Concept tag
#talmud
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These and these: what Talmudic argument can teach us about disagreeing with a peer
Philosophers ask whether you should change your mind when an equally capable person disagrees. The rabbis built a whole culture around a different answer.
Started by Rabbi Eliana Gutman0 replies128 views -
“Seventy faces” and “no verse leaves its plain sense”: the rabbis held both at once
My Tuesday Talmud class tripped over this last month and I have not stopped thinking about it. On one side, there is the midrashic saying that the Torah has seventy faces. A verse can bear many readings, and the tradition records them…
Started by Rabbi Eliana Gutman4 replies190 views -
Keeping the losing opinion on the page: is disagreement inside a tradition as deep as disagreement between traditions?
In my Tuesday Talmud class we recently read the story in tractate Eruvin about the houses of Hillel and Shammai, who argued for years until a heavenly voice declared that "these and these are the words of the living God", and that…
Started by Rabbi Eliana Gutman5 replies191 views -
Why did the rabbis write down the opinions they voted against?
I teach a Talmud class on Tuesday nights, and every year someone new asks the same thing: why does the text keep the losing side? When a law is decided, why preserve, often at length, the arguments of the sages who lost?…
Started by Rabbi Eliana Gutman7 replies310 views