LECTURE: “IN
THE BEGINNING:
FROM EDEN TO
MT SINAI”
PART 1: HERMENEUTICS AND
THE TORAH
HERMENEUTICS= THE LENS
THROUGH WHICH WE
INTERPRET THE ‘MEANING’
OF A TEXT
BUT WHAT DOES
‘MEANING’ MEAN?
INTRO TO HEBREW BIBLE INTRO TO JUDAISM
• 1 lens: • Multiple lenses:
• Critical-historical • A Jewish
hermeneutic hermeneutic
• The meaning in an
ancient Near • The meaning in
Eastern context the story of the
Jewish people
EXAMPLE: TREE OF LIFE
INTRO TO HEBREW BIBLE INTRO TO JUDAISM
Ur-Namma Stele from Ur
By Sara Seldowitz: A Jewish couple under the chuppah,
shaped as the trunk of a tree which represents their life
together, sustained by the Torah and mitzvahs they’ll live by.
THE PEOPLE
OF THE +
BOOK= TALMUD
The people
writing
This idea allows for
continued Prophets
conversation
The book
Torah
Torah
Jerusalem
Talmud
Mishnah
200-220
CE
Talmud
Gemara
(written)
Babylonian
Talmud
SIX DAYS YOU SHALL WORK, AND THE SEVENTH DAY IS
SHABBAT TO THE LORD YOUR GOD. [ON THAT DAY] YOU
SHALL NOT DO ANY WORK (EXODUS 20:9).
WHAT CONSTITUTES WHAT CONSTITUTES
REST? WORK?
Sleeping only? Is it work to care for
Can I cook or bake if my children?
I find it restful? Is it work to make a
meal?
Is volunteering still
work if I’m not
getting paid?
“Oral Torah”
Written
down so it Mishnah
would 200-220
survive CE
Talmud
Gemara
(written)
The orders (divisions) of the Mishnah:
Arranged thematically
Zera'im ("Seeds"), dealing with prayer and blessings, tithes and
agricultural laws (11 tractates)
Mo'ed ("Festival"), pertaining to the laws of the Sabbath and the
Festivals (12 tractates)
Nashim ("Women"), concerning marriage and divorce, some forms of
oaths and the laws of the nazirite (7 tractates)
Nezikin ("Damages"), dealing with civil and criminal law, the functioning
of the courts and oaths (10 tractates)
Kodashim ("Holy things"), regarding sacrificial rites, the Temple, and the
dietary laws (11 tractates) and
Tehorot ("Purities"), pertaining to the laws of purity and impurity, including
the impurity of the dead, the laws of food purity and bodily purity (12
tractates)
“Oral Torah”
Written
down so itMishnah
would 200-220
survive CE
Talmud
Gemara
100-600
CE
Commentaries on the
Mishnah + Torah
GEMARA=
TWO KINDS OF MIDRASH
MIDRASH AGGADAH
MIDRASH HALAKHAH (LEGENDARY
(LEGAL MIDRASH) MIDRASH).
weaves imaginative stories
grounds rabbinic law in around the characters of
the Bible, the second Torah, developing their lives
where they might otherwise
be sparsely mentioned in
the Bible itself.
The format: The Talmud
is about DISCUSSION
and DELIBERATION
A law from the Mishnah is
cited, followed by rabbinic
deliberations on its
meaning (i.e., the
Gemara).
IN THE TALMUD….
“Correct” answers “rightness” is based upon
emerge out of the the ability of one school of
process of argument thought to persuade the
community of Rabbinic
that fills the Talmud and
scholars that its point of
all the books written to view represents the best
explain it. understanding of Torah and
of God’s demands
TODAY: BERESHITH
(SHEMOTH NEXT WEEK)
2/2 EXODUS -
GENESIS + ½ EXODUS DEUTERONOMY
convey their intersperse
teachings almost narratives with more
solely through than 600 mitzvot, the
narratives commandments that
became the
backbone of all
Jewish law.
PART 2: BERESHITH (GENESIS)
1:1 GOD'S WORK OF
CREATION
Day 1: light from dark (dualism)
Day 2: the sky
Day 3: the earth, oceans, and
vegetation
Day 4: the sun, moon, and stars
Day 5: fish, insects, and birds
Day 6: the animal kingdom and Rabbis on ‘literal reading’: Given
human beings that there were no sun and
moon prior to the fourth day, it
is meaningless to speak in terms
of standardized, modern time
units.
JEWISH VIEW OF
CREATION: OPTIMISTIC
“God saw that the light was good” (1:4); “The earth brought
forth vegetation … and God saw that this was good” (1:12);
“And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good”
(1:31)
Rabbis: deduced from God’s
ceasing to create
humankind’s mission to
serve as God’s partner in
finishing His creation and
perfecting the world.
“IN GOD’S IMAGE”?
• what people share with God, but not with the animal
kingdom, is an awareness of good and evil.
• However, they are not divine. For though they share with
God a knowledge of right and wrong, they have in
common with animals many bodily needs and urges.
• Thus, human beings combine aspects of both God and
animals, though they have one significant advantage over
the latter: The fact that they are created “in God’s image”
provides them with the potential to overcome evil urges
and impulses.
“BE FRUITFUL AND
MULTIPLY”
“The Torah freed the woman from the religious obligation to ‘be
fruitful and multiply’ [because] … the woman endangers her life in
pregnancy and childbirth [and hence cannot be obligated to have
children]…. But for the sake of the preservation of the species
God so formed woman’s nature that her yearning to have children
is stronger than the man’s”
~Meshech Hokhma, a biblical commentary by Rabbi Meir Simcha
of Dvinsk (1843–1926) (commentary on Genesis 9:1).
ADAM & EVE AND
ORIGINAL SIN?
• People aren’t sinners because Adam and Eve
sinned; rather, we sin as they did.
“even in those [kabbalistic] versions of Judaism in which the idea
of Original Sin is accepted, it differs from Christian dogma in that
God alone, not a savior like Jesus, helps man to overcome his
sinful nature”
~Louis Jacobs, The Jewish Religion: A Companion, 370.
REFLECTION
HOW DOES THE MANDATE TO 'BE
FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY' INFORM THE
JEWISH RESPONSE TO BIRTH CONTROL?
PATRIARCHS AND MATRIARCHS
FATHER ABRAHAM
“Blessed are You, Lord our God, and God of
our Fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac,
and God of Jacob.”
Invocation of the Shmoneh Esray prayer (the cornerstone of the
three daily prayer services). Shmoneh Esray means ‘eighteen’-
which refers to the number of blessings.
CIRCUMCISION-
“the sign of the covenant” between Abraham (and his
descendants) and God
“imposing the sign of the covenant on the penis—that most
anarchic and hardest-to-control male organ—is a powerful
symbolic way for a boy or man to express his willingness to
subjugate himself to God’s will.”
~Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
WHY DOES GOD CHOOSE
ABRAHAM?
There is no basis in the
Bible for this story, so….
Rabbinic midrash about
how Terah, Abraham’s
father, is an idol worshipper
who owns an idol shop.
THE AKEDAH (ISAAC)
Jewish tradition places emphasis here:
“Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the
test” (22:1)
REFLECTION
BASED ON THE RABBINICAL LEGEND
ABOUT HIS CHILDHOOD AND THE JEWISH
READING OF THE AKEDAH, WHAT ARE
ABRAHAM'S VIRTUES IN THE JEWISH
TRADITION?
ESSAYS:
New section on Reading List:
“For all essays”
Pacing:
By next lecture, choose an essay from the
book Boundaries of Jewish Identity as a
beginning to the way you want to think about
this question. Write it on the register next
lecture. Note: I am happy to approve a topic
you already have in mind, but you do need to
check it with me!
FOR NEXT TIME:
Lecture will focus on Laws in Exodus-Deuteronomy
• Homework: Read (on Moodle) Biale, “The Bible: Leviticus-
Deuteronomy”
Seminar will focus on the Jewish Life Cycle
• Homework: Read (on Moodle): Diamant, “Birth,” “Bar and
Bat Mitzvah,” “Death and Mourning.”
As you read, write down 3 things (per reading) that
you think are significant for explaining each rite to
someone else. Bring these with you!
