Product Description
Drawing on the great progress in Talmudic scholarship over the last century, The Stabilization of Rabbinic Culture is both an introduction to a close reading of rabbinic literature and a demonstration of the development of rabbinic thought on education in the first centuries of the Common Era. In Roman Palestine and Sasanid Persia, a small group of approximately two thousand Jewish scholars and rabbis sustained a thriving national and educational culture. They procu… More >>
If you are interested in learning what it means to study the talmud, this book is a brilliant journey through the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds as the author pursues the topic of how Talmud and education were actually practiced two thousand years ago. It takes a master of the Talmud to make accessable the gnomic short hand and significance of attribution to various rabbis which are likely to puzzle any novice opening the Talmud. One of the points of the text is that the Talmud was not written as a textbook or treatise and that it requires a great deal of learning, gained from knowing texts and teachings by heart. A formidable amount of learning is packed into this book. The author is my brother but this review would be the same if he weren’t, except I might never have read the book if it were by a different author. This book is a fabulous way to seriously explore a world and to ponder on educational methods which are no longer generally current. Enjoy!
Rating: 5 / 5