Understanding the Talmud: A Modern Reader's Guide for Study

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Understanding the Talmud: A Modern Reader's Guide for Study, Rabbi Edward S. Boraz presents a thoughtful introduction to the Talmud designed for study by the untrained reader. Using a unique approach, Rabbi Boraz focuses on a specific selection from one tractate of the Talmud, allowing readers to uncover the moral and theological concerns of the text. The portion he has selected comes from the tractate Bava Metziah and deals with the conditions under which an oath may be administered in a civil lawsuit. On the surface this issue appears mundane and far removed from the domain of holiness. However, when the discourse is studied in relation to passages from Scripture, Midrash, and Mishnah that are also presented, it becomes a spiritual and ethical adventure. Before embarking on this journey of discovery, the reader is given a concise explanation of the rules of logic and the argumentative style utilized in the Talmud. It becomes evident that the Talmud's style is essential to its mission to understand the timeless messages of Torah in the context of the ever-changing world in which we live. Equipped with the necessary background, the reader is prepared to delve into the texts.
Understanding the Talmud: A Modern Reader's Guide for Study Review
After reading a number of general introductions to the Talmud, I was looking for a book that would help me actually read the Talmud -- that is, take me through an extended passage line-by-line and explain what's going on. From the card catalogue description, "Understanding the Talmud" sounded like it fit the bill, and indeed part of the book does exactly what I wanted. Rabbi Boraz takes the reader through a complete sugya that proposes (and refutes and counter-refutes) various arguments offered in support of a particular statement of law (that if two witnesses testify to only part of a loan, the borrower is entitled to take an oath denying that he owes the remainder). He divides the passage up according to the various propositions advanced, providing his own translation (including an invaluable translation of the Rashi to this passage, something I have rarely seen elsewhere), and explaining how the various arguments work. As he goes through the argument, he does an excellent job of explaining background principles that are necessary to understand the argument. After going through the entire sugya once, a separate chapter discusses in more general terms the theological implications of the oath, the lender/borrower relationship, the role of admissions and witnesses, and the function of the court in Biblical and Midrashic sources. A third chapter then applies these general considerations to the specific arguments advanced in the sugya, deepening one's appreciation of the theological significance of the law under discussion. These three chapters are preceded by an excellent chapter that outlines very clearly the structure of several types of rabbinic argument -- the kal v'chomer, binyan av, gezerah shavah, and k'lal u'phrat -- all of which are used in the sugya under discussion.Although there is a lot to like in this book, there are some significant problems as well. First of all, you are halfway through the book before you actually get to the discussion of the Talmud passage. Some of the introductory material (the discussion of the hermeneutical rules, in particular) is necessary and helpful, but the rest of it could and should have been condensed to about 20 pages.A second problem was created for me by Rabbi Boraz' underlying assumption (sometimes stated explicitly) that the process the rabbis are engaged in in the Midrash, Mishnah and Talmud is one of objective, logical deduction from the first principles of the Torah. He goes so far as to define "hermeneutics" in the glossary as "the science of logic." I will grant that interpretive methods like the gezerah shavah can be applied logically once you adopt that method, but I do not think that *logic* requires you to agree that because the same phrase is used in two places, you can import all of the rules associated with one circumstance into the other. Nor does *logic* require that every phrase in the Torah have its own meaning, with no repetition allowed. Both of these are subjective interpretive choices that may make sense for all kinds of reasons -- but when presented as objective logic, I found myself fighting the arguments and being unpersuaded, even by positions I might have accepted if presented differently.The most fundamental problem with "Understanding the Talmud," however, is that the scripturally based method of Talmud study advocated by Rabbi Boraz is not something that the beginning student can transfer on his own to the reading of other passages of Talmud. As noted above, Rabbi Boraz' approach is very helpful with things like understanding the structure of various rabbinic arguments, and that knowledge is certainly portable to other texts. And he succeeds in demonstrating that knowing the Torah and Midrash behind a given passage of Talmud can deepen your understanding of it. But unless you are already thoroughly familiar with Torah and Midrash, you will not know where to look for that additional deep background. In other words, what Rabbi Boraz really does here is prove that you need a teacher.If you are looking for a general introduction to the Talmud, I would read Rabbi Steinsaltz' "The Essential Talmud" or the early chapters of Holtz' "Back to the Sources," rather than beginning with this. If you already have that background, then you can skip the first four chapters of this book, and just begin with the chapter on hermeneutics. Although "Understanding the Talmud" is not everything I wanted it to be, I can still recommend it because it does an excellent job of explicating the passage under discussion, and gives the reader some skills in analyzing rabbinic arguments that can be used for further reading on one's own. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment�Comment
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