Massekhet Sukkah


Book Description

Tractate Sukkah from the Babylonian Talmud presents a broad spectrum of rabbinical sources from Erez Israel and Babylon that explicitly examine issues relating to women. Some of these sources were created by sages who lived in Erez Israel in the time of the second temple and after its destruction and were called Tannaim, and the others were created by sages who lived in Erez Israel and in Babylon from the third until the seventh century and were called Amoraim. All the sources can be divided into two categories: topics directly connected to women and Sukkot, and matters indirectly associated with women that were incorporated into the sugiot (Talmudic fragments). Shulamit Valler's commentary to Tractate Sukkah includes an intensive study of all the sources which are connected to women and gender in this Tractate, thus leading to interesting findings regarding reality, conceptions and lifestyle.




Massekhet Keritot


Book Description

The tractate Keritot of the Babylonian Talmud belongs to the Order of Qodashim in the Mishnah. It discusses the Temple and its rituals, especially sacrifices, but deals mostly with laws of incest, sexual transgressions, childbirth, and miscarriages. In this commentary, Federico Dal Bo provides a historical, philological and philosophical investigation on these gender issues. He discusses almost the entire tractate, referring to many other sources, Jewish (the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sifra, and other rabbinic texts) as well as non-Jewish (Akkadian, Hittite, and Ugaritic). The author also provides accurate philological observations both on the Mishnah and the Gemara. Finally, he addresses gender issues by combining a reductionistic approach to Talmudic study (the so called "Brisker method") with philosophical deconstruction. Dal Bo shows that in nearly the entire tractate Keritot the rabbis discuss human sexuality in a tendentious and restrictive way, claiming that heterosexuality is the only proper sexual contact and progressively stigmatizing any other kind of sexual behavior.




Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud


Book Description

Both the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud depict a wide range of sorrowful situations tied to every level of society and to the complexities of human behavior and the human condition. Valler explores more than 50 stories from both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmuds, focusing on these issues.







A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud


Book Description

Shaye J. D. Cohen: Are Women in the Covenant? - Charlotte E. Fonrobert: Gender Politics in the Rabbinic Neighborhood. Tractate Eruvin - Elizabeth S. Alexander: How Tefillin Became a Non-Timebound, Positive Commandment. The Yerushalmi and Bavli on mEruvin 10:1 - Catherine Hezser: Passover and Social Equality. Women, Slaves and Minors in Bavli Pesahim - Judtih Hauptman: From the Kitchen to the Dining-Room. Women and Ritual Activities in Tractate Pesahim - Tirzah Meacham (leBeit Yoreh): Misconstrued Mitsvot. The Case of the Menstruant Levirate Wife - Shulamit Valler: Women and Dwelling in the Sukkah in the Bavli - Cynthia M. Baker: The Queen, the Apostate, and the Women Between. (Dis)Placement of Women in Tosefta Sukkah - Tamara Or: "Why don't We Say Anything to Them?" (bBes 30a) Women in Massekhet Betsah - Dorothea M. Salzer: Women's World in Massekhet Rosh ha-Shana. Women and Creation in bRosh ha-Shana 10b-11b - Tal Ilan: Dance and Gender in Massekhet Ta'anit - Judith R. Baskin: Erotic Subversion. Undermining Female Agency in bMegillah 10b-17a - Klaus Herrmann: Massekhet Hagigah and Reform Judaism - Irina Wandrey: Mourning Rituals for Women and for Men - Adiel Schremer: For Whom is Marriage a Happiness? mMo'ed Qatan 1:7 and a Roman Parallel.




Spinning Fantasies


Book Description

Miriam Peskowitz offers a dramatic revision to our understanding of early rabbinic Judaism. Using a wide range of sources—archaeology, legal texts, grave goods, technology, art, and writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin—she challenges traditional assumptions regarding Judaism's historical development. Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by Roman armies in 70 C.E., new incarnations of Judaism emerged. Of these, rabbinic Judaism was the most successful, becoming the classical form of the religion. Through ancient stories involving Jewish spinners and weavers, Peskowitz re-examines this critical moment in Jewish history and presents a feminist interpretation in which gender takes center stage. She shows how notions of female and male were developed by the rabbis of Roman Palestine and why the distinctions were so important in the formation of their religious and legal tradition. Rabbinic attention to women, men, sexuality, and gender took place within the "ordinary tedium of everyday life, in acts that were both familiar and mundane." While spinners and weavers performed what seemed like ordinary tasks, their craft was in fact symbolic of larger gender and sexual issues, which Peskowitz deftly explicates. Her study of ancient spinning and her abundant source material will set new standards in the fields of gender studies, Jewish studies, and cultural studies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998. Miriam Peskowitz offers a dramatic revision to our understanding of early rabbinic Judaism. Using a wide range of sources—archaeology, legal texts, grave goods, technology, art, and writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin—she challenges traditional




Creation and Composition


Book Description

The contributors to this book analyze how the redactors of the Talmud transformed and reworked earlier aggadic (non-legal) traditions. Critical study of the Babylonian Talmud is founded on the distinction between two literary strata: traditions attributed to named sages (the Amoraim, c. 200-450 CE) and setam hatalmud, the unattributed or anonymous material. The conclusion of modern scholars is that the anonymous stratum postdates the Amoraic stratum and should be attributed to the Talmudic redactors, also known as Stammaim (c. 450-700 CE.) The contribution of the Stammaim to the aggadic (non-legal) portions of the Talmud - to midrash, narratives, ethics and theology - has received minimal scholarly attention. The articles in this book demonstrate that the Stammaim made a profound contribution to the aggadic portions of the Babylonian Talmud and illustrate the processes by which they created and composed many aggadic traditions.




Time in the Babylonian Talmud


Book Description

In this book, Lynn Kaye examines how rabbis of late antiquity thought about time through their legal reasoning and storytelling, and what these insights mean for thinking about time today. Providing close readings of legal and narrative texts in the Babylonian Talmud, she compares temporal ideas with related concepts in ancient and modern philosophical texts and in religious traditions from late antique Mesopotamia. Kaye demonstrates that temporal flexibility in the Babylonian Talmud is a means of exploring and resolving legal uncertainties, as well as a tool to tell stories that convey ideas effectively and dramatically. Her book, the first on time in the Talmud, makes accessible complex legal texts and philosophical ideas. It also connects the literature of late antique Judaism with broader theological and philosophical debates about time.




Massekhet Betsah


Book Description

This book is a feminist commentary on Tractate Betsah, which deals with the laws specific to festivals. Tamara Or reveals surprising insights into the role of women in the development of halakhah. Thus, the commentary shows women's oppression as well as their actual power and influence even on halakhic decisions. The power women possess in this tractate can be explained as emanating from the fact that most of it is based on labors usually performed by women. In nearly all the cases where the rabbis discuss the sphere of action of women, the latter's behavior was considered halakhically correct or at least not in need of change. The power and influence gained by women through their various activities and endeavors were passed over in silence and thus hidden from the view of their descendants. The following commentary will strive to put these women back into Jewish history and into the history of the development of halakhah.