwise, the Mishnah is virtually silent about Hanukkah, except to refer to a “ner Hanukkah” in Baba Kama 6:6.

Only later, in the Gemara, particularly in Shabbat 21a-24a, do we see the Rabbis begin their transformation of Hanukkah with a new rationale for the holiday’s significance, the miracle of the oil. This legend about the oil is the most revealing clue of the Rabbis’ intentions for their re-imagined holiday of Hanukkah. Through this story, the Rabbis were able to give prominence to God while diminishing and even nullifying the role of the Maccabees. The miracle was no longer the military victory, but rather that a single cruse of oil sustained the lights in the Temple Menorah for eight days.

The raison d’etre assigned by the Rabbis to Hanukkah is made even more explicit by the haftarah — prophetic reading — they selected for the first Shabbat of Hanukkah. The reading from the book of Zechariah is about the prophet’s mystical vision of the rededication of the Second Temple. When the prophet sees a dream vision of a golden menorah, he asks an angel to explain its meaning, and the angel responds: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit—said the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Again, God’s role is paramount.

The Al Hanissim (“for the miracles”) prayer — recited during the Amidah and the Blessing after Meals throughout Hanukkah — also echoes this rabbinic perspective. In this prayer God is entirely responsible for the successful military revolt, whereas Mattathias and his sons are reduced to mere time markers as to when the events occurred (“in the days of the Hasmoneans”).

The prayer emphasizes God’s role, particularly with its insistent repetition of the word “you”:

We thank You also for the miracles, for the redemption, for the mighty deeds and acts of salvation, wrought by You, as well as for the wars which You waged for our fathers in days of old, at this season. In the days of the Hasmonean, Matityahu son of Yohanan, the High Priest, and his sons, when the iniquitous power of Greece rose up against Your people Israel to make them forgetful of Your Law, and to force them to transgress the statutes of Your will, then did You in Your abundant mercy rise up for them in the time of their trouble; You pleaded their cause, You judged their suit, You avenged their wrong, You delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the arrogant into the hands of those that occupied themselves with Your Law….

Just as the Rabbis of yesterday endowed the holiday with a meaning appropriate for their day and time and their religious theology, Jews today are finding in Hanukkah old and new meanings that resonate strongly. Some emphasize the nationalist and military aspects of Hanukkah, others the Maccabees’ role in defending religious freedom, and still others the metaphorical themes of light versus darkness, as expressed in a Secular Zionist Hanukkah song, “We have come to expel the darkness. With fire and light in our hands, each one of us is a small light, but all of us together are a powerful light.”

The rabbinical willingness to reinterpret the historical Hanukkah and endow it with new theological import is echoed in the efforts of today’s Jews to reflect and refract the history and texts of Hanukkah to create new images for their own lives.

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Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, also known as Rabbi Judah the Prince and Yehudah HaNasi, undertook to collect and edit a study edition of these halachot (laws) in order that the learning not vanish.

Although the Temple had been destroyed 130 years prior to its publication, in the world described by the Mishnah the Temple still exists and the laws that governed it are expressed in the present tense. While the Talmud (the compendium of the Mishnah and the Gemara, which interprets and comments on the Mishnah) refers to the Bar Kochba rebellion and the defeat by the Romans, the Mishnah itself ignores the events of the Roman occupation of the land of Israel. In this way, the Mishnah is a document that describes a life of sanctification, in which the rituals of the Temple are adapted for communal participation in a world that has no Temple, which escapes the ups and downs of history.

Disputes Between Rabbis

This idyllic world of the Mishnah, however, is not a world of uniformity; far from it. Most passages in the Mishnah contain a dispute between different rabbinic sages. When does one begin the morning prayers? How does one treat produce that may or may not have had the priestly gifts separated from it? How does one constitute a Jewish marriage? What are the limitations of the liability of someone who watches another’s property? Can cheese and meat be on the same table? How much drawn water invalidates a ritual bath? On all of these issues and on thousands of similar issues, the Mishnah includes various opinions.

Code of Law vs. Study Book

This is because the Mishnah is not a code of Jewish law; it is a study book of law. As the Mishnah itself describes, in a rare self-reflective comment: Why are the opinions of the minority included with the opinions of the majority even though the law is not like them? So that a later court can examine their words and rely upon them? (Mishnah Eduyot 1:3). While one could determine law based upon the Mishnah, its intention was to train the sages in thinking through the legal issues that inform the halacha (Jewish law).

In editing the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch worked with a variety of materials. Some halachot (laws) of the Tannaim, the sages from the time of the Mishnah, had been transmitted to him organized around a particular sage, some around particular verses, and others according to certain formal characteristics. Signs of these pre-existing collections are still apparent in the Mishnah. On the other hand, it is also clear that Rabbi Judah was not simply a collector. He selected his sources from a larger pool of available material, and he modified his sources, combining and editing materials to facilitate memorization and to clarify the points of dispute between the different sages.

The Mishnah’s Structure

The Mishnah is divided into six orders; each order is divided into tractates; each tractate is divided into chapters, and each chapter has a number of halachot. This structure became the template for all subsequent Talmudic literature. The first document to follow the Mishnah’s structure was the Tosefta (supplement), which included many of the materials that Rabbi Judah left out. Collectively, the Tosefta, as well as materials in works of Midrash (biblical interpretation), and materials preserved orally until their appearance in the Talmud are called Baraitot (excluded materials). The terms Tosefta and Baraitot, which implicitly refer to the Mishnah, serve to emphasize the significance and centrality of the Mishnah in Jewish culture.

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Stories of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s piety and generosity, not to mention his countless positions on matters of Jewish law, are littered throughout early rabbinic literature. But it is his status as redactor of the Mishnah, the earliest and most influential code of Jewish law, that most establishes his significance in Jewish history. Compiling this monumental work, a distillation of a vast body of oral traditions said to trace back to the revelation at Sinai, took over a century and was the work of many authors. But Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is credited with being the work’s final editor, though some sections were added after his death. (A mishnah in Tractate Sotah even mentions his death, noting that after it “humility and fear of sin ceased.”)

The Mishnah would become the basis of the Talmud, and by extension the methodology that would guide centuries of rabbis in puzzling through the complexities of Jewish law. It also helped preserve traditions that were in danger of being lost in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple. According to Maimonides’ Introduction to the Mishnah, prior to Rabbi Yehuda, these traditions had been passed down orally, from teacher to student. But Rabbi Yehuda lived at a time of intense persecution under Roman rule and he feared the tradition would be lost. 

“He collected all the teachings, all the laws, and all the explanations and commentaries that were heard from Moses, our teacher, and which were taught by the courts in each generation concerning the entire Torah,” Maimonides wrote. “From all these, he composed the text of the Mishnah. He taught it to the sages in public and revealed it to the Jewish people, who all wrote it down. They spread it in all places so that the Oral Law would not be forgotten by the Jewish people.”

Like other rabbis of the period, much of what we know of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s life comes from stories in the Talmud and other rabbinic writings. He was said to have been born on the same day that Rabbi Akiva died a violent death (around 135 CE) at the hands of the Romans. A story told by one of the talmudic commentators relates that Rabbi Yehuda’s father, Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel, circumcised him despite a Roman edict forbidding the practice. When word reached the Roman authorities, Rabbi Yehuda’s mother was ordered to appear with the child before the emperor in Rome, but a Roman woman who had just given birth herself took pity on them and agreed to switch her baby with Rabbi Yehuda. 

The Roman baby grew up to be the emperor Antoninus, and he and Rabbi Yehuda enjoyed a lifelong friendship. The Talmud (Avoda Zarah 10b) relates many stories about them, describing how Antoninus would send Rabbi Yehuda sacks of gold each day and would visit him via an underground tunnel that went straight to Rabbi Yehuda’s house. Antoninus would also minister to Rabbi Yehuda personally, giving him food and drink and helping him to bed. 

Whether Antoninus’ generosity is the source of Rabbi Yehuda’s wealth is never made explicit, but it’s clear from many talmudic passages that he was exceedingly comfortable. Like Antoninus, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s home never lacked for radish, lettuce or cucumbers, regardless of the season. During a time of drought, Rabbi Yehuda once made his own food supplies available to the hungry. And he had such abundant livestock, even his stableman was wealthier than a king.

Rabbi Yehuda spent much of his later years in ill health. The Talmud reports he suffered from scurvy, intestinal distress and kidney stones, with the latter causing such discomfort that his screams of pain could be heard at sea. The circumstances surrounding his death are also described at length. As he suffered from his illness, his colleagues prayed intensely for his recovery. But Rabbi Yehuda’s servant saw his pain and threw a jug from the roof of the house, momentarily distracting the rabbis from their prayers, at which point he died. On the day of his funeral, the Talmud states, a divine voice called out from heaven saying that whoever was present at Rabbi Yehuda’s funeral was destined for life in the World to Come. 

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The most famous story about Yohanan Ben Zakkai concerns his actions during the Roman siege of Jerusalem leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. As internecine conflict intensified and food shortages grew dire, Yohanan managed to smuggle himself out of the city in a coffin for a meeting with the Roman commander Vespasian, at the conclusion of which Vespasian invited Yohanan to make a request of him. Yohanan responded: “Give me Yavne and its sages.” Vespasian agreed. 

Yavne is a small town on the coast of the Mediterranean about 30 minutes south of present-day Tel Aviv. It was there that Yohanan retreated with an elite group of colleagues while the Romans continued their assault on Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple. Yohanan managed to reconstitute the Sanhedrin in Yavne and continue the study and teaching of Torah, enabling the rabbinic tradition to survive the destruction of Jerusalem. Yavne thus became a symbol of Jewish endurance and Yohanan himself a visionary figure who enabled Judaism to survive the destruction, transforming Judaism from a practice structured around the Temple and its priestly rites to one centered on study and adherence to Jewish law.

With the destruction of the Temple, Yohanan enacted a number of modifications to Jewish law in response to the unprecedented situation of a post-Temple Judaism. He was also fierce in his defense of the rabbinic tradition against rival sects that rejected the Oral Torah, referring to them as fools and imbeciles. 

According to the Talmud, Yohanan lived to be 120, the same lifespan as Moses. He is buried in Tiberias in northern Israel in the same compound in which Maimonides would be buried a millennium later. 

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Though little has been firmly established about Hillel’s biography by historians, he is said to have been born in Babylonia around 110 BCE and died in Jerusalem in the first years of the Common Era. His grave is in Meron, in northern Israel. 

Hillel and Shammai

Hundreds of disputes between Hillel and Shammai are recorded in the Talmud, with the House of Hillel generally favoring a more lenient opinion and the House of Shammai favoring a stricter one. The rabbis of the Talmud generally favored the views of the House of Hillel, but in keeping with talmudic tradition, both opinions are recorded in the text. 

According to a famous passage in the tractate Eruvin, the disciples of Hillel and Shammai argued for years saying the law was in accordance with their views. Ultimately a divine voice proclaimed: “Both these are the words of the living God. However, the halachah [Jewish law] is in accordance with the opinion of Beit Hillel.” The Talmud goes on to note that the law follows the views of Hillel’s disciples precisely because they were “agreeable and forbearing.” 

Stories of Hillel

While Hillel and Shammai were links in a chain of oral transmission of the Torah that began with Moses and continued through the rabbis of the talmudic period, Hillel is renowned less for his legal rulings than for his kindness and ethics, traits reflected in the numerous stories and maxims attributed to him, several of which continue to be widely quoted today.

According to one story, Hillel was so poor that he could not afford the price of admission to the study hall. Instead, he climbed the building and sat near a skylight so he could hear the lesson being taught inside. When morning came, Hillel’s body blocked the light from entering the study hall. When those inside looked up, they saw Hillel’s body, which had been covered by an overnight snowfall. Talmudic commentators derive from the story that even poverty should not be considered an obstacle to Torah study.

Another story in the Talmud concerns a non-Jew who came to Shammai and agreed to be converted if he could teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai sent him away, but Hillel welcomed him, saying: “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.” This and other stories showing Hillel’s graciousness even in the face of provocation are invoked to justify the teaching of the rabbis that one should be patient like Hillel and not impatient like Shammai. 

Famous sayings

Hillel is known for a number of famous maxims in addition to his articulation of a variant of the golden rule noted above. Many of these are recorded in the early chapters of Pirkei Avot, the section of the Talmud concerned primarily with matters of ethics. Perhaps the most well-known of Hillel’s statements is this: “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?”

The following chapter records another oft-quoted statement from Hillel: “Do not judge your fellow until you come to his place.”

Legacy

Hillel has a prominent place in the Passover seder with the institution of the so-called “Hillel sandwich,” known in Hebrew as korech. The last ritual prior to the eating of the festive meal, korech involves the joining together of matzah, bitter herbs and the sweet paste known as haroset into a kind of sandwich, which is done in commemoration of Hillel’s practice of eating those three together.

Hillel International, the Jewish campus groups, has borne the name of the Jewish sage since its founding in 1923. The founder of the first Hillel chapter, Benjamin Frankel, liked the name because it is “a symbol of the quest for higher learning” and because it connoted Christian fellowship, since Hillel was a contemporary of Jesus. 

Hillel’s famous sayings have been widely quoted and adopted. “If not now, when,” was the title of a book by Primo Levi and an album from the American rock band Incubus. IfNotNow was adopted by the name of an organization fighting to end American Jewish support for Israeli policies that harm the Palestinians. And Hillel’s statements were included on the quirky labels of the soap brand Dr. Bronner’s.

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He was one of five chief disciples of the great Rabbi Akiva credited with carrying on the teaching of Torah after the mass deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students. Rabbi Shimon is also reputed to be the author of the Zohar, the central work of Jewish mysticism that appeared on the scene roughly 1,000 years after his death. Modern scholars generally believe the work was authored by the Spanish kabbalist Moses de Leon, who merely attributed the secret knowledge contained in the work to a tradition tracing back to Rabbi Shimon. 

Perhaps the best-known story of Rabbi Shimon is that he lived in a cave in northern Israel for 13 years after being sentenced to death by the Romans. The story is recorded in Tractate Shabbat, which describes his response to another sage who celebrated the Romans, the sovereign empire in ancient Israel, for building markets, bridges and bathhouses. Rabbi Shimon replied that they did these things out of self-interest. “Everything that they established, they established only for their own purposes,” he says in the talmudic account. “They established marketplaces to place prostitutes in them, bathhouses to pamper themselves, bridges to collect taxes from all who pass over them.”

When the authorities heard of this, Rabbi Shimon was sentenced to death. For a time, he and his son, Rabbi Elazar, took refuge in the study hall. But eventually, they fled to a cave, where a miracle occurred and a carob tree and spring water appeared to sustain them. After 12 years in the cave, Elijah the prophet appeared to inform them that the Roman emperor had died and Rabbi Shimon was no longer in danger. But after emerging from the cave, Rabbi Shimon was outraged to see people working instead of dedicating themselves entirely to Torah study. His anger was so great, that everything he looked at was burned. 

A divine voice then rang out and instructed Rabbi Shimon and his son to return to the cave. They emerged after another year, at which time the Talmud reports: “Everywhere that Rabbi Elazar would strike, Rabbi Shimon would heal.” Only after they encountered an elderly man rushing home before Shabbat with two myrtle branches in hand — one, he explained, to fulfill the mitzvah of remembering Shabbat, and the other to fulfill the mitzvah of observing Shabbat — were their minds completely at ease. 

Many of the statements attributed to Rabbi Shimon are concerned with ethical matters or esoteric interpretations of biblical verses. According to Rabbi Shimon, it’s better to serve a Torah scholar than study Torah (Berakhot 7b), and it’s better for a person to jump into a furnace than embarrass another person in public (Bava Metzia 59a). Rabbi Shimon says a woman is required to bring an offering after childbirth because while she’s in the throes of birth pangs, she likely made a false oath swearing never to have sex with her husband again (Niddah 31b). 

Rabbi Shimon is reputed to have died on Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day after Passover, and buried in a tomb in Meron, in northern Israel. For centuries, the site has been one of the largest Jewish pilgrimages, drawing hundreds of thousands of celebrants on Lag Ba’omer who dance and sing at Rabbi Shimon’s grave. Among the customs are the lighting of large bonfires and the giving of first hair cuts to three-year-old boys, a ritual known as upsheren.

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