#*Talmud

[fuzzytheduck]

I am not spiritual by any means. I do not know for certain that there exists anything metaphysical at all!

Let me tell you it's been a rough road as an Orthodox Jew Living with those attributes. There are times when I believe and times when, I'm ashamed to say, I don't.

Most of the time I'm somewhere in the middle, but one of the times when I feel most sure in my religious practice is when thinking of our suffering.

There's a story in the Gemara* (here paraphrased) about a a group of rabbis at the ruins of the Holy Temple. When they saw a fox come out of the Holy of Holies, all but one started crying, when the others saw Rabbi Akiva laughing, of all things, they asked him why.

He answered that it had been prophesized that Jerusalem would be destroyed, overgrown, like a forest where foxes roam.

That it had also been prophesized that Jerusalem would be rebuilt and its people would return. That it would be full of life again, with men and women living to old age and children playing in the streets.

Every year at the Passover Seder we sing Vehi Sheamda, which is a poem that does for me what that fox did for Rabbi Akiva.

I hope that after reading it you'll see why.

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵיֽנוּ וְלָנֽוּ

שֶׁלֹא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד, עָמַד עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ

אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר, עוֹמְדִים עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ

וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

And it stands for our forefathers as it does for us

That not only one has risen to destroy us

But in every generation they rise to destroy us

And The Holy One, Blessed Be He, saves us from their hands

Sorry this is kind of a heavier question, but. Religious/theistic Jews, how do you still believe in G-d? I desperately want to believe, but it's getting harder lately. My grandfather became an atheist when he saw what happened in the camps. My mother was religious until she started dating my dad, who apparently logic'd so hard he ruined religion for her. Most of my friends are atheists. It seems like I'm the only one that isn't, but I don't know. The idea that G-d has a plan is really comforting, but it seems impossible. How could He let all these things happen? I feel like G-d either doesn't exist, or He abandoned us. And yet, I still pray and thank Him and it feels so wrong to *not* do any Jewish rituals. Do any of you ever feel like this?

.

[infinityonhighvevo]

translator? uhm.. im actually trans right now

[dragoneyes618]

"There was a case where a certain man set his eyes on a certain woman and his heart became [so] consumed with burning desire [that his life was endangered]. When doctors were consulted, they said, "His only cure is that she submit to him." The sages responded, "Let him die rather than have her yield." "Then let her stand naked before him," [the doctors said]. "Let him die rather than that she stand naked before him." "Then let her at least talk to him from behind a fence." "Let him die rather than that she talk to him from behind a fence."

- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 75a

"This passage, one of the most misunderstood in the Talmud, has led more than a few people to conclude that the sages were so puritanical that they deemed it preferable that an unmarried man die rather than converse with an unmarried woman.

However, this narrative has little to do with illicit sexual behavior; it really concerns emotional blackmail. Imagine the societal damage that would ensure if whenever one person's will was thwarted by another, the rejected party said he [or she] would die if the other party did not grant whatever he or she wished. Ultimately, the fact that this man is obsessed with this woman is his problem, and his alone (the Talmud provides no indication that the woman had led him on); thus, he is not entitled to make demands of her. As Hyam Maccoby insightfully notes: "What the story is really telling us is that no woman is required to sacrifice her status or dignity for the sake of a madman."

What makes this case so unusual is the doctors' claim that the man's life is at stake. Normally, when such a diagnosis is made, Jewish law permits a whole range of otherwise forbidden activities. For example, if the doctors had said the man must eat unkosher food lest he die, the Rabbis would have permitted it. But Jewish law never permits imposing unreasonable demands on others, even when a life is at stake. Thus, if the same man should insist that his cure is conditional on other people's eating unkosher food, this would not be permitted. Standards of behavior in Jewish life cannot be determined by the insane or the intransigent."

-Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 133-134

[punchyfeeley]

Talmudic insult of the day “vinegar, son of wine” (said to someone who has a cool dad)

[moroniccats]

Do you think it’s disrespectful to say that rabbi yochanan and Reish Lakish are kind of tumblr coded?

[zooptseyt]

Also i really love how antisemites are like "the talmud is a secret text the jews hide from us that teaches them how to cheat christians" when the talmud is freely publicly accessible in its entirety and is like "does it count as something going from the private to the public domain if you throw it from your window into somebody else's window and it never touches the ground" and "Rabbi Yochanan said that Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, had a massive cock. The size of Rabbi Yochanan's cock was smaller than Rabbi Yishmael's, but the exact size is up for debate. Both sides agree that it was pretty huge, too, though."

[indecisiveavocado]

so about rashi

there are three things worth noting about rashi:

it's thought his daughters were fairly educated to the point that there's an urban legend about someone saying the reason it's ok to wear tefillin is that rashi's daughters wore tefillin

at the time of course it was not socially acceptable for women to put their names on things

rashi got an INSANE (like, physically impossible, someone's done the calculations) amount done

so we have a guy who does a ridiculous amount and his daughters who were allegedly very smart but couldn't have published at the time.

conclusion: maybe rashi's stuff was actually a joint rashi + daughters project he couldn't put their names on?

[germiyahu]

Antisemites really do just pull Talmud citations out of their asses and hope that gentiles don't know how to look it up. If some Nazi goon on twitter says "Sanhedrin 59a: It is not forbidden to murder a gentile because gentiles are like unto beasts," I can just go on Sefaria and look, and see that the Rabbis discuss nothing even close to that (never mind that any Rabbi who asserted such a thing would get his ass beat by later commentators). Nowhere in this debate is the notion that gentiles are like wild animals, or even whether it's permitted to murder gentiles at all, brought up? This conclusion that the Nazi comes to must be made out of whole cloth, or else repeated from someone else who made it out of whole cloth.

[frownyalfred]

I’m sure someone has written it by now but on the off chance they haven’t…I need a fic where Jason never learned how to swim and it never came up when he took on the Robin mantle (maybe he lied, by omission, or maybe it truly never came up in conversation) until a patrol gone wrong where he gets thrown into Gotham Habor and almost drowns. Bruce has to teach him how to swim while dealing with his own guilt over never fully verifying if Jay could swim, because he grew up rich and had lessons in the pool out back and never fully put together — until that awful moment, seeing Jason’s head disappear underwater — that swimming isn’t often an instinct, but something that absolutely has to be learned. and practiced. and they both have to untangle their prides and guilt and do something as simple as jump in the pool together and swim.

[baroque-hashem]

Whenever I see Jews on my dash arguing about interpretations of the Talmud I just chuckle and I'm like...Nothing's changed. Nothing has changed in over 3,000 years. We're still the same Jews. Our clothes, hairstyles, slang may be a bit more modern, but we're still the same Jews. And I love us.

[maimonidesnutz]

While you were eating dates in Babylonia, I studied the bl…Torah

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Idk about anyone else, but I fucking hate the "random white ashekenazi orthodox man as symbol of judaism/chanukah." Orthodox Jews are real people, not symbols or caricatures, and treating them as symbols perpetuates the myth they're somehow "more Jewish" than the many other types of Jews who don't look and dress like that.

This random dude is not a Jewish cultural figure on par with Santa Claus. It would be like showing catholic/protestant solidarity by showing the Pope holding hands with some random Minnsota grandma in a "Jesus Saves" sweatshirt.

Who should you put holding hands with Santa on your Chrismukah card? No one. Don't do that shit.

[tekhelet]

Shabbat 31a:6

[dragoneyes618]

"A Jew passed in front of Hadrian [ the second-century Roman emperor] and greeted him. The king asked, "Who are you?" He answered, "I am a Jew." Hadrian exclaimed, "How dare a Jew pass in front of Hadrian and greet him?" and ordered, "Off with his head!" Another Jew passed and, seeing what happened to the first man, did not greet him. Hadrian asked, "Who are you?" He answered, "A Jew." He exclaimed, "How dare a Jew pass in front of Hadrian without giving a greeting?" and again ordered, "Off with his head!" His senators said, "We cannot understand your actions. He who greeted you was put to death, and he who did not greet you was put to death!" Hadrian replied, "Do you dare to advise me how I am to deal with those I hate?"

- Lamentations Rabbah 3:9 commenting on verse 3:58

Hadrian acknowledged what most antisemites deny: Their hatred of Jews is unassuageable by any Jewish behavior. Thus, antisemites who fault Jews for "pushing in where they are not wanted" presumably would find no fault with those Jews who ghettoize themselves and remain within their own community. Yet studies have shown that the very antisemites who despise Jews for their "incursions" into the majority culture also are apt to denounce them for "clannishly sticking together."

Antisemites frequently reach for the argument that sounds most plausible. Thus, Jew-haters in the former Soviet Union long focused on Jews as capitalists who were subverting communism, while American antisemites accused Jews of being communists and subverting capitalism.

It is useless to try to reason with these disciples of Hadrian. As the nineteenth-century German historian Theodore Momsen noted: "You are mistaken if you believe that anything at all can be achieved by reason. In years past I thought so myself and kept protesting against the monstrous infamy that is antisemitism. But it is uselss, completely useless" (cited in Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, page 1)."

- Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 463-464

[keshetchai]

I originally wrote this back in 2019 in response to someone saying:

So, let me get this straight... the entire religion (of Judaism) is built around legal loopholes? Is that what I’m gathering here? (Feel free to correct me!)

And it remains relevant to people (gentiles) who characterize Judaism as rules lawyering or all about loopholes or worse, who imply we are trying to be "sneaky" or "pull one over on God."

My answer:

the religion is built around living in an ethical society per our contract (covenant) with G-d. but you can’t just have a bunch of words without putting them to use, & understanding them in practice, you know? the fulfillment of the covenant is a living discussion.

it’s not legal loopholes, because a loophole is often an inadequacy in the law that gets taken advantage of, but these are all built-in, part of our understanding. In this case, we have a contract (covenant), and we’re going to put it to use in every way possible, explore every inch of it, turn it inside out, and apply it to real life examples, define the parameters, argue those definitions, and then survey the conclusions.

I can say “you need to say the evening shema (a prayer) in the evening” but we can’t just say that, we need to explore a bunch of related things, like:

when in the evening does this happen? is there a difference between twilight and evening? if we say the evening prayer can be said from the time the priests partake of teruma, then when is that? if it’s the first watch of the evening, how many watches are there? if you were out all night for a wedding, but it’s not yet dawn, is it too late to recite the evening prayer? — IN SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS, KE$HA WILL WRITE TIK TOK, AND WE’LL NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF PARTYING UNTIL YOU SEE SUNLIGHT!

— when do they (the priests) ritually bathe in preparation for this [taking of teruma]? what about when poor people who cannot afford extra candles - do we consider how early they eat an evening meal in order to make sure they can afford the light [when we define evening]?

why did we discuss evening prayer before morning prayer? why does torah give us night before day? when is bedtime for most people? can we say the evening prayer until dawn? if yes, people might put off the prayer until dawn, which could lead to laziness or mistakes.

Also, when is dawn? but more prudently at the moment, when is evening? evening is when the stars are visible, but...how many stars? also, if you are lying alone in a dark house and can’t see the sky, how do you determine if it is too early or too late for your evening shema?

and that whole discussion is from the beginning of the Talmud, in its hyper-condensed form. That is what we do.

It’s not a series of loopholes and ways to weasel out of doing something. It's an intentional exploration of how something is done right, what doing it means, how we can accomplish it.

nothing gets taken for granted, everything is questioned, debated, discussed until it is understood enough to be applicable. and there may be lots of ways to understand.

if someone sees this line of thinking and goes “ah, loopholes to get out of it/wiggle away from it,” then you are mistaking lacework for loopholes.

....and if Kesha sees sunlight, it is now too late for her to say her bedtime shema. she should recite morning shema instead.

(note I think per anon my original phrasing was lacework, not loopholes, but maybe I edited for clarity later? Very possible, I'm a chronic editor.)

[hiddurmitzvah]

if you ever got lost in a masekhet, you must felt this way