The Essential Talmud

Detailed explanation of what the Talmud is and a summary of its teachings. Reading this, one can see why there are so many Jewish scholars, scientists, virtuoso musicians, and so on. All of those things take a lot of intense study, and the study of the Talmud is perhaps the exemplar of such study. After all, it is not just a commentary itself, but there are commentaries on the commentaries (and probably commentaries on the commentaries on the commentaries!) Now, you can also say that arguing for centuries over things that seem so inconsequential is also a great waste of time. And of course, given that the underlying text--the Torah, i.e., the first 5 books of the Jewish Bible--are full of stories about less than honorable people--and I show more don't just mean NON-Jews--I can also ask, "What's the point? How can anyone believe in any of this?" But, if I were Jewish, the opportunity to spend my life, supported by the state, endlessly re-reading and trying to find new interpretations of the Talmud, would not be an unattractive prospect. But, this book is well organized, clearly written, and though a bit dense at times, actually enjoyable. Well done job of making a bit of a mystery--for a non-Jew in any case--a bit clearer. show less

***.5

Rather than attempt a summary of the Talmud, the book instead provides an overview of its origins, context, authors, organization, and contents.

It wasn't clear to me exactly who is the intended audience for the book, as it was originally written in Hebrew and assumes a certain amount of basic knowledge of Jewish history, practices, and religious beliefs. It's therefore too basic for most observant Jews, and too advanced for secular or non-Jews.

I did learn a lot, and found the section on explaining the traditional page layout ("daf") of the Talmud extremely helpful, as it appears to be an overwhelming sea of text blocks of various sizes and fonts to the uninformed. Although these days there's probably a YouTube video that's easier show more to follow.

The early sections on the history of the development of the Talmud was interesting, but he identified the different historical periods by name, and didn't provide enough dates, making it hard to put the people and events in the historical context of what else was going on in the world at the time.

He then goes on to describe the various types of arguments and logic systems and interpretation techniques, but doesn't provide nearly enough examples so the whole thing feels very abstract. And as a result I don't know that I'd be able to identify them when reading the actual text.

Still, despite the shortcomings I did learn a lot, and would feel a lot more comfortable attempting to tackle the Daf Yomi (daily page of Talmud) now than I did beforehand. show less

This is a very clearly written guide to the Talmud: its history, the material it covers, and methods of interpretation.

R' Steinsaltz is an Orthodox rabbi who has made it his life's work to open up the Talmud, and is writing from that perspective rather than a secular academic one, but he acknowledges historical sources and credits them when they contradict certain details in the Talmud itself. I'd say it's best for someone who wants this specific perspective, but it's a useful one.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is one of the greatest talmudic scholars of this generation. This book is an introduction to the talmud. He divides it into three main parts - history, structure, and method.

In the history section he talks mostly about the history of the creation of the talmud from the time of mishnah to the time of final redaction. He also discusses the history of the more recent treatment of the talmud, including it's printing, banning and treatment in medieval Europe.

The structure section dicusees the content of the talmud. The stories, laws, and subject matter that it contains. He covers topics like tumah and tahara (purity and impurity), prayer, holidays, civil laws, criminal law, and family law at a very high level. He is show more clearly not trying to summarize the content of the talmud, but rather is trying to introduce the topics which the talmud will cover in depth.

The last section discusses the methods of the talmud - the ways in which the talmud thinks, midrash halakhah, relevance of aggadata, and methods of study.

Steinsaltz relies heavily on the talmud itself as a source, as well as traditional rabbinic sources. For the most part he does not use modern academic or historical sources from outside the rabbinic realm. (The only exception seems to the the chapters on the printing and banning of the talmud in section 1). show less

Summary of that. I wish there was more information about the Talmud itself. I need my own copy of the Talmud.

History, structure and content of the Talmud. Also includes method of writing and using

> INTRODUCTION AU TALMUD, de Adin Steinsaltz (Albin Michel, 2002). — Le rabbin Adin Steinsaltz a traduit en hébreu moderne, puis en français et en anglais, l’immense corpus du Talmud de Babylone. Il nous propose ici une « biographie » et une radioscopie objectives du Talmud, monumentale compilation du savoir, du vécu et de la tradition d’Israël achevée à la fin du Ve siècle, qui font de son livre un manuel aussi précieux qu’incontestable. (Spiritualités Vivantes)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Steinsaltz-Introduction-au-Talmud/433971

> Adin Steinsaltz, INTRODUCTION AU TALMUD, Albin Michel, coll. « Présences du judaïsme », 326 pages. — LE TALMUD, c’est cette autre bible du judaïsme qui doit show more transmettre la loi de la bouche, la loi orale, Torah chébeal pé. C’est à partir de ce texte essentiel que les juifs interprètent les Écritures, qu’ils suivent des règles de vie et comprennent la Révélation. Le rabbin Adin Steinsaltz explique ce texte et relate ses nombreuses transformations. (Guy FERLAND)
—Le devoir, 22 août 1987, C8 : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2763935 show less