Noa Lessof Gendler's essay won enthusiastic plaudits from our judges and marks the first in a series of columns she’ll write for JR
Learning Talmud is a cultural issue. Wait – hear me out. I promise you, there’s more to it than anachronistic laws, bearded men arguing about turgid minutiae and airless study rooms full of greasy, pubescent boys. Although, if that is what you’re looking for, there’s plenty of it.
We misunderstand the Talmud when we describe it as a legal code. No other legal code, as far as I know, is interwoven with folklore, superstition, historical anecdotes, poetic exegeses, revenge fantasies, prophecy, relationship counselling and farming tips. No other legal code, as far as I know, is as concerned with whether you can pray if there’s poo on your shoe as it is with compensation for damaged property. And no other legal code that I can think of contains a page analysing your incestuous sex dreams.
Really, we should see the Talmud as a portal into our Jewish history, storytelling, theology and psychology. When the rabbis spend a chapter moaning about idolatrous statues in Babylonian cities, we’re reminded about their diasporic anxiety, of the struggle to maintain a distinct cultural identity as an ethnic minority. When they relay a ghost story in which a dead woman is shamed by her coffin of reeds, we gain insights into our ancestors’ afterlife narratives. And a passage discussing goat breeding reinforces that, until fairly recently, men really didn’t have any idea how the female reproductive system works (to be honest, there’s an unfortunate amount of that, too).
What’s more, the Talmud itself knows that it’s not really about God, or even belief. One remarkable story – my favourite, in fact – describes a furious debate in the yeshiva between a rabbi, Eliezer, and all the rest. Eliezer insists that he is correct about a tiny legal question and argues ferociously against his peers. The earth appears to take his side – trees are uprooted, streams flow backwards and the walls of the yeshiva begin to crumble around them at his command. But the other rabbis remind him that it is humans who own the law, not the forces of nature or even God. And in that moment, God laughs.
So why don’t we write plays and novels about that? Where are our paintings portraying these characters and their quirks, our films of these bizarre tales, our TV shows propagating the diversity and depth of our textual heritage? At the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, every Jewish-themed show I saw (and I saw a lot) discussed Friday night dinners, Jewish mothers and the Labour party. Not a single one tapped into our greatest cultural resource: 40 volumes, compiled over 1,000 years, documenting our progress and change.
Is it because we think it’s stuffy? Is it because we think it’ll make us too frum, lead us down a gloomy path to Mea Shearim and then we’ll never see our parents again? I promise it won’t. It’s ours, so let’s read its bedtime stories, laugh at its toilet humour. Let’s engage with its political debates. Let’s use it as artistic inspiration.
By Noa Lessof Gendler
This essay won the 2020 JR Young Journalist Prize. Follow Noa on Twitter: @NoaGendler.
Read the other prize entries on the JR blog.