Whenever one finds an absurd "rule", there is, generally, a reason. You don't put up a sign that says "Don't stick utensils in electrical sockets" until someone's done it or thought about it.
And if the rule is "don't juggle forks while riding a unicycle around electrical outlets", it's usually because someone lied about what happened.
> Rabba said: One who fell from a roof and was inserted into a woman due to the force of his fall is liable to pay four of the five types of indemnity that must be paid by one who damaged another, and if she is his yevama he has not acquired her in this manner. He is liable to pay for injury, pain, loss of livelihood, and medical costs. However, he is not liable to pay for the shame he caused her, as the Master said: One is not liable to pay for shame unless he intends to humiliate his victim…
This is a description of a rape, and the person who committed it came up with a story to explain it away, and the Talmud has codified this excuse as justifying a modest penalty, and it's recorded in such a way that others may use it. "Ah, sorry [your honor or equivalent], I fell off a roof, you see, and ...". Awful.
The only thing one should learn from this is that the Talmud can be wrong, that sometimes, people lie and cover up their crimes, and that whoever recorded this case abetted the criminal. That's wrong and we should do better.
> Whenever one finds an absurd "rule", there is, generally, a reason [that it was proposed].
‘Generally’, but not always! Especially in the Talmud. As explained in the article, the Talmud has a strong tradition of using hypotheticals throughout to clarify edge cases in the laws. And not just here: I was taught a few pages of Talmud once (from Bava Metzia, as I recall), and most of the cases I learnt about were obvious hypotheticals aimed at systematically exploring each and every legal possibility. In this particular instance, absolutely everyone, from modern-day readers to Rabba when he imagined such a case, knows that the described situation would be utterly implausible; anyone who claimed this happened in real life would be obviously lying. But it is useful in elucidating the law to figure out the consequences if it actually had happened in reality.
EDIT: Perhaps [0] (Bava Metzia p21a) is a better example of what I mean. The text systematically describes various situations where scattered kernels are dispersed across a large area: a half-kav scattered over 2×4 cubits, one kav over 4×4 cubits, two kavs over 8×4 cubits, and so on, until all the possibilities are exhasted. None of these are necessarily real cases which have occurred in real life — they’re just enumerating the possibilities to iron out all the edge cases. The hypothetical you quoted accomplishes the same task, albeit less obviously.
This is a story of a rape occurring by an absurd sequence of events.
The Talmud concludes that the rape isn't the punishable offense, it's only whether the man injured the woman when he fell on her from the roof. Anyone who uses this excuse will obviously not have "fallen on her", and therefore if she has any injuries it's almost certainly due to the violent rape occurring. The Talmud rules this out as being intentional, and gives an excuse for would have rapists.
Your example is more like the first economists, before they called themselves that, wondering about sunk costs, opportunity costs, the value of time and effort, and so on.
It's possible for one book to both have appalling purposes and meaningful thought experiments That's the case here.
You don't have to renounce your faith to admit the text is flawed, human. That's all I ask that people learn.
> The Talmud concludes that the rape isn't the punishable offense, it's only whether the man injured the woman when he fell on her from the roof. Anyone who uses this excuse will obviously not have "fallen on her", and therefore if she has any injuries it's almost certainly due to the violent rape occurring. The Talmud rules this out as being intentional, and gives an excuse for would have rapists.
Let me be clear here: this is a hypothetical case. It did not actually happen, nor has it ever happened. In fact, it is so obviously implausible that no-one would dare use this situation as an excuse, and if they did, the only possible conclusion is that they were lying. The Talmud does not condone this as an excuse.
So then, why do the scholars include this hypothetical if it’s useless for actual rape cases? It is to illustrate a particular legal point: namely, that in Jewish law, intention matters, but monetary compensation is just as important. They do this by considering this highly contrived case, which would never happen in practice but makes the point as clear as possible. Of course, it is nearly impossible to rape someone accidentally (though see below). But the principle sets a general precedent for other cases, in which a lesser crime might have been committed unintentionally.
(Curiously enough, a few years ago there was a high-profile case of ‘accidental rape’ in Australia. The man claimed he thought the woman had given him consent; the woman claimed she had never given consent. I can’t seem to find a link, but if I recall correctly, the judgement was eventually in favour of the man. Modern laws have edge cases too! And applying Rabba’s dictum here would actually have given a fairer result: the man would still have had to compensate the woman for any injuries.)
> You don't have to renounce your faith to admit the text is flawed, human. That's all I ask that people learn.
Of course! Texts are human, and the Talmud especially so: it’s literally a record of a bunch of people debating with each other and criticising each others’ legal interpretations. But this particular part of it is not problematic.
> In fact, it is so obviously implausible that no-one would dare use this situation as an excuse, and if they did, the only possible conclusion is that they were lying. The Talmud does not condone this as an excuse.
Unless you have a source for this I missed, you don't know this is true either.
> But this particular part of it is not problematic.
It absolutely is problematic. This is a description of rape, there is no point in discussing the hypothetical including whether the man "acquires" the woman (as if she were property), otherwise.
The authors are entertaining this hypothetical because men have used absurd excuses for rape for a very long time.
The Talmud is quite clear here that in this case, the rape is not the worst part of the events.
> This is a description of rape, there is no point in discussing the hypothetical including whether the man "acquires" the woman (as if she were property), otherwise.
Huh? No-one said anything about ‘acquiring’ people. In Jewish law women are not property, nor should they be (as if it needs to be said).
And as I said, it is wrong to assert that ‘there is no point in discussing the hypothetical’. The scholars quoted in the Talmud regularly discussed hypothetical, bizarre and impossible situations in order to set general guidelines and clarify edge cases in the law. This is but one of very very many examples of the practice, and I don’t see the need to give a special justification for why this one should be considered.
One additional point which I should probably make clearer: here, we are considering a hypothetical case where the described scenario literally happened, as a matter of fact rather than imagination. (As in, say, the whole thing was witnessed by several other people who agree that the man did literally fall off a roof.) We are not considering it as an excuse, because that would be governed by a whole different set of laws.
> and if she is his yevama he has not acquired her in this manner.
This is whether or not the rape makes the woman his, yes? And the word is unfamiliar to me, but I believe "his yevama" here means that if the woman is his widowed, childless sister-in-law, that this act of rape "doesn't count" for consummating the marriage which was a custom.
But, if the woman is not his yevema, he "acquires" her? It's not clear to me, but since the scholars and the blog post strive to avoid discussing what is actually described here, it's hard for me to say.
I didn't decide on "acquires" for the translation, but it seems you'll talk about anything except what this passage literally describes.
Sorry, you’re quite right; they did indeed use that word. My apologies for the misreading.
(Still, it’s a bit of a misleading translation on their part… women aren’t property in Jewish law, as I already said.)
> And the word is unfamiliar to me, but I believe "his yevama" here means that if the woman is his widowed, childless sister-in-law, that this act of rape "doesn't count" for consummating the marriage which was a custom.
Yes, I believe this is correct.
> But, if the woman is not his yevema, he "acquires" her? It's not clear to me
I think the idea would be that ‘acquisition’ in this context is relevant for yevamot, but it is irrelevant if she is not his yevama.
> the scholars and the blog post strive to avoid discussing what is actually described here, it's hard for me to say … it seems you'll talk about anything except what this passage literally describes.
We are talking about what the passage literally describes: Rabba’s discussion of the consequences according to Jewish law when ‘one who fell from a roof … was inserted into a woman due to the force of his fall’. But what it literally describes is absurd, so the blog post talks about the next most reasonable interpretation — that this is a hypothetical case, exactly like many others in the Talmud. As far as I can see, it is you who is trying to claim that this text is some sort of special attempt to let men have an excuse for rape in general, which it isn’t.
I feel the odd specificity of "his yevama" adds credence to AaronFriel's claim that this has its roots in a real case.
On the other hand, the story is so unbelievable that I am unable to imagine a circumstance in which this specific fabrication, and not some other, had any chance of being believed.
One possible resolution, perhaps, is that this has its roots in a real rape case where the "accident" was more plausible, but involved the accused already intentionally doing something he should not, so it was changed to falling off a roof in order to remove this side-issue.
> I feel the odd specificity of "his yevama" adds credence to AaronFriel's claim that this has its roots in a real case.
The Talmud brought two different hypothetical cases. One where she was his yevama, and one where she was not. That's because there are two different laws whereby it makes a difference if sexual intercourse is considered to have occurred or not. In fact, the main topic of the tractate is the yevama case, and the non-yevama case is brought by-the-by.
Summary of the laws of yevamot: If a man dies childless, his brother has an obligation to marry the widow, if they both consent. If they do not, a procedure called halitzah is performed instead. Until one or the other happens, the widow can't marry anyone else. If they do decide to marry, unlike regular marriage, there is no marriage ceremony - sexual intercourse is all that is needed to make them man and wife with all that entails. That's why it talks about "acquiring", but it's not in the sense of property rights (there are none!) - rather in the sense of being married (think about the English phrase "my wife").
Hope that clears it up. Now that Shabbat is over, the main bulk of those who learn the Talmud can join the conversation :)
The mishnah brings the case as being exactly what happened. It does not say “a person comes and says that he fell” it says “one who fell”. So again, you are misinterpreting the text to find supposed flaws and discard it. Again: one is not supposed to read a translation and think that they can interpret it. It does not work that way and this is exactly why some commenter here said that he tenses up.
Please, no. Do you think a bird really laid eggs in a woman’s hair and a decision needed to be made? This is a really arrogant and frustrating assertion you are making.
> And if the rule is "don't juggle forks while riding a unicycle around electrical outlets", it's usually because someone lied about what happened.
> This is a description of a rape, and the person who committed it came up with a story to explain it away, and the Talmud has codified this excuse as justifying a modest penalty
This conclusion is unwarranted. This is a description of a sex act which the parties were not willing to admit to. But nothing about the story indicates that it's a rape. If consensual sex between the man and the woman would be forbidden by the local culture, it has just as much need to be explained away as a rape would.
(And since in this case the woman's shame is public -- and explicitly commented on in the ruling -- the woman wouldn't have much to lose by contradicting her rapist's account of falling off a roof.)
I don't think you understand how hypotheticals work and why they're useful.
This particular example is about a sex act that happened by accident. While falling down is a ridiculously improbable, similar instances are not. Once at a party in dark corridor I grabbed a woman who I thought was my girlfriend (whom, I confirmed previously, was liked being surprised in this way) but turned out it was someone else. I was mortified and ashamed, and had I been religious, this would have been exactly the example I would have reached for.
It is revolting to me that people are replying to me with "let's not get too hasty, what if the woman wanted him to fall from the roof and become 'inserted' into her."
Actually, some real cases are as weird as the hypothetical ones. A couple comes to mind: a guy rents a house in the middle of nowhere with the condition that he won't play the grand piano that's in the middle of the living room. And another one, a guy suicides after his doctor diagnoses him with a terminal cancer.
In case you didn't guess: the first guy played the piano and the doctor was having an affair with his patient's wife.
So is playing the piano a valid cause for termination if nobody can hear it? Of course what every student ask is how the hell did the landlord know it was played?
And, providing suicide is not illegal where the second case happened, is the doctor guilty of incitement to a non-crime?
For the piano - I think it's perfectly reasonable to end the lease if the tenant violates the terms of the agreement. The owner may want the piano to remain undisturbed for sentimental reasons, personal belief, or playing the piano might degrade it. The question of how the owner knows the piano was played may be a separate wrong doing (either the owner falsely claims the piano was played or is improperly spying on the piano or tenant) but it shouldn't change the arrangement or consequences of violating it.
For the doctor, assuming the doctor intentionally lied to his patient and this wasn't just a coincidental mistake, then I would say the doctor is guilty of murder by way of the felony murder rule. My logic being that tricking someone into believing they have a terminal disease constitutes (or should constitute) felony fraud. A person dying (by way of suicide) as a consequence of your felony means the felony murder rule applies and you are responsible for the death that results as a consequence of your felony.
> (either the owner falsely claims the piano was played or is improperly spying on the piano or tenant)
Grabbing the wheel and jerking hard left...
If the owner installs camera/microphones to check the piano status, that would be very creepy and leaning into the spying realm. If the owner installed sensors on the keys/hammers/strings/etc to detect movement, then I think I'd be okay with that. Those sensors would not know that you like to do naked yoga or pick your nose for 20 solid minutes every morning while still "protecting" the owner's wishes. Now, I'm trying to really think of if that's also invasive or if I'm accepting it for the sake of the derailed argument.
Supposing the owner installed really invasive spying tools - the cameras and microphones, and used those to discover the tenant played the piano. Then, I think the owner would be guilty of whatever invasion of privacy law or tort is relevant, but the tenant would still be in breach of the contract. It would be right to punish the owner and tenant for their respective misdeeds, not say that because the owner did bad the bad action of the tenant should be forgiven or ignored.
> I think the law says otherwise? Evidence collected illegally is (usually?) not valid.
Evidence collected by the state in violation of Constitutional protections relating to search and seizure rights of the defendant is generally (with, however, ever-widening exceptions) inadmissible in criminal trials.
Otherwise, illegally-obtained may or may not be permitted; it quite often is, though presenting it opens one up to charges relating to the illegal act involved in gathering it.
It's not valid for the state to collect evidence illegally. If it was then it would make sense to have any laws constraining how the state could gather evidence.
In this case it's not the state that's spying, it's the landlord, and the landlord is constrained by the punishments for violating the law against spying.
A slightly different spin on it, if the landlord witnessed a murder while illegally spying on his piano should his recording or testimony be admissible in court? I would say yes though again the landlord should face whatever spying penalties apply.
What if the piano had a piece of tamper tape and the landlord saw it the next time he was doing work for the tenant. The students thought it was fishy, but there was no time line associated. (Or for that matter, the tenant may have gotten drunk and spouted off about it in the biergarten.)
The doctor was found guilty of murder, because he had overwhelming control of the situation. No idea what "felony murder rule" is but if it's in the anglo-saxon tradition, I doubt it's applicable.
I can't remember what happened with the piano. IIRC, both cases happened in Germany and the piano one was long ago so cameras and mics were not a possibility then. Anyway the legal foundation in play there was if there's somehow a legitimate interest in the clause, not just a whim.
The felony murder rule is, if you commit a felony, and a person dies as a result of your crime, then you are guilty of murder. The classic example is the getaway driver in a bank robbery. If the bank robbers go in and shoot the security guard, a clerk or two, and a customer, and all you do as the getaway driver is drive the robbers away from the crime, you will still go to jail for murder even though you had nothing to do with pulling any triggers and may not have expected or wanted anyone to die. A less intuitive consequence of this is, if you are a bank robber, and the security guard shoots your fellow robber, and the other robber dies, then you are also guilty of murder because your felony (robbing the bank) led to the death of the other robber.
Yeah, I don't see that last thing working in my country.
"Criminal organization" is a crime in itself so it's a different tool to apply tougher penalties. But, apart from that, the complicity rules have more strict requirements.
For the piano: contracts cannot change the law itself so any tenants rights will also apply.
The doctor should lose their license and possibly be sentenced to murder but you would have to prove what was in his mind. Helps if he had a history of affairs with women whose spouses died under his care. Source: watched enough law and order.
To add the "stop looking at the finger" part, they tell you that there's proof of what happened, but still most students keep wondering how was it known.
To be pedantic, a human intention is explicitly mentioned (“to embed it in the wall”), even if for a different purpose, hence human intention being present in the situation may still be required. ;)
> Rabbi Yirmeya raises a dilemma: If one leg of the chick was within fifty cubits of the dovecote, and one legwas beyond fifty cubits, what is the halakha? The Gemara comments: And it was for his question about this far-fetched scenario that they removed Rabbi Yirmeya from the study hall, as he was apparently wasting the Sages’ time.
The irony of this strikes me - all the other Rabbis are applauded for their far-fetched scenarios, then this one is punished for something which (arguably) is less far-fetched.
Scarcely the only instance of irony in the Talmud. I have the suspicion that (at least sometimes) the irony is intentional
It’s a joke and a reference to another part. That’s the problem with referring to the Talmud in secular non-Jewish circles. People have misunderstood it for millennia with extremely negative repercussions. There’s a case in Menachot 37a where someone asks a similarly ridiculous question about conjoined twins which later is recorded as occurring. So the Talmud should never be understood literally. It’s trying to teach us that everything can happen, that there are no stupid questions but sometimes there are stupid questions, the irony of life.
> That’s the problem with referring to the Talmud in secular non-Jewish circles. People have misunderstood it for millennia with extremely negative repercussions.
Like any other religious text, I'd question the idea it has a single meaning waiting to be understood. Just as Christians differ immensely in how to interpret the New Testament, I'd expect Jews to differ immensely in how to interpret the Mishnah and Gemara (and other associated literature) – of course, there is a certain core of majority-to-consensus opinion, but beyond that there is a lot of variation (you could say the same, roughly, about Christianity–although Christianity's much greater size and fissiparity makes this rather more marked in the Christian case.) Whichever religion we are talking about, I don't think we can necessarily say that in an objective sense, one interpretation is going to be right and the others wrong. Nobody can be sure what exactly was in the heads of the original authors, and with works of collective authorship, different authors may have understood the same passage in different ways–which understanding then is the "original" one?
I think antisemites generally jump to the worst possible readings of the Talmud, and are completely disinterested in any other readings, or understanding the history of the different ways in which it has been read–because they aren't approaching the text with an honest interest in it, simply using it as a means to express their animus towards the community which produced it. On the other hand, sometimes I get the impression that some Jewish defenders of the Talmud are too quick to rule out those kinds of problematic readings. Consider the late Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, widely considered to be one of the greatest Torah scholars of his generation–yet also infamous for remarks such as "Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel"–while I have never read any of his Talmudic scholarship (has any of it even been translated to English?), if that is his attitude, I would not be surprised if he interpreted sources such as the Talmud in support of that perspective–and yet, those would be the kinds of interpretations of the Talmud which would make its antisemitic critics rub their hands with glee. Of course, views like Ovadia Yosef's are those of a small fringe of hardliners – Judaism has its "fundamentalists" just as Christianity and Islam and Hinduism and others have – and it is unfair to misrepresent the views of such an ultra-conservative minority as the mainstream reading or the only possible reading. On the other hand, it is also a mistake to refuse to acknowledge that the text can actually be read in such a way, and a (rather small, but arguably growing) minority of Jews even do.
Also, when antisemites cite the Talmud as justification for persecution, is that a cause or is it just a pretext? Could it be, that they would have engaged in the same quantum of persecution even if they'd never interpreted the Talmud as saying things they found objectionable? If there is a parallel universe out there in which most Jews were Karaites rather than Rabbanites, and as such most Jews would reject the Talmud, and (if it existed at all) it would be an obscure text of a tiny Jewish sect – it seems entirely possible that in such a universe, antisemites might have persecuted Jews just as much as in this one. They just would have found some other excuses for doing it.
It seems like you are knowledgeable about religion. Let me add this. The Talmud is not a book which is studied like others and mishanyot were not supposed to be written. One could think of the Talmud as an aide memoir to guide one’s study but actually knowledge is passed from master to student, since the time of Sinai. So citing the Talmud and trying to find interpretations, positive or negative in your light, is by definition wrong. So one can’t say that one “interprets the Talmud” but one should “recover the knowledge of the oral tradition which is hinted at by the Talmud.”
I haven't done this in like 5 years, but iirc he was basically asking an annoying hypothetical that was already answered by a previous ruling, as opposed to the questions quoted in the article which have theoretical value.
While not exactly equivalent to the Talmud, there are many such "impossible what if" cases in Islamic jurisprudence (FiQh) that are recorded in some ancient scholarly books.
Gemara can’t be studied by reading, especially not by literal reading of a translation, especially not by someone without the appropriate background. It can be too easily misunderstood and misquoted. It’s just not written for casual reading and every word is metaphorical. I am with TchoBeer in that it makes one tense up.
Whenever I see something about the Talmud in gentile-dominated spaces I tense up a bit. I'm not orthodox anymore, but I was orthodox for the first 20-odd years of my life so I'm in the unique position of being around a lot of gentiles but knowing a lot about Judaism and Jewish law. This article is pretty ok, but its format is probably confusing for a gentile audience. For reference:
a large number of Jews do "daf yomi" (translated: a page a day), where they learn a page a day of talmud, everyone being on the same cycle and thus learning the same page in paralel. Many publications, talmudology.com included, put out daily (or sometimes weekly) pieces on the daily page of talmud, often aimed at working and/or unlearned people who don't have the time or ability to learn through a page of talmud (and draw an idea or two out of it) every day. That's why the article starts with "On tomorrow’s page of Talmud". The page of talmud that everyone's going to read tomorrow on the 30th is the 54th page of tractate Yevamot.
I like how the Talmud asks people to think about a problem and create their own solution. They give other examples of Rabbis doing the same. It's an exercise in thinking, not dogma.
So don't tense up about it. The Talmud is appreciated for its thought provoking questions by many people, both Jews and Gentiles.
Another common Christian error is to think of the Talmud as representative of the Judaism that they think they understand from the Old Testament, when it's actually a phenomenon from a couple hundred years later.
Gentile here, but even I tense up when I see discussions about the Talmud show up in "Gentile spaces". Some reasons:
1) Conspiracies. There's a millennia-long history of conspiracy theories involving the Talmud, and talk about the Talmud often see conspiracy theorists surface which sidetracks any rational discussion.
2) Religion. To this day, there is a significant group of religion Jews who take the Talmud extremely seriously as Scripture or at least as Scripture-adjacent. This annoys some people and tends to cause aggressive conversations.
3) Politics. Anything that can be connected to politics turns into a political argument. The Talmud seems to serve as easy fodder.
4) Misunderstandings. The Talmud is a complicated set of documents written for a very specific in-group and isn't easy to understand without a lot of help. There are various misunderstandings of it which often someone decides they need to share as though they were facts. Trying to correct or nuance these misunderstandings often then quickly devolves into a discussion of conspiracies, religion, or politics.
There's a lot of prejudgements based off of very little knowledge that goes on. I remember a comment section in a YouTube video about the eruv in New York where all the comments were either like "interesting do you know [innocent question]" and all the replies would be like "not a Jew but [patently wrong information]" or else were just pointing at the othered minority and their silly ways. I'm not Orthodox anymore, but my otherness from the Orthodox community is different from someone who didn't grow up in it and judges it or its teachings or trappings nonetheless.
In this case, the comments are pretty neutral to positive, but I was rather worried there would be a lot of "Jews study this silly ancient text full of nonsense" going about.
Probably due to a pattern of Very Confident Statements from people who know a little bit about the subject. There may be things you are expert in that are similar.
On occasion through out history people misquote, misunderstand or misrepresent stuff about Jews and their writings for a variety of reasons, sometimes with rather negative consequences. Innocuous discussions can turn into Happy Tree Friends real quick.
It's pretty racist. I mean, yeah, no doubt if you read and understand the whole thing like a regular scholar, every word, all that racism disappears. But a casual reader will tend to get the wrong idea.
Upon searching for a few words here, this list appears to have been copy-pasted between a bunch of antisemitic sites. It looks like ‘Hadarine’ isn’t even a real book — the only results are for very similar lists on the aforementioned antisemitic sites. There are also problems in translation: e.g. ‘filth’ is a highly misleading translation of niddah. Besides, this cherry-picked list leaves out any relevant context, which is supremely important in understanding or translating the Talmud. I wouldn’t give this post any credence as to what Judaism is actually about.
> So several sages together came to these cherry picked conclusions.
To clarify my post: I meant that out of the thousands of thousands of opinions recorded in the Talmud, that list selectively quoted five or six phrases which make it sound especially bad when taken out of context, while ignoring absolutely everything else. That’s what I meant by ‘cherry picked’.
(Your other responses, especially the last few lines, are fairly common misunderstandings of Judaism and Jewish history, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to try and debate them online just right now.)
I never found many of them particularly meaningful, and my community doesn't accept homosexuality at all. I still keep the parts I like, and I live in a orthodox-left community (if you know the school Ramaz or Frisch in New York, my friend tells me it's about that Hashkafa) I'm just not as Orthodox as my parents.
daf yomi! That's a great idea! I still think I will require a lifetime to read the Bible, both Testaments, I'm Christian...and it hurts so much to read the Book. I get so many psychiatric symptoms, especially when the Bible talks about conspiracies I can't deal with that I feel like conspiracies are real, I can read only very little very slowly. And it's the only literature that does that to me...apart from reading Frankenstein in the fourth grade. And 1984.
I love it though! You know what GOD said I should do, I can't actually read all of it, instead I can read Matthew (KJV) over and over! I've read Molokai five times, that's a start. That's the last book of Talmud, right? What do you make of it? It's dark.
I actually know a gentile who learned Hebrew out of religious devotion, I can ask his opinion too, but not without asking yours as well. You can write me, I have an email in profile. Or post, either one.
Mods, please forgive talking about religion in this forum.
I hope I'm not misunderstanding, but this is the last book in the books of the prophets, Malachi?
>That's the last book of Talmud, right?
The Talmud is not the old testament, and isn't even written in Hebrew, but instead is written in a very hebraicized version of Aramaic. It's almost all about Jewish law.
Also, this confused me because in the Jewish ordering books like Psalms and Esther come after Malachi, but apparently Christians order it the other way around. You learn something new every day.
Yes that. I should have remembered. I suppose I'm remembering the sound of it...and wrongfully trusting whatever autocorrect I'm running. Hence Molokai.
Oh, Talmud...second mistake. Old Testament is Torah, right?
Psalms and Esther? Wait yes those come much before Malachi. Esther comes before Job, so Esther, then Job, then Psalms, then Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes, and many others in sequence. Then the last three of the Old Testament are Haggai, Zechariah, and then Malachi. And in fact the way it's set up, in that way, Matthew acts as the fulfillment of Malachi. Last book of
The Hebrew Scriptures
THE OLD TESTAMENT
King James Version
acts as preimage of the first book of
THE NEW TESTAMENT
of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
King James Version
which is interesting, and perhaps contrary to Judaism due to ending the Old Testament on that note. In my reading of the Bible I tried reading Genesis, and realized it was very difficult to read, even scanning it was very difficult. Because I couldn't just treat it like a normal book and disrespect it! Leave it for later better. And further I could not get what I wanted out of Genesis, which a lot of people get out of it, which is a foundation in which to believe. With a very high or even total degree of literarity. Believe, literally, that is.
Instead I said, well perhaps instead I can believe literally in the first book of the New Testament!? And for that I also had to read Malachi, as a bookend so to speak. A question for its answer to make sense. Then I read Matthew and it was beautiful, it was the best, it made sense of so many things and in fact if asked by a convict, which I intend to visit when I figure out how, and not only convicts in prisons but inmates in psych wards too (who don't even get Bibles, I didn't at least, in addition to lobotomistic censorship of the Bible)...when I visit these dark places, I can tell them,
"Don't have to read it all at once. It's not one book, it is dozens of books, just with their covers stuck together so you can take them all together wherever you go. Like here. And in fact, the cover is a rectangle just like the door to your cell, and you can open it almost whenever you want. It is the door to your cell. Just start slowly, first read a letter, a really big single letter that's called "illuminated", we'll read it together. Then if you feel brave, a word above it, to know what we're reading. Now a verse. The Bible is not like a normal book, it doesn't truly have lines, it's not like that. This book is not a real Bible actually, a real Bible is what you remember of it in your head. It is what is in your brain, no use if you don't actually read it, not the most efficient way to decorate a bookshelf."
I don't know what else I'll say to that convict or lunatic. I'll find out when I say it, in the moment.
I wonder if I'm the only one reading that finds the term "gentile" as moderately offensive. It seems to map the world into Jewish ontology of "God's chosen people", and other. "Non-Jew" feels less abrasive since it only assumes the (obvious) existence of Judaism.
I find Judaism super interesting historically (and have some Jewish ancestory and have spent a couple months in Israel), but still the term "gentile" in a modern, non-religious context feels abrasive.
You are not alone, having lived in Brooklyn in Orthodox areas, I have encountered some ridiculous racism from the orthodox community. Frankly even a trip to Costco in Brooklyn will give you a huge amount of perspective on how many view non-orthodox jews as "Others" and "Non-People".
That said, I also worked with the Safardic Jewish community doing tech in the garment industry and as the token gentile I was loved on and respected for my work.
Like every culture there is a broad spectrum, but if the Orthodox jews of NYC are anything to go on, I am seriously questioning why they are choosing to live here.
There are a lot of Jewish communities in Brooklyn and it's hard to know what you're referring to, but if I am correct, they're so insulated against the outside world that they could really move anywhere (and often do, for cheaper housing prices, as has happened to many a modern orthodox community)
Yeah, that's the thing I don't understand. NYC is known as a melting pot of cultures and it isn't inexpensive at all, even out at the far ends of the NRD and B trains. Why be in a great cosmopolitan city if you aren't going to give your neighbor the time of day when you go out and interact? It's not like I'm talking about interactions at a Yeshiva or a Synagogue, but out doing every day things like shopping, or going to for a walk in the park.
They live there because they immigrated through new York and settled down in New York. That doesn't mean they're required to integrate with the modern world, as much as that attitude disgusts me.
Required to integrate, no. Should they be polite members of civil society? Yes.
My issue isn't what they do in their congregations and communities, but how they interact with the rest of the world. I've personally been treated extremely poorly by strangers in the Orthodox community just going about my day in the city. Between that and other experiences, I'm just shocked at how prevalent racism is among the Jewish Orthodox community in particular.
Hardly, I'm asking why a community that has lived somewhere for generations remains insular to the point of xenophobia and treats people not in their group who also live there as non-people. Why come to NYC in the first place given it's reputation for inclusion and mixing cultures? It's wrong to discriminate both ways, and having seen it firsthand I don't understand it.
You clearly hold negative stereotypes about this group, and seem unaware of the history that motivated them to come from Eastern Europe to Ellis Island and then establish a community nearby… I’m not sure continuing this discussion would be productive
Part of why it is so common in English is not due to Jews, but rather the enduring influence of Christianity. The Jew vs Gentile distinction is historically important in Christianity, and plays a significant (albeit variable) role in many Christian theologies
What changes if the Jews call people non-Jews v. gentiles? The context and intent is identical. Unless we just want to be offended by existance of Jews and the idea of a Jew/non-Jew divide existing.
> What changes if we call people negros instead of black?
I don't know, let's ask the United Negro College Fund, and it's work for African American youth, particularly at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Within the actual community, there's differences as to the most-preferred term for the community, and there’s generational differences in the distribution of preferences, but unless you are using one of the terms that historical principally a slur or indicating a racist attitude in some other way, it's not as big of a deal as white racists who like to place the blame for the anger they incite on nitpicking about anthroponymy rather than the substance of their ideas.
I don't believe TchoBeer, like most people who use gentile had any ill intent. I don't even think it's something to get worked up about. I only responded in the thread because it was brought up.
> What changes if we call people negros instead of black?
Well, they're a minority. If the majority loses control then they are at extreme risk of being hit by an ethnic cleansing or something. It can happen pretty much anywhere with only a relatively short lead-up. Picking a stupid act and making it compulsory is a classic way to keep tabs on how the wind is blowing.
There isn't really any threat like that from the Jews posed to anyone else, they don't have the numbers. There is no need to police them; indeed policing the language of minorities trying to maintain their own culture is in really bad taste. The issue with negro doesn't have anything to do with the word itself being offensive; that has the same logical problems as objecting to 'gentile' does.
That doesn't make sense; "non-Jew" is also Othering. The only difference between the two is one is the term a Jew has used and one is the term you want them to use. That isn't a reasonable distinction; in fact given the lack of distinction the attempt to erode Jewish culture as a distinct thing may in itself be rather objectionable depending on who you ask. Mainly because it is pressuring a minority culture.
You aren't drawing a distinction here to show why your word is kosher and the term gentile isn't.
Anno Domini and Christian Era both refer to the same system of reckoning. However, the former presupposes the Christian Lord while the latter only references the existence of Christianity.
Non-Jew only presupposes the existence of a Jewish people. Gentile on the other hand is a neologism which uses Jewish ontology to Other everyone else.
The idea that what is acceptable behaviour is dependent on membership is abhorrent to me. I don't see how gentile is different from barbarian, kaffir or mleccha.
When it comes to 'gentile', the etymology of the word isn't important to you because you don't want people to use it. When it comes to AD, the etymology becomes important because you don't want people to use it. And I think I'm picking up a bit that the context and intent matter unless the context is innocent and the intent is mild, in which case there is some linguistic argument about why there is unintended problems with language.
I put it to you that this is making up reasons to be offended as the conversation goes along. There is no difference between calling people gentiles or non-Jews, except possible one shows that your in-group is more important than the orthodox Jewish in-group (or whoever it is who uses the word gentile). You aren't drawing meaningful reasons out to support this position. The two terms have the same intent, same implications and same meaning.
Curiously in Italian "gentile" means normally (outside historical or religious matters) "kind" or "nice" or "friendly", the root/etymology is the same, as people belonging to a same gens (which can be translated to "lineage") has some duties of mutual assistance and tended to favour other members of the same lineage.
I would not care, especially if it is over the Internet.
Not everyone has adjusted their priors on what it means for global dialogue, especially in the framework where there will always be someone in the world that will take offense to almost everything one says.
I more just feel sorry for these people, as most of them are dealing with other pain and stress in life, and they lash out irrationally like this.
For someone like me who has read the Torah, Bible and Koran but not the Talmud I have a new perspective.
Without this new understanding, I believe I too would have dismissed the Talmud as silly but the context of law practice is helpful.
Interestingly, it may be that these thought exercises sparked by Rabbinical practices were what encouraged the formed other religions such as Christianity, Islam and the various other offshoots within these branches.
People didn't used to separate religious belief from how communities were governed; the idea of separate “civil” and “religious” law is a modern dichotomy. Historically, it was just the law of the community; sure, once that was forked into “civil” and “religious” law some places, the two sides of the fork have a lot in common.
Poor rabbi Yirmeya was kicked out for being ahead of his time. As an IT security guy, he would have been spot on; these weird edge scenarios are where 0-days thrive. And some hacker from China will always find a way how to glue the chick with one leg here and the other one there.
Of course, King Solomon would just order the chick to be cloven in half. But that doesn't address the vulnerability in a systemic way.
King Salomon never cut something in half to appease both sides. That’s a very common misunderstanding. He threatened to do that in order to see which woman cried the most, who he understood as being the real mother. It was never the idea to cut a person in half.
Ah excellent, I read about the fish and donkey conundrum on an email list years ago and have hunted and asked well versed folks if they knew the reference but no luck. And hey, good luck doing a search for a specific talmud reference ;-0
It's a really fun thought experiment at the level of Schrödinger's poor cat, with interesting nontrivial moral and ethical paradoxes.
> Deut. 22:10: "You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together."
The question in the Talmud:
> Bava Kamma 55a: "The Sage Raḥava raises a dilemma: With regard to one who drives a wagon on the seashore with a goat and a shibbuta, a certain species of fish, together, pulled by the goat on land and the fish at sea, what is the halakha? Has he violated the prohibition against performing labor with diverse kinds, in the same way that one does when plowing with an ox and a donkey together, or not? The two sides of the question are as follows: Do we say that since the goat does not descend into the sea and the shibbuta does not ascend onto the land, they are not working together at all, and so he has not done anything forbidden? Or perhaps, since in any event, he is now driving the wagon with both of them, he thereby transgresses the prohibition?"
So it seems like the issue is not specifically related to the types of animals being used together. Rather, the question is: what constitutes "together"?
Does together mean "working on the same task at the same time"? If so, then the fish and the goat would apparently be working together and this would be prohibited.
Or does together imply something about the areas in which they are working? If so, perhaps the fish and the goat are not together and thus are allowed.
Not to redirect the conversation too far, but this throws the religious dichotomy in which I was raised into sharp relief.
Specifically, I was raised Eastern Orthodox, and we hung out with SSPX (Traditional, Latin Mass, etc) Catholics. To an outsider, these may seem similar enough, but the debates we homeschooled kids got into were quite amazing.
The churches originally split due to an intentional mistranslation of the Nicene Creed, designating the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son, instead of from the Father alone, thus throwing off the balance of the Trinity.
Somehow, this led to us debating complex liturgical topics, which was driven by Catholics having a small-t talmudic system of canon law, which requires legal scholars to properly interpret, while the Orthodox, although having Canon Law to a lesser extent, mostly rely on "Economia", which roughly translates to "Stop thinking about stupid questions and pray more".
I specifically recall a debate over the proper method of Communion in which one of the Catholic kids asked "But what if there was no wine left in the world, what then?".
The answer actually did exist in Catholic Canon Law somewhere, but I can't remember it, and the Orthodox answer was "Make some".
Just an anecdote that some may find familiar if you like the OP.
Example: If a man falls off a roof and accidentally penetrates a lady next door, he is liable to her for physical damage, but not for her shame — that requires intent.
And if the rule is "don't juggle forks while riding a unicycle around electrical outlets", it's usually because someone lied about what happened.
> Rabba said: One who fell from a roof and was inserted into a woman due to the force of his fall is liable to pay four of the five types of indemnity that must be paid by one who damaged another, and if she is his yevama he has not acquired her in this manner. He is liable to pay for injury, pain, loss of livelihood, and medical costs. However, he is not liable to pay for the shame he caused her, as the Master said: One is not liable to pay for shame unless he intends to humiliate his victim…
This is a description of a rape, and the person who committed it came up with a story to explain it away, and the Talmud has codified this excuse as justifying a modest penalty, and it's recorded in such a way that others may use it. "Ah, sorry [your honor or equivalent], I fell off a roof, you see, and ...". Awful.
The only thing one should learn from this is that the Talmud can be wrong, that sometimes, people lie and cover up their crimes, and that whoever recorded this case abetted the criminal. That's wrong and we should do better.